To think it’s very sad certain professions are denied to some children

[continuallychargingmyphone]

I just didn’t know when I joined MN that if your name is not suitably middle class you are forced into a life of servitude in Asda or Tesco. No being a high court judge for you.

Or, aibu to think people are ridiculous and call your baby what you like?

I'm very against giving kids unique names. I grew up with one which I resented my Mother for. The whole family told her not to name me that either, but did she listen? NOOOOOOPE.

At least my name is just weird though and not stupid.

@continuallychargingmyphone

Sorry you're upset that no one you know IRL likes your future or current baby's name...besides you.

@MikeUniformMike
I think you could be on to something with that. The name I would have chosen 10+ years ago for a DD is very VERY different to what my now 10 month old DD is called!

In my organisation, HR removes names and places and dates of birth from applications before passing them onto the managers for shortlisting.

Can't completely remove the potential for discrimination on the grounds of age or race, if the candidate graduated from the University of Dehli in 1980 for example, but the name and sex is not known at the shortlisting stage.

The odd thing is that it's only a particular sort of name that people claim as unique, or stand out or unusual. There are hundreds of names that would pass the "only one in the school test" without being "Sky-Raven"
I bet Barbara Coren-Mitchell is the only Barbara in her school.

*So, what you are saying is that people will look at a job application and reject it - and bear in mind I am NOT talking about tinkerbelle or flopsy here but names that are perfectly inoffensive to most.

Which I do not think happens in the real world*

It 100% does happen. Don’t be naive.

Top trolling OP, well done.

I don’t think it’s fair for people to judge strangers based on their name.

But at the same time, I think that it does happen. I think that many people will pre-judge others based on their name, and that this can make it harder for someone with the “wrong” sort of name to get shortlisted for interviews etc.

“Wrong” in this situation being a name that’s perceived as being the wrong class, wrong ethnicity, wrong sex or wrong age. It’s unfair, but unless a company has a policy of hiding names from the people choosing the shortlists (to prevent any open or unconscious biases affecting their selection), it happens.

It’s one reason why we chose to give our DC very well established names that won’t easily pin them down to any social background.

In my organisation, HR removes names and places and dates of birth from applications before passing them onto the managers for shortlisting.

It's only the public sector, charities and maybe a few large corporates who do this. Most people work for small or medium private companies where this sort of stuff just doesn't happen. Most jobs are never even advertised anyway and are found by networking (which includes sending in a speculative CV - you don't have to have "connections"). I don't see how you can do that without revealing your name.

CherryPavlova

It’s not the name - it’s the parenting behaviours of those who choose the names that make a difference. Call your baby Elizabeth, go to library story time and borrow lots of lovely books to read together, explore the world with them, set clear boundaries and support carefully chosen schools in driving achievements. This child is likely to be more successful than Kayleigh-Mai who sits in her pushchair whilst her mother plays on her phone, who spends a lot of time in front of television in a smoke filled house, who has no routine, who is then allowed to be feral playing on local estate instead of doing parent led enrichment activities. It’s not about the name!

continuallychargingmyphone

No, it’s about the snobby attitudes cherry

Victoria, Daniel, Peter. All nice middle class names aren’t they?

I am most certainly not trolling.

What a spiteful comment Leigha

Any other children I have would probably be adopted.

Maybe you wouldn’t like their names.

The person who said a headteacher couldn't have certain names, my DS went on a school trip a few years back with Mr Wiener, Mr Crapp and Mrs Treblecock. Nobody sniggered about it at all

I have to say that our next door but one neighbours have 4 children whose names all begin with a K and they are very screechy and unpleasant. It doesn't help stop the prejudice when the experience matches it.

Two of our dc have solid 'MC' names and Maisie which was unknown when she was born is now considered w/c. Just shows also that things and attitudes change.

Not trolling? Then you’re just being a bitch.

The Maisies I know of are not working class. Solidly MC (wealthy) parenst.

I’ve a friend who had just been approved to adopt by the Board. The whole process is (quite rightly) arduous and emotionally draining. The name of the child she will adopt is the last thing on her mind.

So whilst names do impact on a child’s options, I think your post is disingenuous OP

WhyDidIEatThat

Uniformity is just so boring and white and slightly oppressive.

Not met many Mohammeds then?
(Or people called Kim Park, or Yoshi Watanabe, or Aysha or Yu?)

I think it’s nonsense. With so many foreigner sounding names in highly respectable professions nobody bats an eyelid. The professionals I work with have all sorts of names. Nobody seems to think that Edward is better than Daryl or Taylor when it comes to treat a patient if you have a brain and qualifications under your belt.

Names and surnames

tectonicplates a lot of Chinese students I know (male and female) have “alternative” English names. This practice is quite common. It is also used in work circles where it is used between colleagues, your Chinese name being kept for use with family and intimate friends (I’m vastly over-simplifying here but hope I have got the gist of it correct).

“twee”, like many other things on this thread, is obviously a matter of opinion.

Tell that to Condoleeza Rice!

I didn't twig the list of murdered children although I thought the particular selection odd - as soon as it was pointed out I did - and admit I was shocked.

Really - that was sick. Horrible way to make a cheap point.

Also, I've noticed that Chinese ladies tend to give themselves twee English nicknames like Felicity.

I remember reading about someone had a business advising Chinese clients on good choices of English names. Otherwise they tend to be chosen from popular fiction, and apparently that leads to quite a few Cinderellas.

Is there any correlation between the age of the mother and the naming of the child?
Could it be that a 16-year old's taste might be quite different to a 29-yr old or a 39-yr old?

So much.

At 16 I'd have called my daughter Jade or Sapphire. Like the gems. I wouldn't have done the "Jhayde" or "Saffyr" as I disliked it even then, but my girls would have had gemmy names if they'd been born to teenaged me.

At 22, when I had ds1, I'd have called a girl Hannah. AT 25 when I had ds2, a daughter would have been Charlotte.

A far cry from Jade and Sapphire from Hannah and Charlotte! One SCREAMS "born to a teenaged mother who loves pretty things and thinks these babies are pretty" and the other screams "Born to a mother who desperately wants these children to do well as adults"

My boys have stolid, bank manager, biblical names.

I didn't twig the list of murdered children although I thought the particular selection odd

Me too, it was Peter that didn't fit as it is not commonly used these days so I wondered why the OP chose it - James or Thomas would have been a better fit - also when it was popular it was used by w/c families as much as m/c.

To pick up on colditz's post above, I do like the idea that our taste in names change so much.

Teenage me would have had Storm and Wilde or some such thing. I liked Sapphire well!

Late 20's me would have had Scarlett, Marta and Esmeralda.

We ended up with very 'normal' names... Cara/Annabel/Florence type names.