Do you like your name?

[frenchielala]

Do you like your name? I actually love my name despite a recent thread where it was pretty much torn to pieces. It was unusual for its time (more common now) and is part of the reason I would like to give my daughter a slightly unusual name (for 2016) too.

Curious about how you feel about your name and if it has influenced your thoughts about baby names.

I never liked my name. It was the most popular name the year i was born, and several years before and after. It is still in the top 10 now.

You have no idea how horrendus it is being "one of the Jessica's", "Jessica T or Jessica A" or "Little Jessica". I bloody hated it, especially as i was the youngest in my year so the million other Jessica's at my school constantly told me i "stole" their name.

I also hated being given the nn Jess when i was at primary school and would constantly correct people to Jessica (even in writing, i would add the ica after Jess).
By the time i got to secondary school i had given up becuase everybody called me Jess, so i just started to accept it. Now i prefer Jess, and that is how i refer to myself and how i introduce myself to people. I quite like that as we got older most of the other Jess' went back to Jessica as their adult name, but i stuck with Jess, so there is not a million of me anymore.

However this is exactly the reason i wouldn't give my daughter a 'top 100' name, i don't want to give her a weird/yoonique name, but one that is individual to her, and not belonging to every other girl in her school.

P.S. for those with more unusual names who complain that they never got their name on a keyring/hairband/tacky souveir - i never did either, my name was always sold out becuase it was that popular!

I don't really give my name much thought which is probably the way it should be. It's certainly no burden, and it has a nice shortening. It's very common in the UK but evokes lol-some 'oh what a beautiful name' style reactions from Americans.

No I hate my name. It's a boys name, also a bikes name. people always get it wrong, and assume I'm a Carly, kylie, holly, Marley. Gets annoying after a while.

Chopper?

(only joking)

I don't like mine. It's the g version of a name which could start with a g or a j.

Every other girl in the 80s was named it, then nobody since. Or before.

Americans ask me what it's short for. Nothing.

I'm constantly being called Deborah or Emma or janice on the phone.

I'm a mixed race baby from the late 60s. I like my first name but i have to spell it out to everyone new i meet. Hate my middle name as it's an English name that didn't go with either my first name or my maiden name. I don't know what my parents were thinking of!

I love love LOVE my name. It's an uncommon classic, not made up or weird. Easy to spell and pronounce. It's a proper grown-up name, feminine but not flowery. And it has a great meaning. I think my Mum did a fantastic job naming me. I tried to use the same criteria when naming DD, I hope she will love her name as much as I love mine :)

I love my name, it is currently in the top 5 baby girls name list (I think) but when I was younger it was fairly uncommon so not many about my age.

I love my name even though it is always being misheard (according to MN this will make your child resent you forever but I can truthfully say that is not the case here). I like it because it is a little conversation starter and then people don't forget my name! Also no one else has my name, I love it!

Yes. I had never met anyone else with my name but in recent years it has become ubiquitous in various forms. Mine is the formal version.

I have a popular late 70's/80's name. As a teenager in the 90's I thought it was pretty boring and always wished I was called something like Amanda or Leah (very glad I'm not now, no offence to Amanda's and Leah's!). There were 3 of us with my name out of 100 girls in my school year but that never bothered me at all. Never caused me any identity crises so I always laugh when I read about people being horrified that there might be Oliver X and Oliver Y at school . As an adult I'm very happy with my name. It's good for all ages, easy to pronounce and spell, and just a good, solid name. DD has a top 10 name and DS has a name which is somewhere around 600 in the stats but we applied the above criteria to both their names.

I like my name! It's fairly unusual but easy to spell/pronounce. It has never been trendy/popular and I've never had to share it with lots of others or add my surname initial to it.

Have tried to use the same criteria for my dc - both have names outside the top 100 but dd's name is slowly creeping up into the top 50. Hope it doesn't become too trendy.

Yes I love my name

I love my name. It's classic. I haven't met a lot of people with it. However, my husband didn't like the shortened form I went by and has used a different nickname that is very common especially as a stand alone name. Everyone calls me it now, I no longer like it but can't get people to call me by my full name which I'd prefer.

I love my name! I used a shortened version growing up but now use the full version.

I like mine because I chose it as a teenager and switched officially as soon as I was old enough. I hated the one I was given!

I love mine - means warrior maiden which is me all over, but it does get mispronounced and misspelt all the time!

No, its Welsh and always gets misspelled or mispronounced. I chose a well known classic name for my DD, she loves her name and it's unusual for her age group.

I love my name
It was number 17 the year I was born but only met 2 others growing up and as an adult I only know I other.
It's rather 80s and a bit American but I love it.
My own dd in wanted something that "matched" my name so it was definatly an influence

I can't muster a particularly positive or negative response, tbh. My name is so common for people of my age in my home country that you might as well have called me 'Girl No 8762', but in this country it is exotic and windblown and unpronounceable.

Yep. It's one of those names that on MN is always brought up on the 'names from late 70s/80s that no one would use now'. But easy to spell and pronounce in all countries.

My surname is very common too so I know about five people with the exact same name.

Yes: I can find personalised items easily.

No: whenever my name is called in the city centre, you get around 4-5 people who also turn around. It was a popular name in the late eighties/early nineties.

Yes I do.
I was the only person in the entire school with my name. It's not unique just not common and when I was little everyone seemed to have common names. It's not a made up name. The only downside was my classmates misspelt it.
I also had a nice surname but as a child wished I had a common surname. My married name is aliterative and I love it. I get lots of comments on what a lovely name I have.
A work colleague recently commented that I had 2 nice surnames and she wished she had been that lucky.

My dd1 was the only one with her name at school. It's a very traditional name not unique but I really didn't want her to have a name that you could pinpoint to a date.
Now she's at uni she is frequently asked if that's her real name or has she chosen it, as it's so cool!

Have never felt very comfortable with my name. Growing up in another country it was not very common, but now that we've moved here there's heaps of us! So it's finally growing on me!

Though it's a bit wierd calling others by my name - especially when I say call a company and its one of us who answers "Oh hi X, my name's x, I'm calling about the..." feels v odd!