To gt annoyed when people say about baby girl names...

[ChequeredPasta]

...shouldn't be too 'feminine'.

I enjoy lurking on the baby names thread. It's quite a happy, joyful thread really, people who are excited choosing names for their precious baby.

But what really boils my piss is the people on there who always seem to chime in when someone mentions that they like a name such as Poppy, Felicity, etc and say 'Oh, it's a bit twee and girly. What if they want to become a high court judge?'

Since when did being a female with a female name mean you couldn't become a high court judge?! It smacks of internalised sexism to me.

It reminds me of a time that I observed a (white) colleague asking a pregnant (white) colleague what she was going to call her baby. The pregnant colleague had a black husband. She answered 'Aeshia, we think', and the colleague answered " Oh, I'm not keen on that. It's a bit 'black' isn't it?" The pregnant colleague looked nonplussed, and answered, " Well, she will be black'.

Why do seemingly normal people perpetuate this nonsense?? I presume to call my daughter 'John' in order for her to seemingly have a better chance at becoming a high court judge.

And while we are at it, IMO the only reason that people are keen for their daughters to get a traditionally 'mans' job is because they are much better paid than traditional 'womens' jobs such as nursing, carework and teaching, because female traits and work is so undervalued. You know, because a male banker brings so much more to society than a careworker .

It seems that everything feminine is so devalued. Even the way that people encourage their daughters to play with 'boys things' (science sets, trucks etc), which I obs approve of, but when it comes to dressing a boy in pink, or giving him a 'feminine' name, or encouraging them to play nurses and carers. It's like the worse thing in the world a boy do is to act in a feminine way, and now girls too should be ashamed of their female names, their 'female' way of being, and their fannies. So the answer is to wipe out femaleness, call everybody steve, and destroy anything pink.

And I say this as a female with a non 'feminine' name, a well paid professional 'mans world' job, who loved pink and desperately wanted to be called Felicity as a child.

SO Mumsnet Jury....
WIBU to call my (fictional) 2 daughters and 2 sons as follows:

Delicacy
Kindness
Humility
Femininity

And strongly encourage them (in a tiger mum fashion) to ALL become high court judges to stick two fingers up to these twunts?

'I think the names you have carefully chosen are actually on the cutesy/non cutesy borderline- and have been around quite a long time-possibly without the hyphen. There won't yet be many Honey-Boos naming children in this country because I would expect most of them to be no older than 12.....'

My point is that no matter how 'silly' the name those girls will grow up and and a lot of them will be powerful women hiring other people, in which case the who problem of names being 'silly' disappears. It's only a problem if you believe that the only people with the power to hire other people or make important decisions is always a David or a Keith or a

Handbag "Presumably the bias towards particular names is why they're taken off exams and on some job applications. The response to stuff like this shouldn't be to pick from names that we hope won't set off someone's prejudices."

It shouldn't... but should is all very well when you are applying it to other people or to things you don't think matter much...

Just like the people who think they are fighting the feminist fight by unrelentingly pushing their female children towards (lucrative) traditionally "male" life paths and careers who conveniently fail to fight the fight when it comes to pushing their sons towards less lucrative traditionally "female" life paths...

Just like the people who claim they are closing the gender gap and being good feminists by working from infancy to encourage their girl children to adopt hobbies, interests, tastes traditionally labelled "boyish" and then follow life and career paths traditionally labelled as "male" should encourage their boy children to adopt hobbies, interests and tastes traditionally labelled "girly", then follow life and career paths traditionally labelled as "female" ... yet they never do, somehow.

Self interest and self defence means many people do what they think is in the interest of their own child rather than do what they "should" do to make add their vanishingly miniscule weight to turn the wheel of change in the direction of the "greater good" where this doesn't coincide with their own personal, immediate benefit or that of their offspring.

My reply is to Sparrowhawk's WTF?? So you think people from other cultures shouldn't choose names they like, just names they feel will be acceptable to the country they live in?

I don't think it's acceptable to put Ka-Ching as her first name given she lives in the UK. Would you do it just because it's a very common name where you are from?

I think you are talking completely in a English centric way, without considering names in other cultures might be really bad in the UK.

It is sad that non white parents feel they have to give their child a 'white' name in order to pander to white people and what they feel is acceptable as a name.

Oops sorry I thought I had cut out one of the duplicate paragraphs in that last post!

