Bear

[HenryandJude]

Is it ok as a middle name?

These comments are getting pretty bitchy now...

OP I'm sure you already knew Bear wasn't going to be to everyone's taste and I suspect you'll have decided against it anyway now that Cheryl's just used it, but I think you're getting an unnecessarily hard time here. Everyone has different taste in names, and that's fine. No doubt you wouldn't care for some of the pps' children's names. Wolf and Bear are fine, especially as it's only a middle name, and he'd have a solid, traditional first in either Theodore or Tobias anyway.

I love it as a middle name!

It's adorable for a little boy, and would be pretty hot on an adult man.

Theodore Wolf is fab!

(The name) Bear would be pretty hot on an adult man.

I don't personally like Bear as an actual name rather than a nickname, but that's just my taste. To pair it with Theodore isn't a good idea. IIRC teddy bears were called that after Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, so Theodore Bear is just too much.

www.theodoreroosevelt.org/site/c.elKSIdOWIiJ8H/b.8684621/k.6632/Real_Teddy_Bear_Story.htm

Maybe this was Cheryl.

There's a clothing company called Tobias and the Bear.

Teddy Bear would be great for puppy.

"Bear would be pretty hot on an adult male"

Yeah it would en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_(gay_culture)

It's funny how Bear has become such a zeitgeisty baby name. Minor celebs seem to favour it and many threads on MN also seem to favour it too. Do they all hope their sons will become plummy voiced Christian explorers like Mr Grylls?

And Teddys, I'm tripping over Teddys. What's made that name suddenly so popular? The only famous living Teddy I can think of is Teddy Sheringham, but he's as dull as ditchwater so I can't believe he's the inspiration 😀

I'm confused by Bear Payne as a name. 'Bare' has for years been slang for 'lots of' or 'loads' of something. So I hear 'a lot of pain' with that name combination. Or in conventional usage of 'bear', it sounds like 'bear pain', to withstand or suffer pain.

Bear with Jones or Grylls etc makes me think of the animal as intended, or other first names with Payne are fine, seemingly cancelling out the 'pain' association. But BP affects both names' usage to my ear.

Anyway this is beyond irrelevant obvs, small BP will be well loved and live in an astronomically wealthy celebrity bubble and good on them all. He'll have mates with a lot more startling names. I strongly doubt that his mum and dad needed to consider what their DC's name would sound like eg when future employers do a CV sift.

Scrumpernickel - my son is a Theodore/Teddy. It's because it was Jo's pet name for Laurie (Theodore Laurence) in 'Little Women', which was always my favourite book and he was my childhood literary crush. I don't think the trend has much to do with classic 19th century American literature, but that's the reason in our case!

No.

Poor bairn. Imagine him as an adult saying his wedding vows...

I'm confused by Bear Payne as a name. 'Bare' has for years been slang for 'lots of' or 'loads' of something. So I hear 'a lot of pain' with that name combination. Or in conventional usage of 'bear', it sounds like 'bear pain', to withstand or suffer pain.

SO glad it's not just me feeling this!

Looks like some people misunderstood your sense of humour OP

My teen DD informs me that Bear Payne is even more funny when you put together the two 1D baby names ...

Freddie Rain (bow) Bear - apparently....

Why not use Arthur?

The meaning of which is Bear