To find the baby names thread bizarre?

[boomoohoo]

Why do people care what strangers think of their baby name choices? I find it fascinating (hilarious) that people ask advice re potential names of their offspring to complete strangers! Surely the people around you in RL can tell you whether it may suit / be appropriate given ur community or whatever.

I actually know someone whose surname is Judd and they called their baby Toby! That's why this forum is needed?

Yes to preventing hormone-crazed naming. My ideas for girls are completely insane at the moment, and I'm planning to post the full list I've come up with on the naming board so that sensible mums taters can slap some sense into me.

That's mumsnetters, not mums taters! Damn autocorrect.

YANBU but I wish my SIL had asked about her name choice. Even MIL (unwittingly) gets it wrong....

I've noticed that suddenly all new parents are going for a hitherto relatively unusual name at the same time. Many years ago my friend called her baby Hannah, which wasn't a name you heard much then. She soon realised that everyone else had had the same idea and there were hundreds of similar aged Hannahs.

Someone at work 8 years ago called her PFB Evie. Everyone said how unusual, but of course we are now tripping over Evies.

If you aren't involved with babies or children you often have no idea about what names are current. Someone at work recently was expressing disbelief over children called Beatrice and Florence and saying they'd be teased. They were when I pointed out that these are actually normal names for young children now.

So the name threads I think are useful are "we are expecting DC1. How 'out there' is Isabelle?" and they soon find that actually that's about as popular as you can get.

I also wish someone had told an acquaintances DD that the name Ezra is a boy's name, not spelt Esra, and that Esra spells arse backwards . I cringe every time I read about her activities on FB.

Velvet, we had trouble convincing somebody that Isabella wasn't actually unusual, as they thought.

I remember about 15 years ago, an acquaintance named her baby Ruby, and was told it was grannyish and unusual.

I'm afraid I'm going to be sniggering about Esra for a while now.

If I loved a name but 90% of posters replied saying it was awful, I'd rethink it (especially if it was for a popular culture type reason that I didn't know/hadn't thought of). people in real life may not be so brutally honest. Plus on here 100 people might reply, I don't have that many people IRL I would ask!

I also wish someone had told an acquaintances DD that the name Ezra is a boy's name, not spelt Esra, and that Esra spells arse backwards grin. I cringe every time I read about her activities on FB.

I know a Turkish woman called Esra (yes, with an 's'). I think it's a lovely name, and fairly common in Turkey?

The thing I find bizarre about the baby names forum is when someone says "My friend's dog is called Percy so it's a dog's name to me." As if someone cares that a random dog somewhere in the world has a name they were thinking of giving their baby!

I had that with a friend who called hers Ruby also around the same time! I remember have a think about that as a name but now it's everywhere including a well known pop song.

I love the names thread. I think names do reflect on their owners and it's useful to gauge reactions.

I only had boys names. I literally couldn't think of any girls names I liked enough without input from other people.

I like it, but I don't understand why people get arsey if someone doesn't like their (already named) dc's name.

DS1 has the name of a gay hairdresser/pretentious try hard (same one as Lord Coe) according to MN. Free haircuts from a hipster for life.

I plan on asking opinions for dc3 as we're finding out the sex but not telling anyone we know.

Some of the names on there are utterly ridiculous, it's a right laugh at times You have to wonder whether people are actually being serious.

Agree about the suggested names being totally off track at times!!

I did use it when pregnant with DD though and was useful to gage opinions as was completely stuck between two names. Still interesting to see how popular names are becoming and an idea of what is going to be the next Jack and Amelia!

Does make me laugh at times though - especially the bun fights about the gender and spelling of certain names

I'm a name nerd. I like discussing names.

I'm a name nerd. I like discussing names.

I remember when my cousin was born 16 years ago and my aunty called him "Cameron" . my late Nan who was German could not understand why her daughter had named her child after an African country whilst living in deepest Lancashire, she called him " Cameroon " for the first few months and honestly could not see what the difference was:)

I generally don't know the names posted, and I love the name Keith, BTW, so I just never give an opinion, I am obviously on a completely different wavelength

Ordinarily I would never post anything like this but I was discussing a family name for our new DD with DH and Googled it only to find it has an odd brand name/cultural association in her country of origin (we are adopting her from the country I/my mother are nationals of but this is a recent cultural thing I think, since my mother moved to the UK). I asked on another site, based there, the consensus was no, don't do it.

I also searched for our eventual choice in here in case there was something I hadn't thought of. It is a name that someone famous in recent years had (now deceased) but the consensus was, it's common enough that it won't immediately bring that person to mind.

So thank you to the MNer who started that thread!

'Middle name for Plato' was a cracking thread though

I never quite understand the threads that go...

OP: what do you think of this name?
Everyone else: no it's terrible
OP: no it isn't you're all wrong.

Well don't start the bloody thread then, if you only want people to tell you it's a great name. The 'Bunty' thread was a but of a classic.

*bit, even..

I love name threads

The problem with the baby names board is that 99% of the people that post there only like very popular names and have no imagination. They can't see past the top 200 names. Lots of perfectly nice names get slated because they're not popular or, oh my god it's a less well known spelling of an established name, well clearly your child will never make anything of themselves then because you didn't call it charlotte or matthew.

And the other smaller percentage who do like and suggest more unusual name suggest very similar 'popular' unusual names. Persephone, Ophelia, Clemency and names of that ilk coming up again and again. It can be an entertaining forum to read but I wouldn't ask for suggestions as they're too predictable. Posters seem to reel off their favourite names as suggestions too (regardless of what the OP asks), and they're all much the same, give or take.

And you only need read a few threads and it becomes easy to predict what people are going to say about any given name.