Religious names when parents are atheists?

[Screamer]

We have DS1 who is Samuel and are expecting DS2 soon. We are really struggling for boys names (had loads of girls names!). I like the name Isaac but am concerned about having two overtly religious (Hebrew) names when both DH and I are atheists. Do you think this would be strange and would people make assumptions about us (when hearing our DS names) or am I overthinking it?

Mind you, I have a Jewish friend (admittedly secular) who is a wee bit miffed about the fact that her sons carefully chosen Old Testament name is becoming very popular

Well, my children both have Hebrew names, and I've never had assumptions made.

Thank you for the thoughts....I guess I am overthinking it a bit. I am very into history/culture so to me the background to a name always springs to mind but I don't think this is true for most people

Just don't choose "Jesus", yeah?

I am an atheist and if DD had been a boy she would have been Gabriel. I did wonder if people would make assumptions but decided I liked the name and could live with it.
I have just been on looking at all the Scottish names registered in 2011 and there is a Jesuslovesme. Now does Isaac seem too religious now?

DP and I are atheists and we have a Joseph and a Gabriel. No one has ever mentioned it apart from a lovely lady in the doctors who told us they were beautiful names then asked if we were catholic.

Struggling for boys' names here, too. We're also atheists and have made the decision to avoid religious names. We're also determined to avoid extremely popular names, so are probably making things harder on ourselves than they have to be, LOL.

That said, Daniel is one of my favourite boys' names and if DH suddenly decided he liked it, too, I'd be happy to go with it. :)

Good luck!

Hi!

Don't worry. Samuel and Isaac have long been popular enough names for it not to matter anymore about some old bible connections. If you like traditional names then it's pretty hard to avoid biblical names, and if you want to avoid saint's names as well, you really are stuck.

I was going to start a similar thread as it was concerning me too. We're both atheists and both the boy and girl names we've picked are from the old testament.

My question was, is Noah too biblical? Being such a "famous" bible story it seems more "obviously biblical" than Samuel, Isaac, Jacob or a lot of other popular names. And because it's not been popular for as long as many of those names.

I am an atheist, and have chosen to avoid Biblical names. I can't explain why exactly, but I just don't feel comfortable with my children having names from the Bib;e. Although I would use names from literature, which is what the Bible could be, I suppose.

Greenandcabbage or any other atheists, would you care to share the names you've picked without biblical connection.

I struggled to find any I liked enough, apart from William, but we ruled it out because its been used a lot in our families. Not keen on surnames as first names or modern made-up sounding names.

Me and DP are complete atheists but DS2 is going to be called Isaac because we both like it. All names have to originate from somewhere or are popular at different times; the names in the Bible are simply Hebrew names that were popular/common during the time periods the Bible was written - I wouldn't stress about it

How about nature/flower names paperclips?

Like Lily, Rose, Holly, Ruby etc for girls. Cliff, Rowan etc for boys.

Incidentally, there've been several St Williams. I don't think any of them are particularly well known these days though.

we are atheists, and chose names which are not of religious origin, partly for this reason. our DC have very very popular names in the UK (boy's name begins with O, girl's name with E!), but they are names that work in both of our languages, so both sides of the family can spell and pronounce them.

I would probably wonder if you were religious with those names, but wouldn't judge for a second if you weren't and had used religious names!