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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

That no one actually uses the baby names suggested on MN?

105 replies

Candycoco · 27/05/2015 15:50

I see the same names suggested week after week on MN and I think to myself, are you being serious?! Who would actually call their child these names in real life?!

Some of them are so ugly, and ridiculous I cannot believe people seriously suggest them. what are these people trying to prove? Like Sybil or Gertrude etc. Aibu ?

OP posts:
Marmiteandjamislush · 27/05/2015 16:02

Yes. Quite rude as well. What are are you trying to prove? Biscuit

HowDoesThatWork · 27/05/2015 16:05

Candycoo,

I dare you, what are the names of your children?

StillStayingClassySanDiego · 27/05/2015 16:05

I don't read the baby name threads that often.

If someone likes Sybil, so what? each to their own and all that, it's not a name I'd pick but it's bugger all to do with me.

Which names are you on about?

Alisvolatpropiis · 27/05/2015 16:07

Sometimes I think the same. The baby name boards can be helpful insofar as talking posters like me round from using particularly outlandish names, sometimes inadvertently.

My favourite moment was posting about using the name Artorius as Arthur was getting too popular. Nobody told me I was being ridiculous as far I am aware Grin

lastqueenofscotland · 27/05/2015 16:07

I think some of them are utterly ridiculous. I often wonder if people are trolling!

HumphreyCobbler · 27/05/2015 16:08

I don't see a problem with either of the names you highlight. Perhaps you are just particularly narrow minded where names are concerned?

gamerchick · 27/05/2015 16:09

I think that a few of them are just to up post count for a new account personally. I don't see the point in it though.

BettyCatKitten · 27/05/2015 16:09

Same here, I'm sure loads of the names are a wind up Grin

WesleySnipes · 27/05/2015 16:09

Ugly and ridiculous is in the eye of the beholder. Obviously.

Personally I like Sybil and Gert. It's fine if you don't.

The nice thing about baby name threads on MN is that people suggest names in line with what you've said your tastes are, not what they personally like (most of the time).

If an OP was looking for classic names to go with her existing DC Alice and William, I wouldn't suggest Ethel, for instance.

S0mmer · 27/05/2015 16:10

yeh, I read on here that my daughter's name was "too popular", as in too popular to actually choose! But in 12 years, she's never had one in her class. In fact there wasn't another in her primary school. I don't know about her secondary school. But we never met another at dancing, drama, hockey, swimming........... and yet mn declared it too popular!!! so, it is another world here.

S0mmer · 27/05/2015 16:11

I know it's not the point of this thread but Sybil is practically Isabel

Gileswithachainsaw · 27/05/2015 16:13

Yes I've never met any of these hectors and mables I have to say.

I met an iris though

WesleySnipes · 27/05/2015 16:14

Tastes in names change over time too, and someone has got to be at the front end of each collective national shift in style.

If you'd had said twenty years ago that 'grandad' names like Reggie, Alfie, Stanley would be super popular soon, folk would have recoiled in horror.

Or maybe we should all just pick from an official approved list of twenty names?

AlisonBlunderland · 27/05/2015 16:14

I'm calling my next child Aibu.
Guaranteed that there won't be another Aibu in their class

Onedayinthesun · 27/05/2015 16:15

OP you beat me to this! Whenever I read the baby names thread it makes my face do this Confused

YANBU

Artandco · 27/05/2015 16:15

I think it's fine, surely the point of names is different people prefer different things. So some love Sybil, some will hate, so it's fair people can suggest it as an option

Wesley - see I would say Ethel is the same vibe as Alice and William so perfectly reasonable suggestion

Sparklingbrook · 27/05/2015 16:15

There have been so many hideous names. I have hidden the topic now. It seems to attract trolls too, that want to do a few posts before doing a Hmm OP elsewhere.

Best avoided.

Onedayinthesun · 27/05/2015 16:16

Alison LOVE AibuWink

CrystalCove · 27/05/2015 16:17

I don't look at it now, yes I know people all like different names etc eye but seriously some of them...makes me think people forget they're naming a human and not a dog.

WesleySnipes · 27/05/2015 16:18

No! Ethel v different to William and Alice!

William and Alice's sister is called Elizabeth or Sophie.

Ethel's sins far more likely to be Mabel and Art.

See? It's nuanced. Grin

Gileswithachainsaw · 27/05/2015 16:20

The Doris suggestions always make me Shock

Alison I hope your putting the full name on the birth certificate. nicknames are so yesterday

Klayden · 27/05/2015 16:23

I don't know what you mean, my son has 2 other Ptolemys in his class.

StillStayingClassySanDiego · 27/05/2015 16:23

I think I'd flinch a little if I ever met a baby Mavis, I've just had a nosey over there and that is an actual suggestion .

AuntieStella · 27/05/2015 16:24

I always think that suggesting some deeply unfashionable names is a way of saying 'I think you're considering names which are hideous, so here are some which are unmistakeably hideous in the same way, in the hope you'll tumble to how awful it is without me having to actually say so'

(I know a RL Hector)

AuntieStella · 27/05/2015 16:25

"I think I'd flinch a little if I ever met a baby Mavis, I've just had a nosey over there and that is an actual suggestion"

To be fair, that was a thread where the poster asked for every single bird-themed name anyone could think of.