It's sadly reflective of society, like that Freakonomics chapter about "black" names on CVs leading to fewer interviews. I have a friend called Alexandra who works in a male dominated industry, and she feels that putting Alex on her CV helped get her foot in the door.

'I don't think it's acceptable to put Ka-Ching as her first name given she lives in the UK. Would you do it just because it's a very common name where you are from?'

Yes I would, if it was her name! I know a child called Fanny, she's from Germany and it's a common name there. Her parents know the meaning of it here but they're not going to change it because it's her name. If you do everything based on what other people might think you're boxing yourself in to a very small and sad area.

My father is Christopher. As a small child his nickname was 'tophie'. He became a teenager and was 'christoph' to most friends. From adult onwards he has been 'Chris' or 'Christopher' to everyone. He would hate his name being just 'Tophie' now, but recalls it with affection when being used by his parents or family as a child, but says it is a child's cutesy name. He only has an elderly Aunt left now who calls him that still and he's happy she does but wouldn't want friends. His Childhood and teen friends he still knows call him 'christoph' still though.

Headdreamer- have you seen the comedian Philip Wang doing standup about his name?

It is a sad reflection of society yet people will still come on threads or in real life say shit like racism doesnt exist, ALL Lives Matter blah blah.

'I don't understand why people name children shortened versions of a standard name ie Katy instead of Katherine, Jamie instead of James, Abbie instead of Abigail

I agree - give them the long name and they can choose what to call themselves.

I have a friend - lets say she's called Christine. She was always Chris as a teenager but when she got older she wanted everyone to call her by her full name. If she had been named Chris formally that would have been more difficult.

Also my MIL is a derivative name. Everyone thinks her full name is the long name, but she was actually called the derivative. Think Bessie for Elizabeth - but people actually address her as Mrs E MILPurple, not Mrs B - they are so sure she must be called the longer name!

Poppy and Daisy are a bit fucked

If your definition of fucked is not being a High Court Judge. Other careers are available. (Or do we all have to conform to some smartly-suited, briefcase-carrying ideal now to be considered successful?)

My ds is Patrick. There is a very very small circle of people still allowed to call him Trick. And a still smaller circle (me) permitted Patch.

Trick!? Fantastic name.

It is sad Vixx

I don't think (though I may be misinterpreting) that anyone is saying that prejudice of any type at all, whether racial, gender, class or any other type is in any way good.

People are just saying that it sadly does exist. Parents naming a child would do well to be aware such prejudice exists, but then they can make their own decision about whether to pander to it/ work around it/ defy it when naming and bringing up that child.

Not Paddy, then?

I'm hopefully naming a baby girl very soon. I named a boy several years ago - biblical name with shortened version at home. I don't think they are of a particular class, though ethnicity would be guessed as white european and both are gendered names. If someone judges my children as being incapable of doing anything because of their names it says far more about them.

How dull it would be if 7 billion people were called John/James/Sarah/Mary. And how would bigoted people easily discriminate on paper - think how hard it would be for them!

Paddy's an interesting one. He is named after his grandfather, who loathed Paddy because it was used as a derogatory term for Irish people, and he experienced a lot of anti Irish feeling as an immigrant. But some people do call him Paddy. And Pat. He doesn't mind. It's the "cute" ones he dumped as soon as he was old enough to express a preference.

OddMollie I was making a joke. If Tommy and Benny become Ben and Tom then Poppy becomes Pop and Daisy become Daze

In what part of Germany is Fanny a common name theSparrowHawk ? I have lived in Germany 10 years and never met anyone called Fanny! Women in their 30s and 40s are all called Petra or Tanja, maybe Katerina or Sylvie or Beata :o

I'm another one that you are referring to and frankly you have missed the point. As previous posters have said already, I am not against feminine names in the slightest! And no, I don't think there should be any name prejudice, but there IS. You may think that I'm exacerbating the problem but I just want to give my children the widest range of choices physically possible, and going for a high power job and having 'dollie-mae ' on her cv potentially could limit her options. Why would you purposely do that. FYI, my 2nd baby girl name is very feminine, but also strong, imo.
Oh and another thing, I don't see a 'high court judge' as being a man's job either. When I picture a judge, I see both men and women.

I guess it could be a short form of Stefanie / Stephanie but that is usually shortened to Stephie ...

I'm not sure what part they're from trotz but they assure me it's not a particularly unusual name.

'When I picture a judge, I see both men and women.'

Just not women called Dollie-Mae eh?