All my favourite names have an issue? Or do they?

[snoggle]

These are my favourites, but each seems to have a slight issue? Or are they really issues? What do you think?

Caspar (friendly ghost is first association?)
Sebastian (don't like shortening to Seb, are there any alternatives?)
Jonathan (dated?)
Ivan (the terrible?)
Nicholas (loads of people our age called Nick)

Sebastian nickname bash

Caspar (friendly ghost is first association?) Yes I agree with you on this one.
Sebastian (don't like shortening to Seb, are there any alternatives?) Don' use a name if you don't like the shortening as it will be used...
Jonathan (dated?) I am biased as I have one but people do compliment me on his name as it is unusual without being 'weird' or 'unique'. Ours is known as Jonny mostly.
Ivan (the terrible?) I like this.
Nicholas (loads of people our age called Nick) I like this. I like Nick too. Plus it is a bit like Jonathan in that it is not used often but also not weird or unique.

Caspar i like, nn Cass.
i know a Sebastian nn Basti.
Jonathan is really cute, nn Jonny or Nate
Ivan....not sure about this one, it sounds harsh. Evan?
Nicholas could be Nico

Jonny/Nate is my favourite but if you look at it another way, they're mostly all great names.

May be outing myself, but I have an Ivan and everyone comments on what a great name he has.
My mother was concerned as her old accountant was called Ivan!
We've never met another yet.

None of your issues would worry me at all.

Sebastian = Bas, Bassie

I always wanted to call my first DD Phebe, from the character in the Louisa May Alcott books. But when DD1 came along, the Friends series was quite recent, and I thought everyone would think I had got the name from there. So I didn't use it.

Now, of course, no one would even think of Friends - it's just a classic name.

All your names are classic, so go for any of them. Except Sebastian, if you don't like Seb. You really can't control what nickname your DC will be called by other people and god knows, some people try!.

you're awfully fussy. Almost no one else is stuck on those associations.

Thanks, I think that might rule Sebastian out then. Bash is cute but as pp said you can't control what others will use and Seb is much more obvious.

I like Jonathon, Sebastian and Nicholas.

Nicholas is my favourite, I've never met a Nic I didn't like.

I like Jonathan.

Agree with your comments on the other names.

What about Ivo if not Ivan?

I like Ivor, but DH has vetoed for some reason

Ivan is my definite favourite. I also like Jonathan as it's not popular. I think the nn Nate makes it feel more modern though if you like that, then it's the best of both.

I really dislike Sebastian anyway (it's the bast sound) but agree you can't escape Seb.

I have a 6 year old Nicholas who is Nico mostly, he is the only child Nicholas that we or any of our circle know.

I would have called ds Jonathan if it didn't clash with our last name, Johnny is a great name.

I also love Caspar and Ivan although they are very of the moment.

Sebastian is lovely but I do agree that Seb isn't great.

Sebastian could be Bastian, like in 'the Never Ending Story'?

All the names you are looking at are lovely, and not over-popular but equally not outlandish.

You have great taste. Nice to see someone naming a boy without going for either one of the cheeky chappy Victorian names or dreaded surname names which are so popular at the moment.

Don't stress too much over names. I have a Felix and me and DH loved the name from the beginning but were put off by people's remarks when we mentioned our name possibilities:
"You can't call him that"
"What, like Felix The Cat"
"You can't name him after a cat food"
And my favourite. "I wasn't going to say anything, but it sounds really gay".

We deliberated for three weeks on what to call our baby and in the end thought 'sod 'em' and stuck with Felix. Obviously no one has said a word since and we love it.

If there's a name you really like stick to your guns and try not to obsess over how it will be shortened by others, chances are it won't if you don't call them that yourselves.

Caspar - I think of Kaspar Juul from Borgen, not the ghost. Love it.
Sebastian - doesn't have to be shortened to anything.
Jonathan - nothing wrong with it
Ivan - Evan? Avoids 'the terrible' connotation
Nicholas - don't like it, personally.

TBH, there's only a finite number of "normalish" names for boys- if there's anything slightly off about the name they WILL get called insert nickname in the playground, so just because someone gets the huff and says "well my son is called Adolf, and he's wonderful", doesn't mean it's not a pretty crappy name choice. This is going to define your child for the rest of his life, and he will probably hold it against you if he hates it or it needlessly gets the piss ripped out of him (my name rhymes and I have never completely forgiven my parents for not thinking it through more, to the point of changing it by deed poll as an adult!). I would say that pretty much all of them apart from Caspar are fairly inoffensive (he might like Ivan The Terrible, say if he ends up playing some double plus hard contact sport maybe?). Although I would also maybe consider that a lot of kids will associate Sebastian as the lobster from the Little Mermaid...?

Go with what you like and sod anyone else.

We named our youngest Finbar and were outright asked by my parents if we would change the name! Err no, we chose it over 9 months! In fact, I had wanted a son called Finbar for a lot longer than that.

It meets with a lot of bewilderment from adults, and one child at playgroup did used to call him Fimble (at a time when the Fimbles were on cbbc) but a few years ago, the teenage friends of his older brother found out his name and pronounced it 'cool' and it has been cool ever since.

My friend Sebastian is known as bastian to only a very close circle. Everyone else calls him Sebastian. He only answers to a nickname from about 10 of us.

I love Sebastian, it was on our list along with Seth.

I don't think any of the names you have chosen would cause any issues.

I have an unusual name myself and I've never had any issues with it when I was at school or as an adult. I love it.

My middle name on the other hand I wasn't so lucky with.

Just stick with what you like and try not to stress.

Love Jonathan - it was on our shortlist for DS2.

Casper makes me think of the 3 wise men rather than ghosts.

As for Nicholas, DH always pretends that he's mishearing this as "knicker less" whenever I say that name (one of my colleagues is a Nicholas). DH thinks this is funny.

I have a Nicholas and a Jonathan!

Nicholas is 9 and up until about 6 months ago was known as Nicky but has now decided that he thinks Nick/Nico are much cooler and more grown up.

Jonathan is 3 and is known as Jonny or Jon-Jon (except mil who calls him Jonty)

We get lots of compliments on their names from people of all ages.

Thanks so much everyone, so glad our list seems to be broadly positive!
I think the responses take us to Caspar, Jonathan and Nic

Whoops Caspar, Jonathan and Nicholas, with Caspar being a little more polarising than the others

So we will chew these 3 over for a while and think about how they work with middle names.

Thanks for your thoughts, and lovely to hear there are some Nicholas's and Jonathan's out there! (But not too many of them :))