Opinions please? Our top 3’s

[gonewiththepotter]

I’m still early doors pregnancy but just starting to think about names a little and looking for some opinions.

We haven’t found out gender.

Boy:

• Arthur
• Henry
• Alexander
• Charles

Girl-

• Alice
• Emily
• Clara
• Lyra

Any opinions welcome but please don’t be ‘nasty’ about any as they’re all on the table currently

Lovely set of names - I think my favourites are Henry and Alice.

I like all your boys names. Alexander is lovely although I'm not keen on Alex as a nn. Henry and Charles are classic although very popular. Arthur is fab although, again, popular among babies / toddlers at the moment! If I had to pick one I'd pick Henry but all good choices.

Clara is my favourite girls name on your list. I'm not a fan of Alice or Emily. Lyra is nice too - quite unusual.

I like Charles and Lyra

Like all your boy names, although I suspect Charles would become Charlie which I really don't like, so I'd not use it for that reason.

Love Alice and Clara. Grew up with a zillion Emilys and I'm afraid it is a very bland name to me. Lyra is too close to liar and lycra so for me always sounds or looks misspelt.

All a bit meh to me sorry

I know five young Arthurs. It is a very common name and I always associated it with being a bit of a sloooow ploddy type person with a deep voice.

My favourites:

1. Alexander
2. Henry

1. Alice
2. Clara

You may find Lyra is more popular than you think ( and similar sounds to the very popular Lila) - not sure where it is in the stats, but it comes up on this site a lot.

I absolutely love Alice (hence my user name) and like all your boys' names but Arthur is my favourite.

Charles and Alice.
The boys names are all fine - I picked Charles over Alexander because I really like Charlie and Chas isn't bad, Alex has been too popular and Xander is awful. Arthur and Henry are just ok.

Alice is lovely. Emily is so popular but I'm not a fan - I prefer Emma.
I don't like Clara - it's the Cl bit.
Lyra is awful.

Love Henry and Alice

So had another little chat with DH this morning based on your wonderful replies and we think we’ve shortlisted

Alice and Clara

Arthur and Henry

Although the jury is still out on Lyra, it’s the one we love now but worry we’ll regret later xx

I don’t think you’ll meet tonnes - my Clara is 5 & we’ve yet to meet another. It might be in the top 100 but at 0.09% of babies - pretty rare. The current trend is for parents to strive to be as unique as possible so even the top names aren’t anywhere near as commonly used as the popular names of the past.

Lyra is at 183 though so very very rare at 0.04% of babies. I love the name Lyra but it gets very strong mixed feedback which puts me off - I’m one for a nice safe name myself. I do personally love it though.

Clara and Alexander

Alexander has been knocked off im afraid as we’ve just heard that DH’s cousin is planning to use that if baby is a boy!

Love Clara though

They’re all great except Alice, which is boring and twee.

Henry is a brilliant name - one of my favourites.

I love Alice and Clara. Think I'd go for Alice.
Possibly Alice Clara (Surname)?
The only boy's name I really liked was Alexander. Next best I'd say is Charles with nn Charlie.

I love Henry and Emily! Really nice.

Charles and Arthur are also fab.

Alice is nice enough, but I'm not mad about it for some reason.

Lyra, Clara and Alexander are my least favourite on your list because I know a lot of little children with these names for some reason! I think they're having a moment. Alexander is pretty classic so I don't think it will date, but I think Lyra and Clara might do.

None are total stinkers though!

Congratulations on your pregnancy too .

My daughter is called one of your girls choices and if our second was a girl we were also going to go for one of your other girls choices! Our boy's choices were also the same or similar to what you have, our second ended up being a boy and we decided on Peter.

Love all your boys' names - Henry would be my top choice. Be warned that there are an awful lot of young Charles/Charlies these days, in case that sways you,

Girls I like Alice and weirdly I'm loving Lyra, possibly because I'm overexcited by the new trailer for Northern Lights tv series this autumn.

Actually, I'd probably avoid Lyra for that reason. Not keen on the idea that someone thinks I'd named my daughter after a tv character (especially when the book is so great).

No one will pronounce it Liar a, unique in a 2 yr old not so much on a 30 yr old 🙄
Clara & Alexander

The little Lyras I know are lie-ra. Not all that different to Liar-a. Do other people say lee-ra or something?

I wouldn't bother about what names your cousins use for their children! I would only avoid names immediate family use.

I like all your choices but agree Lyra is not unique. Only today I saw one of the presenters on Cbbc say he'd used it for his baby. I think it's on the rise.

Clara keeps cropping up on threads lately too.

@kenandbarbie
We’re quite close to our cousins (go on holidays together as a big family etc.

I really like Arthur and Henry (probably slightly prefer Henry), Alexander is lovely too but I'm not a huge fan of Alex (I do like Alec, Anders and Zander though). I don't like Charles as I dislike Charlie (for a boy really like it for a girl)

I like Emily and Lyra. Clara is OK, not a fan of Alice really