Why is it so offensive to say that a name will date?

[LotusClover]

Hello everyone,

I've noticed on a lot of these threads, some posters get very angry and defensive when someone suggests that a name will date.

Why?

So okay, you might not agree - or even care - that it will date. Fair enough. But isn't the whole purpose of this forum to give our opinions in an honest and constructive way? No one's saying you have to agree with these opinions.

I see posters describing names as "ugly" and "downmarket", and saying that they "hate" them. And no one bats an eyelid. But as soon as you say you think a name is going to date, you have people jumping on your case like you've just committed a crime.

Sorry for the long post, but I feel like I'm missing something here. What's so bad about suggesting that a name will date?

Thank you

And apparently she has Katherines in her family that no one wants to sit next to at parties.

😂😂 Lordy looks like I have a stalker on all the name threads now.

@TerribleCustomerCervix yes, I think katherine is a boring name, as is Katie - very vanilla, makes me think of someone quite subdued and uptight. So negative connotations from me. Is that a crime?

Equally when I think of the name (for example) Layla I imagine an outgoing girl with blonde hair.

My point is everyone makes connotations and it is quite different from person to person. You will never have everyone love your name choice, even if it is 'classic'. So just choose something you love (unless it is absolutely ridiculous like Papaya or something) rather than a safe option that doesnt sparkle and other people may not like anyway.

Teaghan is beautiful and means little poet in Gaelic. So guessing it's quite old. I knew a teaghan and she was stunning.

I'm not a stalker, this conversation was about two days ago and I don't have the memory of a goldfish.

Teaghan is beautiful

That's what lots of people thought about Tracey for a few years.

Is that a crime?

It's not a crime, it's just a bit idiotic given that there are so many of them out there and they're all completely different.

Just like any other name pepere you're the 'idiotic' one if you cant work that one out!

I don't like Tracy btw. Makes me think of tracing paper and grease.

I have a 'bland', perennial name (on the Jane Austen list!) and I really like it.

Nobody tends to make assumptions about me because of my name; it doesn't belong to any particular age or class. It's a blank canvas for my personality. And everyone can spell it and pronounce it!

I think anybody who depended on their name for their individuality would have to be a bit insecure.

It's not "just like any other name" though, because lots of other names will say very clear things about your age, social class, possibly your parents' intelligence (e.g. if your name is misspelt) and give people scope to judge you before they meet you.

@peperethecat

I wouldn't judge anyone on their name! I know so many people with 'common' names that hold good or professional jobs.

I think you're just projecting your own snobbery onto other people.

@GigiLamour glad you like it hate my 'classic' name! It's so dull and yuck.

I wouldn't judge anyone on their name!

Good for you I guess, but tons of other people will.

I'll give you a couple of scenarios. If you showed me two 20 year olds working in a bar in July and told me that one was called Elizabeth (let's move on from Katherine) and one was called Teaghan, and told me to guess which one was a permanent member of staff and which one was an Oxford undergrad just working there in the summer holidays, I would guess that Elizabeth was the Oxford undergrad and Teaghan was the permanent barmaid. Call me judgemental if you like, but I bet 99% of other people would guess the same.

Flip it round the other way. I'm visiting Oxford University and I'm shown around by a female undergraduate. If she introduces herself as Elizabeth, I don't bat an eyelid. If she introduces herself as Teaghan I probably have a flicker of surprise. Not necessarily in a bad way - getting into Oxford is a bigger achievement if you're a working class kid who went to a crappy comprehensive than it is if you're a middle class kid who went to private school. But I'd be making the assumption that an Elizabeth was a middle class kid and Teaghan wasn't, because posh middle class professional parents who shop at Waitrose and send their kids to good schools don't call their kids names like Teaghan.

These are the judgements that people make, rightly or wrongly.

It's much, much harder to judge someone with a classic, timeless name. And if you do, you tend to judge them in a good way.

What I really like about my name IS that it's classic and bland!

It's OK in itself; it's nothing special. But then I don't want it to be anything special. I want to be able to put my own mark on it.

