Why is there such negativity regarding the middle names Mae/May, Rose & Grace?

[Sasparillo]

After reading a few different posts on MN, there seems to be a lot of slating of the above stated middle names. I honestly don't see why people hate them so much! Back in 'my day' it was Jane & Louise that were popular girls middle names, mine being Jane. It has never ever bothered me in the slightest that I share the same middle name with half the female population in my age group, I don't see why it would bother anyone. It's only a middle name. I think that Mae, Rose and Grace are perfectly acceptable and quite frankly, very pretty names for a first or middle name, so what's the issue? I'd understand if people were naming their daughters Gertrude or Fanny! Lol x

Agree they are overused. My nan's name is Grace which makes it a very obvious middle name choice, but I would hesitate a bit because of its popularity.

at "name geeks". Yes, that is definitely true. I don't think anyone should take our name geekery personally!

Always make me laugh how opinionated people can be on here, especially regarding baby names!

Who are we to say someone else must give their child a name with a purpose?

Great if you have a relative with a name you like that you can pass on to your child. But maybe you don't.

Maybe you don't like names that have some fancy foreign, ancient meaning. Maybe you just like the sound of the name, or it really suits your surname.
Why is that bad?

I personally think there are many more important factors which 'identify' a person, a name is just a starting point.

Either way everyone has their own reasons for choosing their own child's name! Even if we wouldn't choose them ourselves, we don't have to be so rude

I'm just chuffed me and the other half finally agreed on names, thought we were never going to get there!

I feel I must add our names do not include any in the title, although I am a Louise (middle name)

Always make me laugh how opinionated people can be on here, especially regarding baby names!

Well, that's usually because people are asking for opinions There wouldn't be any point if everyone just said "Oh yes, lovely!" to every suggestion for fear of being thought "rude".

My middle name is May! I quite like it..? I think it's just a bit old fashioned.

Grace is too religious? My middle name is Grace, and it never occurred to me that it was remotely religious. It just means I am graceful, like a ballerina!

Agree that it's been done to death now though.

Why is offering an opinion, on a discussion forum, 'opinionated LuckyOwl. It makes me laugh when people come on here and give out to people for offering an opinion and say 'its none of your business' what someone calls their baby/whether someone likes a particular name or whatever. I always want to ask 'Well, what are you doing on a discussion forum called baby names then'?

Because there is a difference in offering your opinion and being directly insulting to those people who may have the names themselves and/or have named their children with these names.

Some people appear incapable of expressing their opinions in a polite way, and I've seen it time and time again on this forum (particularly on this subject).

Some people may not be offended, but others certainly will when a child's name they may have put much thought into becomes branded as 'dull', 'pointless' or 'lacking in identity'.

Everyone has opinions, of course. Everyone also has feelings and I think people should be more tactful when expressing opinions on a personal subject such as baby names.

My dd's middle name is one of these names - named after my granny who died when I was pregnant. Who cares if it's boring or overused? It's beautiful and special to me...I expect most other parents who chose it as a middle name think it's beautiful for their daughter too.

Incidentally I have one of the hated seventies middle names but as a first name. I used to love meeting people who 'shared' my name!

Because every single baby girl I know born in the last 2 years locally has one of these names as a middle name or first name, usually Rose though.

There are so many gorgeous names for girls I cant understand why everyone has to pick the same name. My Ds's class will
be full of Rose and Something-Rose, I pity the teacher.

DDs middle names are Grace and May, named after paternal great-grandmothers (my side's alternatives were Phyllis and Myrtle).

Sorry if they're boring but I got lumbered with Louise which I quite like

mine were born 12 and 10 years ago and got saddled with Jane and Rose respectively for middle names - just because they sounded nice with their first names... so :P

That's because we don't want to be polite LuckyOwl. If you ask for opinions on MN you get them, warts and all.

There are other, "nicer" parenting forums if you prefer the "ur babe ur choice hun x" approach...

General Ps and Qs
We'd appreciate it if you could use the same courtesy when posting messages on Talk as you would use when speaking to someone face to face. Please do bear in mind how difficult this parenting business can be, and if there's one thing all of us could do with, it's some moral support.

