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Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Who is Ophelia?

36 replies

Lydia55y · 22/03/2019 15:14

Ophelia keeps making it's way back onto my list but i'm not sure if i'm brave enough to use it. What sort of name is this to you?

I typically like unusual yet old fashioned/traditional pretty names, generally starting with vowels.

OP posts:
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TheShiteRunner · 22/03/2019 15:15

She committed suicide in a pool. Sorry.

LeekMunchingSheepShagger · 22/03/2019 15:16

In love with Hamlet, goes mad, kills herself. In summary.

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/03/2019 15:17

She's a tragic character in Shakespeare's Hamlets. As said above, she committed suicide.

Nesssie · 22/03/2019 15:19

I wouldn't necessarily relate it to the Shakespeare character but it does sound pretentious to me.

MeowthThatsRight · 22/03/2019 15:19

There was an Ophelia in my year at school. She got an awful lot of ‘I’ll feel ya tits/ arse’ etc at secondary.

Nowthenforever2019 · 22/03/2019 15:22

I love the name, cos I love The Band song! But could never seriously consider it. I have to have a name I wouldn't be embarrassed to shout out in the park.

GeorgeTheBleeder · 22/03/2019 15:25

She has a trust fund.

She's studying at the Slade.

She wears vintage silk camisoles and very big boots to obscure, difficult to get to festivals.

And marries a man she meets at a mindfulness event in a yurt in South America. He inherits a castle on the west coast of Ireland and they become famous collectors and curators of art.

She donates her own inheritance to a charity supporting mindfulness retreats in war zones.

daisypond · 22/03/2019 15:30

I’d only think of the Shakespeare character -drowned herself in the river after being messed around by a man.

woodcutbirds · 22/03/2019 15:32

I knew one. Very beautiful, scatty and quite mad. Not a happy girl, just like her namesake. I'd avoid it. Loads of gorgeous Shakespearean names with happier connotations: Rosalind, Beatrice, Portia, even Juliet was a very strongminded and passionate girl.

OutwithMyRemit · 22/03/2019 17:04

The daughter of people who want everyone to know how well educated and clever they are.

Also, she drowned.

GinaCarbonara · 22/03/2019 17:07

I know an Ophelia. She's a very warm, kind woman who is a doctor. She's nice to everyone

Bellaposey · 22/03/2019 19:02

I love the name itself but to be honest I would assume any parent who actually used it wanted to sound clever but hasn't actually read/seen Hamlet and didn't realise the character killed herself because she split up with her boyfriend (in essence).

Dohangoversgetworseasyougetold · 22/03/2019 19:04

Someone who spent her schooldays listening to dumb jokes about "Ophelia Bottom" ?

bridgetreilly · 22/03/2019 19:11

Also this rather wet (in every sense) lady.

TuppenceFaithfully · 22/03/2019 19:19

Aurelia
Elizabeth
Isabella
Imogen

TuppenceFaithfully · 22/03/2019 19:20

As alternatives I mean. If you think that Ophelia has too many tragic associations :-)

ColeHawlins · 22/03/2019 19:35

Creative, beautiful, slightly boho UMC.

If everyone can just get over the thing about a fictional suicide, It's got the potential to be the next Olivia, but slightly more gossamer.

ColeHawlins · 22/03/2019 19:37

Ursula gives me the same kind of vibe.

GeorgeTheBleeder · 22/03/2019 19:41

Ursula is earthy (Lawrentian) rather than watery though.

SleepingStandingUp · 22/03/2019 19:43

I love it.

Happy little girl, long blonde hair blowing in the hair, rainbow scarf blowing behind her

Happy and popular but in an everyoneoves kinda way, not like mean girl style

Unique style, quirky, but she's a lawyer or a doctor

Flicketyflack · 22/03/2019 19:44

A girl who went to my kids primary schoolGrin

Jimjamjools · 22/03/2019 19:47

Oh gosh I'm the opposite to those who think Ophelia is delicate, elegant. I imagine a very rich, plummy voiced, very overweight middle aged woman sprawled on a Victorian chaise longue, demanding more bon bons from the timid mousey servant girl in the corner!

PCohle · 22/03/2019 19:51

Rich, feckless, studying art history, vegan, slightly dim.

Or a young noblewoman of Denmark...

Harumphharagh · 22/03/2019 19:52

george has it 100% except she has missed the bit about her once doing work experience in a book publishers because her godmother Venetia Huffington-Smythe is a director and she gets really offended at being asked to photocopy a summer crime caper and make tea instead of editing something for a poetry prize.

Flamingosnbears · 22/03/2019 19:57

Must admit I think tragic story first too...

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