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?

It's not so much K as a letter as the fact that they're modern, fashionable names. Lots of these begin with K, it's a strong letter, and these are the ones that are sneered at.

Modern/fashionable = made up = the people doing the making up are silly/have no sense of history or what is 'proper'. That's basically it.

Switched to a rarely used name for this!

No child of mine will get a name starting with K because when combined with our surname, it makes a very unpleasant word.

I’m a Kirsten and most people tell me they like my name, I’ve never had a particularly strong opinion of it either way...

However, a friend of a friend of a ...
Has just had a baby girl called Kaicee and it makes my teeth itch a bit; despite really liking the name Casey.

I think in the world of marketing that K is seen as a "cheap" letter, particularly when it's in place of a c or a q. For example Kwik Save or Komfy Furniture etc. So it may have the same connotations with names?

Ds's reception class has LOADS of K names - 2 Kaydens, Keaton, Keira, Kianna, Koby off the top of my head.

Does this apply to “C” names like Caroline ?

The more I see Kacie the more I like it!

@CaffiSaliMali

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.

Cate, Cim , Citty, lol ok changing the k to c does look awkward.

@SallySeven

The more I see Kacie the more I like it!

Cakie (just doing a switcharoo lol to see how it would look)

I know a child called kloey and I think it looks really stupid.
Katy, Kenneth, Keith, kirsty etc are all fine but spelling with a k to be unique is just cringey

@AndNowItsHappeningInMine

Ds's reception class has LOADS of K names - 2 Kaydens, Keaton, Keira, Kianna, Koby off the top of my head.

We had Kayleigh, Kayanna, Kianna, Kieran, Keon, Kai, Kandice.

A lot of Anglicised versions of Scottish and Irish names (Kevin, Keith, Kenneth, Keiran) take a K. A lot of these were in fashion a few decades ago but have often been considered downmarket. Maybe there is a bit of anti-Scottish/Irish feeling behind it?

I don't know, those names are not current baby names in Scotland either.
A few years ago it was Cameron, Callum, Connor.

Probably because, many K names may not be original names but just bastardized forms of original spellings.

Like @greenteafiend said, many K names are anglicised forms of Scottish Gaelic and Irish C names and neither Iriish and Gaelic have a K in their alphabet.

There are less of them. The introduction and usage of the letter K may have played a role in the relative scarcity of English names starting with it. The letter K was not originally part of the Latin alphabet, which is the basis of many Western European languages including English. The letter K was added to the Latin alphabet during the Middle Ages as a result of contact with other languages, such as Greek. In ancient times, the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet, which later became widely used by different language speakers, including the Etruscans. Interestingly, although the Greek alphabet included symbols for both the G and K sounds, the Etruscans had no use for the former. Instead, they preferred to use gamma, which resembled the shape of the letter C, to represent their K sound. The Romans followed this tradition too; however, they required a letter for their G sound. So, they made a minor alteration to the C symbol, adding a small line, to invent the letter G. Notably, kappa remained neglected for a long time. Later on, Old English continued to use gamma for the K sound; eventually, we reintroduced the letter K when we borrowed more Greek words. It's worth noting that French influence played a role in the confusion around C, as they pronounced it like CH and later S. This influenced the English use of C in words such as "cyng," which we updated to "king" due to this confusion. However, we still retain many other words that use C for the K sound.

Classic Mumsnet!

Probably because a lot of people misspell their children's names by replacing a "C" with a "K", especially in Irish names where the letter "K" doesn't exist. Others are eastern European, so are often discounted here. I quite like some, including:

Ksenia
Kendra
Kate
Kimberly
Karen
Katerina
Katrina

Kevin
Kyle
Knox
Kenneth
Keith

Catherine of Aragon spelled her name variously during her lifetime, her daughter listed her name as Kateryn in her will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Aragon
"Spelling of her name Catherine of Aragon's arms while queen[104] Her baptismal name was "Catalina", but "Katherine" was soon the accepted form in England after her marriage to Arthur.[92] Catherine herself signed her name "Katherine", "Katherina", "Katharine" and sometimes "Katharina". In a letter to her, Arthur, her husband, addressed her as "Princess Katerine". Her daughter Queen Mary I called her "Quene Kateryn", in her will. Rarely were names, particularly first names, written in an exact manner during the sixteenth century and it is evident from Catherine's own letters that she endorsed different variations.[b] Loveknots built into his various palaces by her husband, Henry VIII, display the initials "H & K",[c] as do other items belonging to Henry and Catherine, including gold goblets, a gold salt cellar, basins of gold, and candlesticks. Her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral is marked "Katharine Queen of England"."

Yes, many Romance languages accepted C instead of K, but spelling of names weren't standardized until much later and that's true for many countries

I think many people dislike K in names due to unusual spellings and Kardashians, but it's entirely possible people who use unusual spelling are simply spelling names according to spelling conventions found in the home country if they are not English.

I think there are a lot of newer (to us) names like Kayden and Kylie that people associate as Aussie or American names as they haven’t travelled well.
There are perfectly lovely K names like Kate.
Perhaps another reason K names are disliked is because some people change names that we traditionally spelled with ‘C’ to a K to make them different eg Chloe is sometimes now spelled as Khloe?

Completely agree! Those names you have chosen on your list all sound real "chavvy" - you could of put "Keelie" "Kelsee" etc. on there too!

My name begins with a K but its very unusual and very old

Never heard of that before.
I have a Kate, adore her name as does she.
Love Katharine, Katrine, Kara, Kurt, Kieran, Kim, Katya.