What makes a name officially ‘made up’

[ikeakia]

And why can’t you have a ‘made up’ name without Judgement?

Surely all names were made up at some point, even those with a very long history. Someone had to be the first one to use it and why are we so against that now? When does it become a ‘name’ in it’s own right?

Btw, I’m not talking about ‘yoo-nique’ spellings or presentations of established names.

I mean more ones you’ve conjured out of the air yourself or perhaps combination names from one or more other names to create something unheard of.

I’ve noticed there seems to be a real thing on here about declaring that names are or sound made up (even if they aren’t, just very uncommon) which often goes with the poster not liking the name. Just wondered other posters thoughts?

For what it’s worth, I have one child who goes by an unusual animal name, not bear/fox/wolf but a feminine one. And one with a combination name that is mostly easy to say/pronounce and sounds like a proper name anyway.

I think parents should try to choose names that can take a person through childhood and into any future. Okay, you don't know whether your baby will like your choice, but I think parents should try not to pick something they might be embarrassed by.

But again, you just don’t know what may or may not embarrass a person who at that point of naming them you don’t know.

My children definitely aren’t embarrassed by their names. They might have been, but they aren’t so there’s no point me worrying about it.

I have no idea what Butterfly will grow up to be or if, as I suspect, she’ll keep her nickname. If she does become a professional though then there’s no reason she shouldn’t have that name if she wants to.

I expect you've heard of Dr Pixie McKenna.
Would you remember her if she was going by Bernadette?

Whether it's right or not, people do make judgements about others based partly on their names. Without getting to know your children, they will be making all kinds of assumptions about your social class, education levels, attitudes to school and employment based on this. It absolutely shouldn't be important, but it is. A kid with an eccentric name will be given more leeway in life if they are privately educated and wealthy than one with the same name who goes to a normal comp. Rich people who give their kids made up names are seen as eccentric - normal people are seen as chavy.
There's no 'real', tangible reason why a child with a made up name can't be a high court judge but you are stacking the odds slightly against them. I don't know why a parent would do that on purpose.

It's easy to cite the occasional successful person with an unusual name. But how many other kids had their CV's binned by an employer who made a snap judgement?
It's wrong but it does happen. Look at the teacher threads on here where children with 'K' names are viewed as naughty before the teacher had even met them!

It may happen, but it also doesn’t in other cases. It’s an argument that just goes on and on because there’s no definite answer. Some children will thrive with an unusual name and others won’t. As long as they have options then it really shouldn’t matter to anyone else.

I can wholeheartedly say that my children have never had an issue with their names. They’re easy to spell and pronounce. They stand out enough because they’re the only ones in the area, but they’ve never experienced negativity. People may eye roll to themselves and I might care if the children didn’t like the names but they do. They don’t see their names as unusual or odd even if others do and so won’t lack confidence when they get older over them.

I'm glad your children like their names. And arguably you wouldn't want them working for the sort of tosser who'd bin a CV based on narrow minded judgement. Maybe having unusual names will help them weed out people you wouldn't want in their lives anyway.

I suppose that’s how I look at it.

They both have other names to fall back on if they need something more mainstream but I would honestly hope that they had been raised to have the confidence to keep the names they had always been called.

It's Malandra. Malcom and Sandra.
There is a journalist called Gavanndra - named after her father Gavin.

Not RTFT, but Vanessa and Wendy were made up.

People use made up names as an insult as you best the name, cringe, and make assumptions that the parents are a bit chavtastic. And they usually are! I know the ch word isn’t liked much on here, but basically that’s the only way to answer the question. Sorry..

*hear the name

Also people who have tried incredibly hard to invent a yoonique name tend to like to talk about those names an awful lot, which is also pretty cringe.

To be honest I’m not too fussed what people think of me if the only thing they’re basing an opinion on is my choice of names.

I’m not a chav ( but then I suppose most people would say that!)

I just liked the names. I didn’t spend ages trying to come up with something unique for the sake of it, one popped into my head randomly and felt right, the other was nicknamed by her sister.

In your scenario Octavia is a lovely name and does Dracob have a nice sound to it. I was more answering the question in a general way.

*Dracob does - I really need to read posts back before posting!

I only know two people with "made up" names. One is Jacelle although in fairness it was meant to be Giselle but her parents didn't know how to spell it The other is Cherian (pronounced Sherian) which is a mixture of Cherie - French parent - and Ann. I like both of them.

I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t lower class that did this.

Did you see the post about Jacob Rees Mogg?

All people are unique, special, individual. Whether they are called Sarah, John, Persemelia or Johnasteve.

It's a modern trend (mostly) to give your child a you-neek or very unusual name so that you can prove to the entire world just how special and unique YOUR baby is, compared with all those other babies who are just not quite so special.

I'm not a fan - there are so many "proper" names out there which aren't used any more with regularity, why do you need to be chopping up ordinary names and mashing them together, or putting random sounds together? In Scotland we publish full lists of all names given to babies in a given year. For 2018, there was only one girl born in the whole of Scotland called:

Yvonne
Carolina (and Caroline)
Ann
Bronwen
Denise
Diane
Christine
Claudine
Jayne
Estelle
Wanda
Thomasina
Kathleen
Judy
Theresa
Tania
Susan
Shona
Sinead
Shelley
Prudence
Lynsey
Margarita
Kay
Patricia
Pandora
Nadine
Monica
Lucille
Lorraine

OK so they won't all be to everyone's taste. But I'd far rather call a newborn baby girl Monica, Kay or Shona than some of the other "unique" names given, like Sassi-Boo or Peculiar.

I agree there are some lovely names there, Thomasina is a family middle name.

Nadine is lovely too.

@Aderyn19 just wondering if you work in the legal field as I do. There are SO many weird and wonderful names at the CPS and that’s only going to increase as names become increasingly unusual. No one cares about your name in the legal profession as it is let alone in 20 years. Infact a few of the Male partners at a large firm ive worked at actually changed their names to be more unique. I honestly think they see themselves a bit like pop stars and think that if they have memorable wacky names clients will be more likely to remember them when they are wracking brains about which lawyer to email.

teacher threads on here where children with 'K' names are viewed as naughty before the teacher had even met them!

Really?! That's totally ridiculous.

I know an adult professional who goes by 'sunshine' it's not her real name but it's the only name anyone ever calls her. More power to her of she wants to be called Butterfly into adulthood, I love it!

Whatsyourflava, I don't work in the legal field (am a former teacher). I would say that it's maybe easier to mark out your 'difference' once you have an established career, than when you are starting out and relying on people not to make negative judgements about you from your CV.
If things are changing, then I'm glad to hear it. I do think that some people still make judgements about social class and the type of family you come from, based on names.

There's another thread running at the moment about whether people are giving their children names they consider to be aspirational, in order to jump social class. It's very interesting. Iirc it does refer to studies conducted amongst teachers regarding how they view classes they haven't yet met, on the basis of their names. It probably is true though, that the more common it becomes for unusual names are used, the harder it will be for people to make snap judgements.

Why so much nastiness to @ikeakia?
Her kids, her choice.
None of us know what the future holds in store when we name our kids (my standard English name has a negative meaning in the country I now live in)
I also definitely don't think all the kids being born now and being given made up or unusual names will be jobless bc of their names. The world will be a different place and our sensible names might seem ridiculous by then.

They are her kids and it is her choice. But she started a thread to discuss those choices. There's no point in doing that if she doesn't want honest opinions. I hope I'm wrong because in theory the OP is right - everything was made up at some point and it shouldn't matter. But I think it still will matter, when her DC reach adulthood.