Wilberforce

[Fartbaby]

We have decided to call this baby Wilberforce if it is a boy. We absolutely love it, as do my family and my best friend. I haven't told anyone else as I know for a fact lots of people would be horrified by the name. We will be almost exclusively calling him Wilbur due to the aforementioned probability of loathing for the full name, so my question is: is there any point to putting Wilberforce on the birth certificate?

I know it sounds as if I don't have the courage of my convictions regarding the name Wilberforce and that makes me a little sad, too, as I absolutely love it. Would you introduce your baby as Wilberforce if you were me or would you pretend he is simply Wilbur?

Oh blimey, I sound like an idiot

I liked Moses until he appeared on Emmerdale. I loved Walter until Breaking Bad became massive. It's so hard wading through this minefield.

I was with you until you said that names ending with ie are 'frightfully common.' My DS is called Artie. Is that 'frightfully common?'

My young teen (Jack, how COMMON and cruel of me ) was bullied by a Tarquin and a Horatio at his prep school. Takes all sorts. You sound frightfully snobbish to be honest, horrible attitude.

As for this

My son will not be shy and will not be withered by school yard taunts

Yeah, we all think that, until it happens. My other 5 are confident, outgoing people who can take anything, as are DH and I, the one who got bullied is shy and took his bullying very hard, he's fine now thankfully now he's moved. You can't predict how your children will be, you're setting yourself up for a big fall if you think you can. People probably care about bullying because you know, it's really fucking horrible maybe? You don't care about it now, because it hasn't happened to one of your children yet. What a stupid thing to imply, that you're so "above it all" and it would NEVER happen to your little angel.

Wilbur is fine, Wilberforce is a little far in my opinion. Purdy also fine, one of my sons girlfriends is called Purdy and everyone calls her "Purds" though which sounds a bit blunt so heads up on that.

Who said allowing unusual names to become mainstream? Wilberforce is not unusual, as a surname. It's the sort of name you'll more readily see in the middle, having a family connection.

I prefer Perdita spelling to Purdita (which looks made up).

My son will not be shy and will not be withered by school yard taunts

good luck with that. I had similar ideas before I actually started rearing my actual children.

We also thought they would all be early readers, would find schoolwork easy enough, would not be picky eaters, would like a lot of the things we liked etc. Then we got an actual entirely other human being as a member of our family and the game was on. Like most parents our thoughts about our future children were sometimes right and often wrong.

Purdita would annoy me in a way Perdita and Purdey wouldn't. Sounds twee illiterate cat lover to me, you may be the last but you are obviously not the first two! Why not Perdita with Purdey as nn?

But I do think giving them reasonably ordinary names as a middle one would be good. ( Perdita counts as one of those, so you could go exotic).

Wilberforce is quite a difficult one to follow, but am sure you will manage it. Eustace? hector? Harold or Henry? I don't think that eg john, James, George or indeed Samuel work. Jeremy, Toby, might. Though to my ear it's better even then to have W as the middle name even if you call him by that.

Since you ask, my DS has family names. Both sides. First name is traditional British, Saint, crosses class divides. It alternates with another similar down the generations from about 1810. Next is a transferred surname from my side which was made into a first name in about 1720. All first boys had it. Final one goes with the first, iyswim, as part of that alternating.

I wanted to give him the saints day on which he was born, as in the catholic tradition, but was told four was too many. Boring boring people around.

And there was no question. The name was a pre nup condition on dh's side.

I guess what I mean is I will teach my children to not consider every taunt or mockery as bullying. It's a vastly over-used term that now has seeped into offices across the land. I was taunted, rather persistently, for my surname. You have to teach your kids to suck this stuff up. Far more tragic is to be abused for your acne or your disability or your religion. These are the things we ought to be teaching our children to fight back about - not bloody jibes about their names.

I won't be having middle names with Purdita and Wilberforce. I don't think there's room with these kinds of names.

Cape, can't you just tell us the names? Is it David or Jackson?

