I hate my common name! Can I change it as an adult?

[MoggTheCat]

My name is Louise. I have always hated it as it is so common amongst women my age (born late 70s). There were four of us called Louise in my class at school. There are several Louise’s at my new workplace. My children have more unusual names as I didn’t want them to suffer the same fate! Would it be unreasonable to consider changing my name now? Or would it just be too difficult to get my friends and family to adjust to a new name?

Should say DM me if you see this/have a response. Not trying to out anybody.

I think it's very disrespectful not to get to grips with a name change by someone you care about.

snog

Its nothing to do with lack of respect. If you've known someone for decades, you use their name totally spontaneously and automatically. The neural pathways are really firmly established.

To change that pattern takes continuous conscious thought and repetition.. That conscious focus on the persons name, really gets in the way of normal interaction.

It's completely different to someone changing their surname on marriage.

A cautionary tale to everyone to thinks to call their dc something common popular like Amelia, Emily, Mia, Finn, Hugo, Jake, Jackson or Aiden. Hate them all!!

A cautionary tale ...

There's always a chance your DC wont like their name,talktoo. Too common, too unusual, association with a character in film etc. etc. But the reality is that the vast majority are perfectly happy.

I know many Louises and none have had an issue with their name. And I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of children growing up with the names you hate will be perfectly happy too.

I’d have loved a common name talktoo. My name is far more popular now, I was just 40 years too early.

My name was in the top 3 the year I was born and the following couple of years (early 70s) so I was one of several at school. But it wasn't common before and there hasn't yet been a revival, and it's not a classic either... that said I don't and have never disliked it. Family and close friends use one shortened form, while I loathe the other common short, as it just feels completely alien. I have a much less common middle name that I've occasionally toyed with as an alternative.

If I hated it, I'd bin it though, no question. A friend of mine did, changed his whole name, and fair play to him but I never ever managed to get his original name out of my head

OP, we could have been in the same class at school, because there were four Louises there too, and many more in other classes in the year! When you're mixing with people your age every day for years, issues like this are a bigger deal, but once you leave education and everybody disperses into the workplace, it's less noticeable. I only know one Louise on a social basis now.

Having said that - I also have a common name for women of my age, and I hated it. Then one day, I got a catalogue from a luxury goods brand whose mailing list I had inadvertently got onto, and they had used a sort of European, rather glamorous variant of my first name which I decided I much preferred. So sometimes I introduce myself to new people as that, and give that name to Starbucks to put on my cup. I haven't changed it officially and my family still use my proper name, but I like the thought that I can play around with it sometimes!

Nothing wrong with Louise, it was my granny’s name - nn Louie.