After all these years, to still wonder why you'd call your child...

[stellenbosch]

Romeo? 🤔

(TBH, Apple is just as bad...)

But, seriously, celebrity names are stupid!

At least it is a real name.

"Blame Florence Nightingale's parents for the whole Brooklyn, Paris thing :-P"
Strange that Parthenope was not taken up with the same enthusiasm!

I quite like the name Wolf. But not Bear.

Also know an adult called Storm. It's quite a cool name.

My own DC have top 10 names but I love hearing the unusual ones.

FizzyGreenWater that's so going to be the mythical DC5's name! 😂

Ladydepp - Kenton Cool opened a local rock climbing centre to me. I looked him up. His life is as cool as his name.

I know a lady called Tryphena. Old fashioned perhaps but still nice.

Names like Unique and Precious are pretty common in certain African communities. We've gone pretty traditional with our DC's names and neither reflect my African heritage (though then again neither does my first name!).

Lysander is a bit of a shocker though but I guess everyone is different.

Tbh, my first name is shockingly bad. It’s reasonably common among people my age and a bit older, but it’s horrible. It appears without fail on the names that should never come back type of threads.

I have no idea what my parents were thinking.

Twins at my kids’ primary school: Ronnie and Reggie! Too scared to ever ask if they knew about the Krays and, if so, what statement using those names was supposed to make!!

Insiderknowledgepls you have to hope they didn't. I just told DH, he said, "you can't do that to kids, not for another 20 - 25 years, at least."

Sir and Rumi.... what if their son wants to be an accademic or in the military??? They’ve saddled that child with a ridiculous name. SHAME!

Romeo is an Italian name meaning pilgrim to Rome. I've known some older Italian men with that name and it was perfectly apt.

Mercedes is a Spanish name meaning Mercy and it was quite common in Spain although not so much now but no one would rise an eyebrow at a baby being named Mercedes, as also happens with Jesus.
Spain had a queen in the 1800s named Maria de las Mercedes (Mary of Mercy) and while I was growing up it was a mainstream name.
The brand Mercedes is named after a woman and not the other way around but outside of Spain many people asume that parents have named their daughter after a brand of car.
A friend of mine has to keep excusing her parents' choice of name for her.

Have just seen that a couple of other pp have pointed out about Mercedes and Jesus, common names in Spanish

I went to school with Christl, Bronte, Boadiccea, Bliss and Vienna. I went to a naice school and no one took the piss out of them even though they stood out amongst the Sophies, Emilys, Victorias and Charlottes.

When I went back to work at my old school though, was amused to find two Gracie-Mays in a class of 14. Originality doesn't always pay off! Also worked with a little girl called Winsome and her brother Azriel.

FizzyGreenWater

I went to school with a Storm; her mother's name was Gayle (true story).

Wasn't Stormy the name of the escort Trump has had to pay off recently?

I also went to school with a Royal, a Prince, an Ignatius, an Asa and a Jy, who was best friends with Jay. I have never met another of those, or another St.John. Quite like St.John.

I love Parthenope. I've never heard of another one.

Surnames can be a burden too though. Imagine trying to order pizza or a cab if your last name just happens to be Mozart!

CookieWarbler, "Keean" might be because the kid's mum liked the Irish name Cian (pronounced Kee-an) but figured he'd only get called "Seean" if she didn't change the spelling. It's like Kyra being the English spelling of Ciara.

There is no excuse for tacking Dakota onto the poor boy's name though!

In a modern world where almost anyone can be tracked through social media whether you like it or not, a unique name can be a curse.

I can't be the only one who finds threads like this tedious, the same 'shocking' or 'wacky' names being listed that we have been hearing about for 20 years...yawn.

Both my DCs have a lot of children with 'unusual' (to my ear) names at their school - but guess what it's 2018 the world is mostly a very multi-cultural place and not everyone is going to be called a 'nice' middle class British name.

I thought Mercutio would be a good name for a future child when I was studying Romeo and Juliet at GCSE, glad I grew out of that phase!

On holiday a few years ago I heard a mum calling for her children - Calypso and Mungo

Calypso and Mungo are OK. Not particularly 'out there'.

Calypso is beautiful, not sure about Mungo but I dont like the sound.

I wanted to call my DS Cosmo and my DD Agatha. I was vetoed on both.

They have nice usual, not top 10, old fashioned names.