I’m reluctant to give specific examples as it would be potentially outing but by way of comparison I mean that none of my friends’ kids have names that were fairly standard when I was growing up in the 80s. E.g. Rachel / Sarah / Lucy / Daniel / Matthew / John / David etc.
I appreciate that names go in and out of fashion, and I understand (to a degree) that parents perhaps want their kids to stand out (or at least not have what are perceived as ‘boring’ or totally run-of-the-mill names, but more often than not the names in use now (in my circles at least) are, in my opinion, pretentious at best and verging on the ridiculous at worst! Worst-case is where they are sort of just random words, rather than actual names, e.g. ‘snowy’. Or names like the Geldof children e.g. ‘Pixie’ etc. Then you get names which are like old age pensioner names but not necessarily the trendy ones …they seem so dreary to me! (e.g. Phylis) OR names which to me sound really American (and names that you’d need to be quite cool to pull off, or a bit more grown up – they don’t seem to suit kids IMO) e.g. Harrison / Grayson etc. When I think of it, not a single friend of mine has given their kid what I would consider to be a ‘normal’ name.. and this is of a circle of say, 25 kids.
AIBU to feel a bit disappointed about this? I know, each to their own, live and let live, but to me it seems a bit of a shame that ‘normal’ names seem so unfashionable these days…OR, if I were to call my child something like ‘Anna’, would I be setting them up for standing out (in the wrong way) when they go to school? Will the inverse happen and names like ‘John’ become the weird names?!?