I wasn't talking about names specifically, it was more your general repugnant attitude. I don't think making the odd comment about a name is bullying either, far from it, but saying your child WONT be affected by anything and WONT be shy is just silly, you have no idea how they will be. It's just a twattish thing to say. Also, heads up, some kids get bullied for no reason at all, my kid for example, they just took against him because they were badly raised, it does happen sadly. You need to get real if you think your kids are immune to it.

so if someone taunts my child about her name I should tell her to chill and not think it is bullying because on the scale of things it doesn't rank up there with being bullied about religion or acne? very interesting approach.

Honestly, your names are fine (vowel-wrong nicknames not so much :)) but I think you have a ways to go with the childrearing thing. Not to worry, it will all become apparent to you eventually.

hate it with a passion is no more relevant to this discussion than my hating Jane, George, Aoife, Ben or the myriad names I find truly uninspired and boring. I would think it cruel to give a child a name in the top ten, for instance. How rubbish to share your name with three others in class?

How dreadful indeed! Though I think it shows a certain confidence in choosing a classic and/or popular name that their child will stand out for their personality, achievements and talents rather than because they have a so called 'speshul' name. There is an in between here, and going to extremes to avoid this is ridiculous.

You said Perdita up thread, why the change in spelling? Purdita is just wrong.

But isn't having a confidence in your boringly-monikered child's outstanding personality the same as being assured your kid won't be shy?

I'm not interested in having a debate about the robustness or otherwise of my children with those of you who have a vested interest in bullying by virtue of your own child's troubles.

Purdita is as valid a spelling as Perdita but I dislike the look of Perdy; it's not how Joanna Lumley spelt it!

I am leaving the discussion now to attend to my other baby, Dwayne.

Uhu. Get a good night sleep, dont want to be tired for school starting up again, do you.

But isn't having a confidence in your boringly-monikered child's outstanding personality the same as being assured your kid won't be shy?

No. And that's not exactly what I said anyway.

Purdita is as valid a spelling as Perdita

How do you work that out?

I'm not interested in having a debate about the robustness or otherwise of my children with those of you who have a vested interest in bullying by virtue of your own child's troubles.

Oho! Nice OP. I wasn't one of those who mentioned bullying or school environments, but nice all the same.

To return to the original question though...
I like it. Forget the naysayers, I think it's a cool name.

I'm not interested in having a debate about the robustness or otherwise of my children with those of you who have a vested interest in bullying by virtue of your own child's troubles.

Oh how droll of you OP. You sound ghastly. You started off this thread quite nicely and then just descended into being a complete snob, you might think you're above everybody else and ever so sophisticated by picking such a pretentious name, but you really don't come across that way. At all.

"I think Irish names are visually ugly and anything ending in 'ie' frightfully common."

Gosh you're a charmer aren't you. Call your child what you like, but they will take a ribbing about it, for years, and they may not forgive you. Or as Eddie Izzard would say: " What shall we call our child, so he doesn't get the shit kicked out of him at school?"

I was once told to try this to see if a name works:

Wilberforce is such a lovely baby
Can Wilberforce come out to play?
Is Wilberforce ready for promotion?

I'm not sure it works on any level.

Johnny Cash even wrote a song about it:

I don't care one way or another but I'm totally stealing Princess Sparkly Woo Woo Pants for my fourth daughter!

Aww. The title of this thread made me laugh.

Wilberforce could be known as Will. Its fine.

Wilberforce should be known as Will. It's the kindest thing the OP could do for him.

Eddie Izzard said that?? So the dress and heels would have nothing to do with having the shit kicked out of a boy?

I think Irish names are visually ugly and anything ending in 'ie' frightfully common

Wilberforce and Perdita are lovely names, you're so inspiring, makes me think of pigs and Dalmatians and I love animals! Your kids will love them too as you'll obviously raise them to be fearless, confident, upstanding members of society. Parents of children who get bullied must have made some serious failings to allow it to have happened. Go you.

I think .... anything ending in 'ie' frightfully common

I take it you mean when looking at the name written down. Spoken, names ending in -ie sound just like names ending in -ey, e.g. Purdey. Spelling Perdita as Purdita is a bad idea, in my view, as it just looks as if you don't know how to spell the name.

I'm on the fence about Wilberforce. So much depends on the circles you move in. It would stand out in some, not so much in others. What about Isambard for a second son? I know a couple who gave their son that name and call him Sam for short. I was agape when it was first mentioned but it's grown on me.