Too try hard.

[Tillygetsit]

I'm sorry but I've gritted my teeth long enough! I've read 3 posts today where OPs have been told that the names they have chosen are too try hard. What does that mean? Surely we all try hard to find the perfect name. Does it mean pretentious and posters cant spell that?! Sorry to he goady but it's so irritating.

But associations are fine. People might associate Felix with a cat, Caspar with a ghost or Quentin with Tarantino. But that has nothing do with 'trying too hard' imo?

Yes it is try hard to use a name from a different language that you have no connection to. It’s the very definition of try hard

I have always loved the name Niamh. Ever since I was a little girl I knew I would use it if I had a daughter. Was I a "try hard" seven year old? Or, just maybe, is it simply a name that I like the sound of and like the way it looks written down? We don't all have a compulsion to impress other people. Some of us choose names because we like them and they aren't so ridiculous as to condemn our child to a lifetime of mockery.

Also, even if Niamh (because it's always the example that people like you give) is considered "pedestrian" in Ireland (which it won't be universally, because everyone has their own tastes) then it doesn't really matter because I'm not in Ireland and it doesn't sound that way to my ear.

'Try hard' is shorthand for 'I think you've got tickets on yourself but I can't quite articulate why so I'll put you in your place with this zinger' There's something particularly...grey and unimaginative about a sullen 'try hard'. We should all be trying hard to find good names!

To be honest when I see some of the names people on MN are considering for their child, names like Ethel or Cecil, I think 'TRY HARDER PLEASE'.

I think "try hard" names are those that appear to say more about the parents than they do the children. Names that signal how different/intellectual/alternative etc. you are. But I wonder whether there is actually an element of jealousy that such people are so confident in themselves that they're willing to use a very "different" name?

But any name says more about the parents than the child — the child being named is (usually) a newborn with no characteristics other than smallness and crying.* It has no input into its name, contrary to all those parents who say ‘Oh, the moment I saw him, I knew he wasn’t a Rupert but an Augustus!’

Calling your child George or Olivia says just as much about the parents as calling it Boaz or Rebel.

(*Obviously leaving out cultures where people name themselves once they officially become adults.)

But I wonder whether there is actually an element of jealousy that such people are so confident in themselves that they're willing to use a very "different" name?

I've wondered that too. Maybe parents of a child with a very common/popular name wish they themselves had chosen a more interesting name?

Meh, the Brits are the only culture who attach class aspirations to names.
Jayden, Hayden, Cayden, Lily-Mae = chav names
George, Olivia, Jack, Sophie = "normal" names / safe zone
Tarquin, Harriet, Rupert, Ptolemy = "posh" names
Bodhi, Reef, River, Raine, Asher = "try hard" names
Madison, Carter, Parker, Britney = "too American"

Name your child whatever you like and stop asking people's opinions - especially people on the damn internet. DS2 has a very popular Irish surname for firstname (not Riley) and I'm not Irish. Neither is DH, he's Scottish.

But both our boys have surnames for first names and on MN I always got a lot of "I hate surnames for first names, it's so American" until I mention DH is Scottish and very normal to use surnames for firstnames, and only then does it become acceptable.

If DS2 had been a girl, I wanted to name him Saoirse. Again, I'm not Irish. Try hard? Or nobody else's fucking business...?

In fact, one of his school's teachers has a deeply English but non-phonetic surname Bethune, pronounced Beecham which seems to cause more comment than any foreign names.

Perhaps because it's not pronounced Beecham? Bethune is a Norman name that travelled to England via Scotland and is pronounced Beaton. If the teacher is pronouncing it Beecham that really is "try hard"!

Blimey! Thought I'd pop back and it's all kicked off! On reflection, I think calling somebody's name choice try hard is sneery so I pledge I will never do it.

Try hard’ gets used on here by Little Englanders who suffer from both xenophobia and tall poppy syndrome and think everyone should call their children George and Sophie. Anything else is Getting Above Yourself, and Having Notions.

I think this sums it up perfectly!

Names that signal how different/intellectual/alternative etc. you are

Well, yes, this is what we're discussing. HOW exactly do you think a name signals someone is intellectual? And in order to not 'signal you're different' you'd have to use a top 20 name, regardless of what names those are for the year. Ironically most names are not top 20 names, so does that make them less different?!

The lack of logic in this thinking astounds me!