Do you like having an unusual name?

[WeAreNow]

Just that really.

DP thinks it’s mean to give baby an unusual name as people will struggle with it. All of the names I’ve suggested are unusual. My name is really common, there were 4 of us in the same class with the same name at school and I always wished I had an unusual name.

So my question is if you have an unusual name do you like it or do you wish you were called something a bit more ‘heard of’? If you don’t like it, why not? I know there will be usual problems such as not being able to find things with names on in shops but I’m not sure of other reasons!

YABU: no I don’t like it
YANBU: I like it

I dislike mine. I’m sick of spelling it and I’m sick of people of mispronouncing it when I tell them how to pronounce it.

My name is very rare: I've never met anyone else with it. It's also quite an androgynous name which caused a bit of confusion on more than one occasion. As I child I disliked having to spell it and explain where it had come from (It's the surname of someone eminent).

As an adult I've grown to really like it, though it didn't go with my married name so I was pleased to revert to my family name when I divorced.

I have an unusual name in that in my 56 years I have only ever met one other person with it. It's not way out there just not common. I loathed it as a teenager and have shortened it ever since ( mainly because I live in a part of the country where it is not pronounced nicely.) I have kind of come back to thinking it's quite cool and quite a few people have commented on what a beautiful name it is.

I don't have an unusual name but before I was married, my name was very unusual. People could pronounce it easily enough but were always spelling it wrongly.

What did happen was nobody ever forgot my name. If somebody said it, others would immediately know it was me.

I hated it and, frankly, wish I had changed my name before marriage. I am a private person, it is easier to be private if your name is, eg Sarah Johnson, than what my name was. My married name is very ordinary, thankfully.

I have a very common name and have always had to go by first+surname in education and at work, which I always hated. Annoyingly, the (equally common) nickname that I went by was very often misspelled.

I therefore chose very uncommon, though probably not totally unheard of or made up, names for my kids. I knew or knew of people with these names, but you could probably count on one hand the number of children of that name born in the same year as my kids (I've checked the ONS lists). We never have pronunciation or major spelling issues, no teasing or rude comments (yet...?!) and we have no regrets. And it's pretty easy to order all kinds of personalised things these days so no worries about missing out on the occasional gift shop souvenir.

I have an unusual name. I have never met another person with my name although I know it exists (have seen on social media etc ..). I always have to spell it out for people. It is a conversation starter. The history of the name is unusual and comic - there is also a story of how I got the name. It is what it is.

It hasn't stopped me giving my kids unusual names too. Clearly I think it is character forming 😊

Hate it

I have one and have always found it a pita. I don’t much like it as a name, NOBODY can ever remember it until they’ve met me about 6 times, and it pisses me off that people will spell it wrong or even call me a completely different name when replying to emails from me that literally have my name written right there on them.

There are people I’ve known for years who still call me by a slightly wrong name.

I used to know someone with a very unusual name. She hated it and said it was always an issue, always mentioned by everyone and it really affected her confidence.
She had 3 children and gave them all names in the top 10 names list.

My name isn't unusual itself, although it isn't fashionable, but it is normally used for a male and I'm female. I once read that it was a common name for females in the Middle Ages however, and I've heard of a couple of women with the name . I love it.

Forgot to say - people often repeat back to me a similar female name when they meet me for the first time, and if I send an email I am always thought of as a male. Doesn't bother me at all.

I never met another child with my name in school, but I have met a couple as an adult. I think my name is more common in Latin America than Canada, because it is a very Catholic name suggested to my Mom as the full version of the nickname I have always gone by. I was born in a Catholic hospital and I still have the little card about the saint I am named after. The nursing nuns gave it to my Mom.

I have always liked my name.

I have a very unusual name. Ive never met anyone else with my name.

Loathed it as a kid, nobody could pronounce it, spell it, remember it.

As an adult, it's good but still find folk struggle to spell it.

Can't win them all 🤣

My name is uncommon, I wouldn’t say it’s particularly out there.

As a child I couldn’t get anything with my name on it.

it can be spelled 3 different ways so no one ever spells my name correctly.

For some reason a large percentage of people call me a completely different name, it’s nothing like my name except it starts with the same letter.

Phoning in orders was always interesting ( I now give my husbands name)

My children have fairly common names.

I quite like mine. It's quite unusual but not unheard of, and I've only met 3 others with the same name in nearly 37 years. People always spell it and pronounce it wrong though.

