Why don’t people like K names?

[RosieLemonade]

A lot of people don’t seem to like names that start with K on MN and probably the wider community. What do you think is the reason behind this?

ds is Conrad and that could have been spelled with K but to me that just looks wrong I think with a lot of names that is the issue the C looks more rounded I guess.

As there is no k in the Irish language I dislike seeing Irish names changed to a K. (Ciara to kiara, Ciarán to Kieran, Cillian to Killian) and I think as a previous poster said changing a name to a k from a C (chloe to Khloe) does seem like it's trying too hard to be different. I don't understand why someone would make that change . That's the only thing I would ever notice about k names.

Even if one wants to be different , why do people care so much ?

Many are "youneeq" whereas a lot of traditional K names are simply old fashioned names that aren't yet old enough to be trendy vintage sounding names. The latter will return.

It depends entirely on the name for me.

J names are usually popular.

I'm not keen on G as a first name initial but I don't know why.

I tend to dislike names with Th in them unless there are other strong sounding consonants.

I'm not keen on vowel-heavy names.

The K in anglicised irish names (Kian, Kiera) seems a bit unaspirational, but the two examples are celebrity-inspired names.
Kate, Kenneth, Kim, Karen etc are fine.

@Rathmobhaile

As there is no k in the Irish language I dislike seeing Irish names changed to a K. (Ciara to kiara, Ciarán to Kieran, Cillian to Killian) and I think as a previous poster said changing a name to a k from a C (chloe to Khloe) does seem like it's trying too hard to be different. I don't understand why someone would make that change . That's the only thing I would ever notice about k names.

Well, agreed, in line with what @Garcellesaidwhaaat said above, but when a poster in a fairly recent thread proposed calling her baby Cillian (very mainstream in Ireland, and well-known in the UK because of Cillian Murphy), surprising numbers of posters said they would have assumed a soft 'C' sound and pronounced it as 'Silly-Ann'. Which I confess had never occurred to me.

MN has a fair proportion of snobs and people who are ignorant of cultures and norms other than their own.

@unmarkedbythat

MN has a fair proportion of snobs and people who are ignorant of cultures and norms other than their own.

But so does the real world.

Kos they’re a bit kommon init?!

Snobbery does cover it really. I feel embarrassed for people who are so uptight about naming conventions.

Given how much of English was artificially altered to look more French and therefore 'sophisticated' it's quite funny how defensive people are about others changing it to something less pretentious (or back to what it was before). Or incorporating influences from different languages. So many of our common "English" names are actually butchered anglicised versions of names from other languages anyway.

Other alphabets only have a K and S letter without a C. That's the reason for some spellings that use a K instead of a C.

Although who cares why people use different spellings? Language changes over time. That's what makes it interesting and human.

@Garcellesaidwhaaat

In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters C, K and Q were all used to represent the sounds /k/ and /ɡ/ (which were not differentiated in writing). Of these, Q was used before a rounded vowel (e.g. ⟨EQO⟩ 'ego'), K before /a/ (e.g. ⟨KALENDIS⟩ 'calendis'), and C elsewhere. Later, the use of C and its variant G replaced most usages of K and Q. K survived only in a few fossilized forms such as Kalendae, "the calends".[4]

After Greek words were taken into Latin, the Kappa was transliterated as a C. Loanwords from other alphabets with the sound /k/ were also transliterated with C. Hence, the Romance languages generally use C, in imitating Classical Latin's practice, and have K only in later loanwords from other language groups. The Celtic languages also tended to use C instead of K, and this influence carried over into Old English.

My kind of answer...thank you!

It's all a bit Kool and the Gang.

1970s speak.

Might be the link to the Kardashians but there’s plenty of nice K names

@AltoCation

I agree that the tendency to use K in place of C to create ‘unique’ spellings (Kortni, Kloe etc) has made K seem less of a ‘classic’ name.

Plus many invented or newly used names begin with K - Kayanna, Keon, Kiana, etc.

Newly invented names are often viewed as ‘non classic’

And using K as a phonetic replacement for Ch or Qu looks ‘less educated’.

I don’t agree with these reasons, just observing.

Dear God, please tell me nobody has actually been cruel enough to name their child Kortni...

Many years ago I worked for CAMHS and it was noted that there were considerably more children registered with a K name than any other. It could just be that there were more K names around at the time but we did joke never to call your child a name beginning with K!

Lots of girls at my school had K names - Katharine, Kathryn, Katie/Katy, Kate, Kayley/Kayleigh, Kimberley/Kim, Kelsey and Kirsty/Kirstie. School was a sea of Katies, Kirstys and Kims in particular.

I know several posh Katherine's who go by Kitty or Kate and a very posh Kathryn so I tend to associate K names as more posh than anything else.

I actually can’t think of a single modern K name that I like... but I’m not sure why. I’ll keep brainstorming.

(Slightly older names like Katie, Keira, Kayleigh... all nice enough but not sure about naming a baby those now as they’d be quite far down the list for me.)

AngeloMysterioso you are one google away from the awful truth

I have seen it mooted here, too, in times past.

One third of DC’s primary school class had names beginning with K.

I think there's a difference between classic names that have always started with a K and those where the more usual C has been replaced with a K. I feel the same about the latter as I do when a Y has been replaced by I or CK by X - it just seems a bit naff really.

My name begins with a K and I love it.

I think they think it's kommon.

For me it's not necessarily that I don't like the name itself (there are several K names I like the sound of) but the actual look of the letter K itself! It just doesn't look nice to me its all harsh and spikey looking, which I know probably sounds odd, but its as simple as that for me. If I write the letter k where a capital is not required then I do it with the rounded top (that looks like R with a long back).

Because they’re usually krap?

Some K names are nice. I think it is the trying to stand out and be yooneek. I can't imagine a Kayden or a Kyla in the royal family. They're less 'classic ' thus seen as more common.