To think that Americans have weird first name preferences!

[Lycidas]

Why do so of their popular first names sound like surnames?

Chace
Trace
Brock
Blake
Penn
Tucker
McKenna

Etc

Of course there are the usual standard names too, but it’s odd that you just don’t see the above kinds of names in the UK.

Yeah it’s really weird to give someone a surname as their first name imo and some of the American ones are plain bizarre.

I don’t think it’s that hard to understand if you use your imagination just a little.

Many of the last names as first names came about in a similar way to the Scottish tradition - from the mother’s surname before marriage.

In the days before a woman could keep her own last name, is it so surprising that a relatively recently emigrated woman might want to be able to pass some of her own heritage to her child - and perhaps more so than if she was surrounded by extended family and roots in her community going back centuries?

I’m an immigrant and since leaving my home country, having a link to my roots feels much more important to me than before. Luckily I live in a time when I can keep my name and give my name (along with my husband’s) to my children.

It’s not very surprising that countries almost entirely built on immigration - and a significant amount of that immigration from countries where this sort of naming is fairly common - should see these kinds of naming patterns, really.

Colon mentioned upthread, is a very common Latino surname.

It's pronounced cuh-LON.

I remember way back at about age 6 (in about 1971) one of my classmates made the shock announcement in the course of the September 'what I did in the summer holidays' discussion that she learned that there were boys in Spain who spelled their name 'Jesus'.

We were all shocked and incredulous, but the teacher explained that different cultures existed outside of Ireland, and that different naming traditions were to be expected as part of different cultures.

That was the day we learned that the teachers all had actual names aside from 'Mrs Suchandsuch' - and (big surprise) so did the nuns. They hadn't spent their whole lives called 'Charles' or 'John Vianney' or 'Francis Xavier'.

🙂

Chad is short for Chadwick.

St Chad was a 7th century Anglo-Saxon Saint.

@maddiemookins16mum
I first noticed it years ago with the first names of the young people playing the kids in the Cosby show.

Nice dog whistle there.

My American friends and cousins have a lot more of a sense of humour about the difference in our name cultures than people happily bandying around xenophobia here! Lighten up.

My cousin has a name like Jay Paul III. You get the idea. The family joke was that if ever you asked him what his daughter or son wound be called he always said, 4th! My cousins would always say how boring and fuddy duddy our names were (they are) and we wound say at least our names don't sound like a piece of furniture!

They were particularly fascinated by all our weirdly pronounced surnames like Majoribanks and Cholmondeley. We were amused that they couldn't pronounce the name Graham (Gram) and called my friend Ian, Sean.

We enjoyed the differences.

@mathanxiety yes, exactly. @waterjungle the last name is actually spelled Colón. Christopher Columbus’ name in Spanish is actually Cristóbal Colón, and he sailed for the Spainish crown even though he was Italian.

Try learning something before making fun of people @waterjungle. But then again, Brits aren’t particularly well known for their language skills and curiosity. 🤷‍♀️

I met a female American Cydne (Sidney) once.

I work with Americans and what I've most noticed about their names is that they are often out of sync with what has been in fashion here, so I know a Julie, a Karen, a Linda, a Barbara and two Nancys who are completely the 'wrong' age as compared to what I'd expect from a UK perspective. They probably think the same about us and our naming fashions.

I worked in the US one summer and we had to shout out the customer name when the order was ready. The favourite job was to shout out ‘Randy!’

I'm American and from a part of the United States that was part of Mexico. My four grandparents were born in Mexico and so was my father. I have a spanish name that's quite commonly heard in the area and I gave my half-English/ half-American daughter (with Mexican descent) a spanish name to honor my family and my heritage. No one would ever consider us "staff" btw...

We are a collection of people from a mix of cultures and we don't all have British backgrounds either. Just putting that out there to remind you that although we speak a common language, we are not the same.

My dad once had a client in America called Randy Bird.
No joke.

I find it strange that so many Christians in America don’t have Christian names.

With the exception of Hispanic Americans, who usually do.

What are Christian names, like from the New Testament?

But then again, Brits aren’t particularly well known for their language skills and curiosity

Never mind Americans, British /English people are definitely fair game on mumsnet!! We're not perfect but nothing wrong with us overall. And nope, sorry, slagging us off doesn't make you look sophisticated or intelligent. So sick of this attitude on mumsnet.

All the surveys actually show we're pretty open minded with less racism than many eu countries. Also there are loads of different cultures represented here - usually living in harmony. Anyone in any UK city had met people from all over the world.

From mumsnet you'd think we're a bunch of inbred knuckle draggers. This thread is a case in point. It really bears no relation to reality.

The name of a biblical character or other saint.

With the exception of Hispanic Americans, who usually do.

Endofthedays--

My Mexican American family members, to name a very few are:

Amanda
Stephanie
Laura
Oscar
Mario
Andrew
David
Stephen
Elenor
Eliza
Natalie
Michelle
Yvette
Adam
Jonathan
William
Dante

Sure, we have Mexican names too like:

Ramon
Librado (my grandfather)
Jose
Manuel
Luis
Esteban
Carmen
Hortencia
Lucia

and on and on...

Those are not biblical/Christian names as far as I am aware. They are just run-of-the-mill names found during their years of birth. My young relatives are indeed called, "Summer" and "Sage" (they're of Mexican heritage too) but there's loads of names like Emma, Sophia, Alexander, Samantha, too.

The word "usually" should be:

In some cases... or you would be better not to generalize.

Lots of those are Christian names. Seriously? Andrew, David, Adam?!!

In fact, almost all of them are Christian names.

I’ve heard Patent and Cady or Caddy for girls quite a few times and a Cotton.

@elp30 I love Dante and Ramon!!!!

@JingsMahBucket I think you might be on the wrong forum dear!

I love Dante as well.

Chuck = Charles

But what's Scooter short for?

Drew is reasonably common in Scotland for Andrew. My father was a Charles who was called Chae/Chay at school. My great grandmother was born around 1880 and had a definitely unique name (well, until she gave it to one of her daughters).

For those who hate surnames as forenames, I hope that you haven't named your children Gordon, Graham/Graeme, Percy, Stewart/Stuart, Douglas, Donald, Bruce, Cameron, Duncan, Scott and so on. All surnames.

And those terribly common hyphenated names, just like the King of the Netherlands and his heir... 🤣

In Rizzoli and Isles they had a Scottish character named Kent, it really shows how different naming conventions are.