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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think there is no such thing as a “teen mum name”

80 replies

Hippout · 30/05/2026 10:21

One thing I’ve noticed on the name board is things like “sounds like the name of a girl who becomes a teen mum” usually used to criticise the incorrectly spelt or names posters don’t consider classy.

I had my children at 16 and 18 and my name is Charlotte. One of my closest friends was also a teen mum and her name is Shannon.

Teen mums have normal names!

OP posts:
Allseeingallknowing · 31/05/2026 15:56

Elli-Mae

Allseeingallknowing · 31/05/2026 15:58

ChristmasBaby2026 · 30/05/2026 11:29

Whilst you are strictly speaking correct, anyone can use any name and bad names are not the exclusive copyright of teenage mums, it is the case that girls from certain backgrounds are more likely to become teenage mums and choose names accordingly. Of the teenage and young mums I have known, their names have been

  • Tianna
  • Shaylee (pretty sure this one is just made up)
  • Billie-Jane

All awful in my opinion.

All names are made up!

Camomilecrumpet · 31/05/2026 18:30

Tigerbalmshark · 30/05/2026 12:23

It technically means “gypsy”, which is why people don’t think it is acceptable - describing any poor behaviour as “gypsy-like” is clearly racist, and “chavvy” is just an oblique way of saying the same thing.

”Tacky” gets the point across without bringing gypsies/travellers into it.

I don’t think it means gypsy, I think it comes from the Romani language.

Quine0nline · 31/05/2026 18:44

Chavi means child in romani.

I am sure I read that 18 to 25 are the years that nature has designed as the best fertile years of a human woman's life to give birth, possibly up to 30, and possibly a little earlier. Much later and the outcomes for a healthy child fall dramatically.

Is there any data which, factoring out abortion and environmental factors which prove or disprove this?

YankSplaining · 31/05/2026 18:52

SlightlyAjar · 31/05/2026 14:27

But names work differently across different cultures. Shannon was never used in Ireland, for instance (I mean, for Irish people, it’s as much an airport and a seriously ugly industrial zone as a river) until it filtered back via Irish-Americans giving their children placenames from a country they’ve never lived in. (And even then, people were using it because it sounded ‘modern’ and ‘American’, rather than because they were paying tribute to a river goddess. It was as much ‘Shannen’ [sic] Doherty as anything.)

See also the giant mistake that is ‘Caitlin-pronounced-Kate-Lynn’ which is a diaspora mispronunciation of Cáitlin, pronounced Coytleen or Coytchleen.

’Connor’ has been described on this thread as a ‘teen dad name’ and an example of ‘surname names’ but in Ireland, spelled correctly as ‘Conor’ , it’s a standard, safe classic like James or Edward in England.

Edited

Yeah, I know names work differently across different cultures. I’m just noting a difference I wasn’t previously aware of.

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