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.

@IfWishesWereFishes

You know what I do like? That American naming is very no-fucks-given.

You like the name of a river? Use it. You like that sound? Turn it into a name.

This! I hate some 'normal' names, which is why I didnt use them for my dc. I like some names, and picked names I like.
I think (for example) Stanley is awful, I just dont like it, but I dont judge you if you like it

When I was a little kid, I thought all my woodworker dad's tools were personalised and made just for him. He was a Stanley!

I met a D'Quivious once in a school in a southern US state. He was in the profoundly SN group and sadly was probably never going to be able to spell or write his unique name.

Family surnames as first names has long been a normal Scottish thing. My great uncle had a ‘surname’ name like that, born 1900.

And alongside your ‘usual’ boys names I was at school with Innes, Manson, Forbes, Sinclair and Cameron. All named in the 70s.

quickkimchi not as grand as that. His surname was that of a nursery rhyme character

No worse than Chardonnay, Macie, Chantelle, Chanel and countless other uk chavtastic names😩

The idea that names are and can be just an arbitrary collection of letters isn’t always true. In Germany it’s illegal to give a child a surname (they have other criteria too, during name registration). Many other countries have naming laws.

@BuzzShitbagBobbly There are LOADS of your Brians around. I think it's the American equivalent of Jack. They're always surprised if I mention it's a proper old man name in England.

The OP is hardly ‘rude’ and ‘nasty’, ‘horrid’, ‘vile’, and other favoured mumsnet appellations. It’s the sort of thing you might mention in passing to an acquaintance for a brief chat. Why are some posters so prissy?

Lewis is after the island surely?

I prefer the American surnames to the daft trend of Alfie/ Archie.

I’ve got (or had, they’re all dead now) three American grandparents and one British - the family tree is so indescribably dull for the generations of the British line after they arrived in the UK. Just endlessly recycling the same first names, like the baby name threads on here. Parts of this discussion are bordering on racism, sneering at hillbillies etc - I have some of my deepest roots in South Carolina, descended from three distinct groups: northern and Southern European settlers, indigenous peoples, slaves and free people of color. Among the Europeans were Sephardi Jewish people expelled from Spain and Portugal, forced to convert to Catholicism and change their names. Some of their names are definitely ‘weird’ but there’s just something so not funny about it.

At least it's not Chantelle, Chanelle, which you do find in the UK.

The British are so prissy about names. OK, so it might be strange when people call their child the name of an inanimate object (does everyone remember Pancake?), but 4 children in the same class all called Olivia seems so unimaginative.

Actually - apologies @Lycidas

I should have written "some of the comments on this thread" and not specifically your OP.

I remember going in to rent a car in the Florida area once. The man behind the counter was wearing his name tag. He was called Rusty Colon.
I had to send each of my family members in one by one to ask him various car related questions as they didn't believe me.

Yeah it’s really weird to give someone a surname as their first name imo and some of the American ones are plain bizarre. Randy is awful, I know it’s short for Randall but even that’s bad. I hate Buddy too.

How nice of you to send your entire family in to mock his name 👍🏻

Brian and Colin are also really popular names for children over there still, as is John. Imagine a baby John or Brian nowadays in the UK, they’d be so out of place.

I have friends in the US who have teenage sons called Trevor and Derek. Another has a son called Broly which is a name I'd never heard before or since he was born.

A character in Bull has that surname @waterjungle. It's pronounced cologne.

There will always be tension where two countries share a language, but the culture is different.
America is English speaking but not English. So spellings, pronunciations, names, all different.

I'm interested in how the accent affects choices. I misheard Tara in Buffy and Terra. Wasn't until we had subtitles on that I realised.

Why single out the US for this OP? Bad form.

Because it's permitted by MN. And of course, everyone in the South is 'redneck'. My father has a double-barreled forename, but that's okay on MN because he's from Spain and you wouldn't start a thread 'Spanairds have weird forename preferences' and then follow in with dozens of posts about how 'weird' 'trash' 'redneck' or (insert insults) Spaniards are.

As an oldie I wonder about these shortened names being used as main names. When I was young Archie was short for Archibald, Davey short for David, Tommy short for Thomas. And what happened with names is they were shortened according to the person's position in society or friendly/relaxed disposition.
So a stern or unsociable person might be Aistair all his life when the funny lad everyone likes would be Ali from day one, or maybe Al when he is older. And if in a position of authority to you might retain Alistair forever.
I wonder if people are wanting an easy going, popular character for their child so call them Archie from day one.
Are the stand offish old men of the future who would have been Samuel, David, Thomas now going to be Sammy, Davey, Tommy.

Hank or more properly Henk is a shortened version of Hendrik, the Dutch version of Henry.

The USA has had immigration from around the world and their names reflect this, Randy is short for Randolph and it's only funny if you are 12 years old.

I hate surnames as first names