I hate my name. I have always hated it and used to pretend I was called Tracy. I even hate it now and because it is such a shit name, it isn't usable in Arabic so luckily everyone calls me by my middle name these days. My parents were selfish hippies but also foreign, another source of mortification in my childhood

I hate my name! I am 45 and I have had enough of people asking me to spell it or saying ‘is that your first name?’ with shock and horror written right across their face. I am getting married soon, so I am taking the opportunity when changing my surname to change my first name too.

It was awful in school. It has been awful in different work places. My three have very easy names as a result of the difficulties I had with my own name.

I have always thought that naming your child with an unusual name is actually quite selfish. The parents want to be eccentric, unusual, whatever the reason is, but don’t really think about the man or woman that person will become and how cruel other people can be.

I have an unusual name and I given a choice, I would rather have a regular name. I’m constantly having to spell it, most people miss pronounce it. I shorten it anyway.

My DD has a friend with one of these unusual "unique" names. He doesn't like it and is embarrassed by it to the extent that when he introduces himself to anyone new he explains it by saying that his parents hated him when he was born. I feel sad for him feeling like that about his name.

I don't think this boy's parents hated him when he was born, but they took a risk with naming him as they did. It was a silly risk to take and hasn't paid off.

I don't have an unusual name, but I am known by my middle name. That was a decision made by my parents when I was born and one which I still have to explain regularly 54 years later. It's irritating.

My own three DDs all have normal, strong and classic names. They are known by their first names.

I have always thought that naming your child with an unusual name is actually quite selfish

That really depends on how out there the name is. I have an unusual name, but a normal one that isn't made up. So no, I wouldn't declare my parents as 'selfish'.

I have a very traditional name (which I like) but I have known people with more unusual names. Some have loved them, some hated them. I have noticed two correlations. Firstly, that if the person has an outgoing/extrovert personality they tend to love their distinctive name. Secondly, it seems more likely to be a pain if the spelling is whacky and/or similar to a more traditional name as you then get people "correcting" it which must be very irritating.

A few I can think of:
Velvet - loves her name; an extrovert. Some people have tried to correct it to "Violet" or "Velma" though.
Travis - introvert. Hated having to explain his name was NOT Trevor.
O'Sheayana (pronounced Oceana). Liked the name, hated the non-obvious spelling, said she intended to amend the spelling to Oceana once old enough.
Amazon - loves her name (her parents had not really anticipated the worldwide success of Amazon deliveries though!)
Quintus - the fifth child of the family, parents said they had run out of ideas. Loves his name.
Sorrel - loves her name, always has to spell it though.
Bluebell - loves her name. No spelling issues either.
November - ditto above.

I think it depends on what type of unusual. Mine all have names that you never hear in the UK, but are prevalent-ish in DH's country of origin. They've had very few comments because most people these days know that different cultures have different names. The only time I've been upset is when some smart-arse at a baby group decided to explain me the cultural significance of DS's - I'd not been getting much sleep, and I think I might have been a little abrupt in explaining that of course I bloody understood that do I look like the sort of dimwit who doesn't think about these things....

I have always thought that naming your child with an unusual name is actually quite selfish

It definitely can be. I think a lot of selfish parents forget it their child that will have to navigate life with the name.

I’m eternally grateful that my Nana persuaded my mother to give me an unusual, but recognisably a name middle name. It meant I could change it at 14 and wasn’t stuck with bloody Starlight for even longer.

In my experience, people with really common names (for the time) hated being one of 4 on the class and would like an unusual one. (Claire and Sarah were the ones when I was growing up)

People with really unusual names that no-one has heard of, can't pronounce and/or can't spell, and always had to spell them out for eveyrone, hated them and wanted an 'ordinary' name. Sadly sometimes that is because they are names form another culture.

People who have names which are recognisable but not used often tend to be fine with their names! (whatever naming style.)
That was the route we took when naming our kids. Not top 100, but recognisabel 'real' names.

when I was taking the register and tried my best to pronounce the boy's name and when he had to tell me what it was he just looked really uncomfortable that that was his name

When I do supply I always start with, "If I get your name wrong please correct me" I've got used to Polish names, most students use an anglicised version of Polish names.

OP

I was given a fairly common name but with an unusual spelling, I changed it to a shortened version, I have lost count of the number of times it was spelled wrong on birthday cards, forms etc.

I would NEVER give a child a normal name with a 'unique' spelling - that's cruel.

My brother had personalised things, I didn't unless my mum bought me an Easter egg from \Thornton's.