To be grateful to have discovered the mumsnet name board before having my children and giving them “stripper names”

[Krystalmethany]

Well excluding my first child who is male so thankfully has a very generic boy name.

But the names I liked for my girls thank god I mumsnet searched them first 😂 there are some brutal opinions on here that I suppose people are thinking irl but too polite to say to your face.

Mumsnet saved my kids from having stripper names or methhead trailer trash names

I had my first at 16 as well, and I thank my lucky stars he was a boy because if she’d been a girl, she’d have been a Nevaeh. 🫣

I used to deal with en masses pupil data and can confirm that this isn't a myth.

The weirdest name I saw was Ch'ardannay.

I don't know if you pronounce the apostrophe.

I also encountered twin girls once both with the forename Princess.

I got told dds name sounded like a boat. Always stuck with me and concluded actually that is no bad thing. Rather a boat than stripper I say.

When DS was a baby I was chatting to a woman in the supermarket who's child shared the name.
She warned me darkly that I would never be out of the "Headmasters" office (seemingly only a job for a man 🤨)

She couldn't have been more wrong - and he had all 3 Head "mistresses" too.

My DCs are called Clacton-on-Sea, Walsall, and Coventry.

Well it didn't do Lizzy Bennet any harm in Pride and Prejudice in the 1790s when Jane Austen wrote it - have you seen her birth certificate? Lizzie might be her legal name - it's been around as a name a long time.

It has been common practice for hundreds of years to use names that many people get very precious about as "nicknames" on MN when they are clutching their pearls in 2025.

Take "Annie" for example
My grandmother was named Annie in the early 1900s - it is written on her birth certificate
Annie was the 47th most popular name in England in 1850
But mention on MN that you are thinking of calling your child Annie and there will be a huge pile on that it's not a "proper" name

(Lizzy was a top 200 name in 1850)

Teachers also have memories which influence their choice of children's names, certain names were an absolute No because of children we'd encountered. A similarly ridiculous bias applied to clothing, I recall one of mine wanting a particular jacket and that too was a big, fat No from me.

Irl I judge made up names or real names with made up spellings.
I've been on MN almost 20 years and these name threads have totally passed me by. I am now desperate to go and secretly indulge my inner snob and read them.

When mine were expected in the 90s I chose names that could be shortened to either sex ( I didn't know in advance). Think Samuel/Samantha.

There is a long history (particularly in the US) of names which are considered to be 'black' names being criticised or ridiculed for being made up, having unconventional spellings, being trashy etc. These criticisms are racist in and of themselves but they also frequently ignore that some of the names in question have long histories in their countries or cultures of origin, or in the African Disaspora, and are no less valid or beautiful just because they're not historically European names.

There's no name in existence that can't somehow be made to sound ridiculous.

The hive mind on Mumsnet, (in my opinion), likes a lot of names that I really, really think are actually tacky (even though they seem to believe that they're classy names). So I go against the status quo on this site.

Just name your child what you want as long as it's not seriously awful.

Happy for you and your boy!

I agree with @ImFineItsAllFineabout losing regional trends etc. Some of the “approved” names on MN would just sound ridiculous where I’m from, like something from an aul Jilly Cooper novel. Whereas names that are dismissed on here because you’d have to spell them to people are actually fairly common where I’m from.

Yes. Or cat.

And Jayden, Brayden, Brodie, Jessie, Duwayne

How lovely.

Yes thank you, I do know that 😂 I was agreeing with the point that lots of us often do make snap judgements when we first see names!

Yes. It is now.

Well yes. 'Lola' is definitely an interesting person!

Okay... I did not say there was anything wrong with it 😂 as above, I was agreeing with the point that lots of us often do make snap judgements when we first see names! (Ms Bennett is indeed an Elizabeth, though.)

Does Wallsend get Wally?

Surprised by Callum. Thought it was an OK name.

If Tetley put the T in Britain, who put the .. well you can all work out the rest.

When I was younger I was convinced I'd have one child called River and another called Sea. I think I had twin sylvanian families with those names. Would be pretty awkward in today's political climate....

I also thought Alfie was well thought of - one of those old/new names like Archie, Elsie, etc!