Does anyone regret their name choice?

[HD98]

I'm just interested, I suppose it's not the sort of thing you hear people openly confess. But do you?

Or any that you regret Not using?

Yes! I am a greedy name pig and I love lots of names. I'm always a bit sad we didn't use x, y or z.

We have one with quite a common, classic name and another with a classic name, which is a lot less common. I sometimes regret one or the other, for the opposite reasons! One because it's too common and the other because it might be perceived as a bit out there, because it's less common! All in all though, no serious regrets. I am very glad we went with traditional / classic, as I don't think the names will date too badly.

My little one is nearly 4 and I still love his name.
Baby #2 is finding harder to find the name x

Disappointed is what I'd call what I am.
I wanted a specific name as first name but was only 'allowed' an abbreviated version as middle name. When I admitted to a group of friends how I felt they told me to use the middle name instead as lots of people are known as their middle name, the name used is lovely etc; but actually just admitting my disappointment was enough to help me gain acceptance. If I ever get the chance to give the full name as a middle name though, I'd change it by deed poll.
Even to me that didn't make much sense, so well done if you know what I mean 🤣

People regularly seem to post about it here. In real life, no, I don't know anyone who even gives it a thought. Your child's name is their name, no need to keep agonising about it.

No, I love them

No, I love my children’s names.

Name regret threads come up fairly frequently on MN, and when the OP starts to give a bit more info it very often seems to be the case that excessive fixation on the child’s name is a symptom of PND.

@bridgetreilly

People regularly seem to post about it here. In real life, no, I don't know anyone who even gives it a thought. Your child's name is their name, no need to keep agonising about it.

This is definitely true as well btw. I covet baby names, because I love so many, but serious baby name regret, I think is different. I think, for some people, it can be a sign of PND. I'm sure I read that on here.

Generally, your child's name you love because it's their name and they grow into it.

I think that finding THE perfect baby name can be a bit of a poisoned chalice. I know a few people who changed their names when they left school, so finding THE perfect name, may end up not being perfect for the dc, if that makes sense.

I love my DS’s name. No regrets.

Not me but one of my dsis. She has 3dc and middle one starts with different initial. She wishes all 3 had the same. I think she's bonkers.

I love my daughter's name but I sometimes wonder whether I should have gone for a different spelling of a middle name. It's a Greek muse so has a couple of variations. Realised on the way home from the registry that it was also a model of car...

I do, although I have never voiced it irl.

We had two names we were choosing between, we chose the one we did partially as a tribute to a relative who died while I was pregnant but in truth I actually prefer the other name that we didn't use.

To clarify, regret is a bit strong. More a case of if I had the time over I would go the other way.

I do regret one of mine a bit, I must admit. But we gave her the “long/proper” version of the name (which I’m now so glad about), so just use that more and more.

I love the names of my DC, although I would have liked to have included my Mum's maiden name and my maiden names as a middle name but DH wasn't keen.

I agree that the names wouldn't have gone well together, but I recently realised that my maiden name has ended its line as my DB only had girls and my cousins haven't had any DC so made me wish I had included it.

I sort of regret my DSs names, if I'm honest.

I blame MIL. 😂 But in a way, I do. And, again, if I'm honest, DH for not stepping in a bit more. Given that this was his overbearing mother.

Mine's first names are Apostles. Neither run in the family, as such. Tho my family have names like Ebenezer and Maud...

Middle names, DS1's; my beloved grandfather (which I now regret, a tiny bit, as to keep the peace, he apparently didn't make a Will).... messy.

DS2's middle name is utterly random. It's Rohan. Way before LOTR! Just- why? Why did we pick that? I can't tell you.

So my DS are Apostle-grandad name; and Apostle-random name. I wish I'd selected a family name from DH's side for

Oops! for a family connection. It could so easily have been Robert or Stephen.

Not Rohan. 😂

I love my children’s names; no.
Always loved DD & DS1 names. Naming DS2 was difficult and after 2 weeks of no name we gave in to pressure from family and had him registered with a name I really grew to dislike.
Anyway, 8 weeks after he was registered DH and I realised we only ever called him baby as we really didn’t like the name and it didn’t suit him at all so we went and paid £40 for a new birth certificate with his new name which I LOVE! It suits him so much. We loved it when I was pregnant but let family opinion sway us but never mind; that’s his name now and it’s perfect.

I love my DS, but wish I'd never let exh name him. I wish I'd put my foot down.

I am pleased with DD’s name, no regrets but I do think names are pretty unimportant on the whole. I don’t get the level of angst some people have about them.
I can’t get over excited about it but it definitely suits her.

@scrivette never too late to just include it. It's not expensive to add a middle name. I think that's really selfish you were persuaded out of it.

No, I love the name and I'm glad we picked it. It's Irish but doesn't sound out of place with his Indian middle and surname.

However, it makes me sad when I see the name described here as horrendous, vile, downmarket, chavvy, or a name of people who get in trouble with the police. Makes me worry that he might be looked down on for the name. But then I think feck it - people who judge others for their name are probably not people he'll want to be around.

Yes - sort of.

We chose a name for our second child which is very normal in our heritage and certain bits of the country but unusual in the south east, where we now live.

So after some deliberation and worry about people misspelling/pronouncing it, we registered the child with a similar, easier to spell, related name.

But....we all still called them the original name because it suited them better and felt more natural. And the registered name sounded really awful with a London accent, (plus people kept misspelling it anyway) so we stopped using it.

It took several years to get round to it but before they went to school, we changed it officially by deed poll to the name we originally chose (and had been using all along!) even though it's harder to spell/pronounce down south. But that's only a problem if we stay here, which we may not. And it turns out people only struggle with it the first time, then they get used to it.

Anyway, we should have listened to our instinct!

@scrivette why would you have lost your birth name because your brother “only had girls” Do girls always lose their birth name and naming rights to their children? Seems a little outdated if you don’t mind me saying so. Especially considering your own regret at relinquishing the name you were given. Why can’t your name be given to your children, your brothers children and their children in turn?

@Miljea
I also have a Rohan! Born 1999 so yes, before the lord of the rings films. Still named out of the lord of the rings though because that was written in 1954.

My living kids, no.

I lost a baby at 22 weeks pregnant and I’ve never admitted this in real life but I do regret our baby’s name. We were struggling with names before we found out anyway and everything on the list were ones I’d imagined my living child “growing into”, so none of them seemed right. While the name we chose is nice, it’s not one we’d have used if our child had lived. I wish we’d either already had a definite name picked out or had time to find something that we had a better connection with, but it was all such a rush preparing for hospital and we were so scared. It’s awful because the name is one of the very few things we have to hang on to.

I will also always be sad that my first choice for our second living child didn’t even make it in as a middle for either of them (it was on the middle name lost first time) I genuinely loved it, but DH strongly disliked it so it had to go. I love naming babies, so there are loads I would have loved to have used if we’d had more!
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