@peperethecat

Your bizarre piece of fiction makes no sense, I'm actually laughing imagining you interrogating some poor nervous first year on what their name is and how it is spelt 😂😂

They'd probably think, gawd what an awful Katherine...

I'm actually laughing imagining you interrogating some poor nervous first year on what their name is and how it is spelt

If this is what you're imagining then you have completely missed the point, which is probably because you have the IQ of the average Teaghan.

Oh pepere lighten up 😂😂 of course I understand it, but you dont seem to understand that POV fantasy only relates to you.

You're worried about being judged by your own standards!

It really doesn't though.

As demonstrated by the fact that on the other thread you kept banging on about how Teaghan is a beautiful name and Katherine is awful, despite all the other posters chiming in to say that Teaghan was dreadful and it would be much better to have a classic name like Katherine (but you ignored them all because they weren't saying what you wanted to hear).

All names have there time!!
I have never meet anyone called Lisa that’s older then me loads born in the late 1960, early 1970.

Haven’t heard of anyone call there baby Lisa for years, it’s of it’s time maybe in another twenty/thirty years people will like it again.

Love all the old classic names being used again.

I've never seen Teaghan spelt that way. I knew a beautiful (clever) welsh girl once called Tegan...lovely name.

DD2 is 19 and her closest friends are Karen, Margaret and Justine. She also had a Lisa in her class.

I didnt say it was awful pepere I said it was dull. Which I think it is! A dull name chosen by people who have hopes their child will be a librarian or something. That is my interpretation which proves not everybody associates a classic name with intelligence.

Your interpretation of Teaghan being chavvy and awful is your interpretation.

See, we are all different 😄 a name is never a guarantee.

It definitely looks classier spelt that way, @Franticbutterfly. Still not overly keen though.

I think Charlotte is a good one if you want a name that says absolutely nothing about your social background. Not too posh for a council estate (there were quite a few very ordinary Charlottes at my comprehensive school), but also classy enough for the fourth in line to the throne and everyone in between.

I think the main issue about saying a name will date is that no one knows which names will date! So you might think now that you can be confident that Isla and River will date, but actually each generation will have a name or two that survives into the list of more classic names. And then there will be a lot of names that won’t be seen as classic but won’t be seen as awfully dated either.

For example, Teaghan to me isn’t that obviously going to date - it’s a classic Welsh name and the one person I know called Tegan is a beautiful Canadian in her twenties. I’d say names like Bodhi-Rae are more obviously never going be classics, but then that doesn’t mean they will define a generation either... For me, the big popular name now that will date is Aria, as it’s rise is so directly linked to Game of Thrones, but it is actually very pretty so I could be completely wrong and it will stick around.

A dull name chosen by people who have hopes their child will be a librarian or something.

Nobody hopes their child will be a librarian, don't be so stupid.

It's a name chosen by people who want their child to be anything they want to be, whether that is a barrister, an actress, a nurse, a professional athlete or a stay at home parent. (I know Katherines doing all these things.)

It's a name chosen by parents who know that in the real world people make assumptions about people based on their names, and want to choose a name that isn't going to disadvantage their child or hold them back.

And however much you might protest to the contrary, being called Teaghan is far more likely to hold someone back (because people rightly or wrongly make negative assumptions about them) than being called Katherine.

For example, Teaghan to me isn’t that obviously going to date - it’s a classic Welsh name

It's not a classic Welsh name.

It's not the worst name, and it's not a name that is obviously going to date (I think names have to be more popular than Teaghan to actually date), I just think it sounds kind of downmarket.

@notalwaysalondoner that's what I think!

The only negative assumption that I would make is if it was ridiculous such as Candycane or Papaya or something. But Teaghan, Layla, Aria... whatever, they're names, they dont represent anything stupid and if you have a problem with them, well, you're probably the type of 'stay in your place' try-hard whose opinion wouldn't really matter to me anyway.

A lot of the names on your list were quite ridiculous, @Wolfgirrl. I can't remember what the others were now, but most of them were really very naff, and I wasn't the only one who thought so.