Would you approach a stranger and tell them what a dull, pointless name they've given their child?

No, you'd probably be tactful and say something along the lines of 'It's not for me, but...' or maybe 'It's a shame it's so popular' etc...

That's exactly the point i'm trying to make. Express opinions by all means, there would be little point in the forum else. But don't go overboard with criticism unless you'd quite happily do that to someone's face.

Which just goes to show how stupid a lot of interest forum rules are. I've come across this in other fora too, but elements of MN seem particularly keen to cling to the idea that talking on the internet is the same as real life.

It isn't. It is plain refusal to look facts in the face to state otherwise.

That doesn't mean fora don't have their own self-regulating standards of behaviour, and actively being a dick will rarely be tolerated anywhere. But the style of conversation is different from real life, there's no getting away from it. A better analogy, particularly on boards like Baby Names and AIBU, is probably focus groups. No-one would say focus groups are "rude", but they are certainly not operating by the same rules they would in a face-to-face social situation with people they are going to see again. That's just the way it is - there wouldn't be any point in them otherwise.

In practice of course, MN knows all this too, because in all the time I've been reading the babynames board I've never seen anyone moderated for saying something they probably wouldn't say to someone's face in a social situation. Which is quite right.

We picked Rose as a middle name as it was my much loved Nanna's name - hadn't realised that meant my daughter had no identity or presence (think her class teacher might disagree as EVERYONE knows when she is in the room :-))

However, people's opinions are just that - opinions! I didn't name my child to impress anyone else and I love traditional/classic names personally so I really don't care if others don't like it!

I'm sure you know best.

Happy Pregnancy!

In answer to the original question, snobbery

Thanks, LuckyOwl, but I didn't know I was pregnant!

My middle name is Grace and I was born in 1974. It was considered weirdly religious and old-fashioned when I went to school and my friends would snigger when we sang 'Amazing Grace'. Everyone else had a Proper Middle Name (Jane, Anne, Marie, Louise)

Mother was clearly an early adopter.

I think middle names should have more meaning than just because it fits with the first name.
I wouldn't use those middle names because I like a longer middle name, one that we adore and/or family names. So our dd's have the middle names Matilda and Evangeline Sheena.
I also adore the name Gertrude! It is one of our favourites and would use it for a fn if we ever manage to get pg again (along with Beryl, Susan and Morag), so we clearly have very different taste in names.

I think they're both lovely, and also Gertrude and Fanny.

trills Fanny, is short for Frances, nothing to do with vagina or bum, except in your own mind!

Perhaps it's as simple as people liking them? I wanted my children to have a middle name because I don't have one and always wanted one, so made that decision many years ago!! My eldest daughter has the first name as one of the middle names you mention and her middle name is a name me and DH liked. 2nd DD's middle name is after a song that reminded me of my teenage years and DH was happy to go with my choice!

They are lovely on their own, but that's really not the point!

They're on pretty much every baby name thread here asking for middle names. I feel like shouting "BINGO" when all three are mentioned

I have nothing against people picking these names if they love them and they mean something to them.

But they're just so ubiquitous they have become the default. If someone here suggests May, Grace or Rose to someone else as a middle name, I think come on, how hard did you think about that? Not at all really!

It's like my asking DP "do I look nice in this?" and him saying "yes dear" while hardly looking at me! It's a stock response, requiring no imagination or thought at all IMO.

Purely personal preference now, but I think it's a real shame not to use a middle name which means something to you. And unless you have a particular reason to use May, Rose of Grace (which to be fair, many people do) why go for the default when so many other names are available to you? Also it's a chance to go for something a little more interesting / less conservative than the first name (as they so rarely get used) or alternatively to add a conservative name if you've gone for an outlandish first name!

Why not chose a relative you want to honour, or your favourite actress / musician, or a name with a great story behind it, or one from your grandparents' country if different to your own - or whatever, just not the default!

"Perhaps it's as simple as people liking them?"

On an individual basis, yes. But the fact that so many people are using them means it's a fashion, and many of those people are being influenced by that, whether they realise it or not.

We humans can be very sheep-like sometimes! It's important to rail against our sheep-like tendencies where we can IMO