Your baby's name is 'so weird' ...?

[brandnewcoffee]

Due with our baby girl in just a few weeks. It took us a long time to pick a name that will flow nicely with the middle name as well as the surname and a name we both love equally. My nan texted me this morning and ask if we've picked a name yet so I told her that we have and told her the name we chose is Esmé. Her response was simply 'such a weird name'. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm gobsmacked and don't know what to say back. I know it doesn't matter what others think about the name we chose for our baby girl but it really got me doubting myself and now I'm sat here worrying whether we picked the right name. AIBU?

"We'll aren't you the rude one", you should say. It's the one thing that really grinds my gears is people commenting names and people,who lazily misspell names as they can't be asked. My son is known by his middle and you wouldn't believe the stupid comments people make on that is if its affecting them! . I just say "cos he is" and curl my lip up on the one side and kill the convo dead. I just emailed somebody tonight saying if they cant be asked to spell my first name, please address me as Miss ---- from hereonin as had enough of the nonsense

It is helpful to look at the meaning of names. Some attractive names have unfortunate meanings.

Friends of mine have named their little girl the same as yours but have a different spelling, Esmae. 💐🙂

If you like it.... then really it’s not anyone else’s business but yours and your husbands. My mother grimaced when we told her our sons name and said something along the lines of ‘it’s very foreign sounding!’ This from a woman who is Irish!! And we both said ‘yes..... it’s Irish!!’
She refused to acknowledge this and just went silent but the. sneered about it for about 4 months and tried to avoid using it. ‘My lovely little blonde grandson!’ ‘[older brothers’] little brother’ ‘the baby’.
Finally when we were talking to a friend of hers the friend asked his name and said ‘oh what a lovely Irish name’ and suddenly she was all ok with it.

I chose my children’s name painstakingly and with absolutely love and fierce intention... there is nothing anyone could have said to make me change them. (Unless that it was Piers Morgan’s middle name and then I might change it.... )

I think it is a beautiful name and you shouldn’t doubt the choice you and your husband made I’m sure she will turn in to a beautiful woman someday x

Esme Origin and Meaning
The name Esme is a girl's name of French, Persian origin meaning "esteemed, beloved; emerald".

Maybe she knew an Esme when she was younger, or it means something, and she was saying weird as 'a coincidence/strange you choose that particular name'. Not in that she thinks it's a weird name?
Esme is a lovely name ❤️

I would reply "We don't think so Nan!" Is she always outspoken?

@llizzie

I have never been able to understand why people pick a baby's name before the baby is born.

You really have to see the baby, look at his/her face, and little developing mannerisms before deciding on a name. It is natural to want to rush off and register the birth, but you do not have to do that right away. They give plenty of time.

I know some people feel like this, but if I'd named my children based on what they looked like at birth they'd have been called King Edward and Maris Piper! I really enjoyed being able to call my babies by their name in the womb, and for the first two my husband and I very definitely had one favourite girl name and one favourite boy name so there wasn't really much discussion. I'm pregnant with #3 now and it's proving much harder to decide, but I still can't wait to name the baby and make them feel more like a little person to me. I also loved being able to talk about my second by name to her older brother before she was born.

Lovely name

Never tell people your baby names before birth!

I ran a few options past my mum and she made a face at them all. Realised my mistake and stopped sharing.

Just tell them you’ve not decided and announce once baby is born.

This is why we never tell people until baby is here! It’s much harder for them to complain then, though it can still happen. Esme is a totally normal name though, not even that unusual!

I love the name, it's not too common or unusual and sounds feminine also won't take her long to learn to write it when she's older!!!! Great choice.

Very rude of your NaN but quite usual now with older people as most don’t have a filter and say that they like.

Esme is a lovely name and not weird at all and yes I don’t know anyone who tells people baby names in advance.

It is a beautiful name and your nan wasn’t being very diplomatic!

I think name meanings and origins are really important. I chose Sophia for my DD as it is Greek and means Wisdom. But when my DD and I spoke to a Greek artist he explained the deeper meaning of the name and it means God's light shining out from the soul. How beautiful is that?
Whatever you choose for your child, it's worth looking up the meaning and so when people ask what you have chosen you can say the name and the meaning. That can spark some really interesting conversations and hopefully a greater appreciation of culture and languages.
For some great ideas of baby names check out names the Puritans gave their babies e.g Fly-fornication. historyofnothing.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/puritans-and-their-weird-names/

This is why we’re not finding out the gender of our baby or telling anyone our chosen baby names. There’s no need for people to be commenting on what I name my child and I don’t need any added stress or trouble whilst pregnant!

I don't think Esme is a weird name.
I do however feel sorry for some of the kids that get really stupid names given by their parents such as X Æ A-12 (Grimes and Elon Musk) sounds more like the prototype name for a new electric car than a baby.

This is why we’re not finding out the gender of our baby or telling anyone our chosen baby names. There’s no need for people to be commenting on what I name my child and I don’t need any added stress or trouble whilst pregnant!

If you don't want to tell your suggested name choices to anyone in RL, I'd really recommend asking the people on the Baby Name board here. People are pretty nice on that board but they do give their honest opinions.

It's worth running your name choice by some people first, even if it's just online, because otherwise you are taking the risk of registering a name and then realising that there is some problem with the name that never occurred to you before.

On the Baby Name board, there is always someone pondering changing their child's name because they've become aware of some issue with the name (example: it means something embarrassing in a widely spoken language, the spelling or pronunciation is always confused with someone else, the parents really wanted something "unusual" and are now dismayed to discover that there are half a dozen others with the same name at the local baby group etc. etc.). I am pretty sure these are the people who were coy and didn't discuss their name choice with anyone else before the birth.

An accent on a name in English is likely to be read in a different way to the way you want it pronounced, so your grandmother may have pronounced it to herself as 'Esmer'.

I think this comes down to a generational thing. Most modern names sound strange or weird to our grandparents.
I think it's a lovely name and unusual.

The only way it was possibly weird is Esme Weatherwax was a wyrd sister.

It's a gorgeous name.

I have an Esme...pronounced Ez-mee which is the Anglo saxon version of the name as opposed to the French Ez-may. No accent above the E = Ezmee

I think it's a lovely name whichever way its pronounced 🤗

Congratulations x

It's possibly she's not seen it written down before or heard if it before. I remember when I was younger and my aunt wrote down "Chloe" as what she planned to call her daughter. I thought it was weird...but read it as ch-low. It was it when I heard it pronounced correctly I realised it wasn't weird at all and was actually quite nice.

Btw...I love the name Esme.

I love it, if my last was a girl I wanted Esme or Dotty! He is Stanley x