India

[Babbaganoush]

What are your opinions on India for a girl?

love it, don't care if you've been there, live there, have links there or not it's a beautiful name xx

Purely as a name, a collection of sounds, I really like it and don't bat an eyelid at India Knight or India Willoughby as names.

But I've a couple of friends who used it as a baby name and I did have a slight cringey feeling of 'gap year' about it, as they were those kind of people. Jo Whiley has a dd called India, in fact I think that was where I first heard it as a name!

fieldmuse, would you care to flesh out your image of a gap year kind of person?

No worries OP

I don't know what a 'gap year kind of person' is, what I meant was these are people who are brought up comfortably (nothing wrong with that) whose most 'exotic' experience is a gap year trip to India which they then, years later, name their child after despite their links to the country being a rather superficial trip in their teens. Again nothing actually wrong with this but i sort of equate it to the baby name being an accessory of the kind of life you wish/believe you have, if you haven't!

I got quite a good visual image from the description ‘gap year person’. It put me in mind of someone I know who spent a few weeks in Thailand and got a reiki tattoo on her foot and said she was a Buddhist for a few months. The time spent in Thailand was in between a philosophy degree and working ‘in the media’. It’s a sort of pick n mix westernised approach to the fun bits of other cultures.

i don't really like place names for baby names, and I agree it does seem very slightly off for a British family to use it. Even though I realise it's been reasonably popular for decades - wasn't one of Princess Diana's bridesmaids an India? As alternatives, there are plenty of other girls' names ending in 'ia'.

I was looking at TV listings earlier, and the first name of an actor in a film was 'Ireland' - female I think. Ludicrous - never seen that one before! London is quite popular as a baby name in the US as well. Someone with British or Irish connections would never use those names, it would be stupid. So in the same way I suppose someone from an Indian family would see 'India' as ridiculous.

I love it. I do not view it in the same vein as Brooklyn, Paris and so on.

India is very much a first name in its own right.

Agreed with a few others that I’m not keen on a British person choosing this name.

I like it, although likely wouldn’t use it. Makes me think of Gone With The Wind! But doubt many others make the same connection (as evidenced by this thread). Two other best names from the book are Scarlett (bit of a “stripper name” in my view, now, which is sad because she is BADASS in the book) and Melanie (who is a weak character so wouldn’t use it, although pretty name).

I wouldn't choose this name personally. I find it a bit odd naming your baby after a location you have no link to (assuming you don't, that is). It's a bit different than names like Sydney, Brooklyn etc which I view as standard baby names, I would always think of the place.

What about Indiana?

Hate it. Katie Hopkins kid and it's both chavvy and imperialist.

It’s not chavvy like Paris is. I always equate it with middle class families tbh. I don’t mind it but I don’t think it will age well.