Will an unusual name cause problems?

[Winter5]

I really want to call our little girl Ophelia! I realise it isn’t the most out - there name but I have never come across any myself.

I have since read all sorts online mocking the name etc and it has put me off slightly even though I appreciate everyone has different tastes.

I wondered if any parents who have named their children something a little different could offer their opinion!

My main concern is bullying in future...will my child resent me for making them possibly stand out (?!).. thinking back I can’t remember any kids being picked on purely based on their name.. though maybe I was just lucky I didn’t experience it myself ( ?!)

Opinions welcome :-)

My children have unusual names. 13 children given dd's name in year she was born and ds's name has never appeared on ons data. They are both real and not made up names and haven't had any issue with them at all. I used to be a primary teacher and we had so many different names that children didn't bat an eyelid at all when meeting a child with an interesting or unusual name.

Ophelia is a lovely name as well

I think the area where you are as well makes a huge difference as well. Our school has a fair few Polish families, lots of Hindu and Sikh families, a handful of Muslim families, a proportion of Jamaican families as well as white English families. We're a single form entry school so only about 220 students. You look down the list of names and it's incredibly hard to pick out much about the kids. My kid's include a Castiel and honestly I don't think anyone will think twice

I wouldn't say its unusual, I know 2 and I'm pretty sure its one of the fastest rising girls names

Children's names rarely get teased. Maybe a name like Fanny or Willi or something childish.

But Ophelia is beautiful and not remotely tease worthy imo.

That’s true, I have heard it a bit recently on naming boards so maybe it is becoming popular. My eldest daughter has a popular name & she is the only one in her class, whereas there are three other girls with the same name that isn’t even in the top 50. I guess it is luck of the draw! I believe Olivia is the top name at the moment for girls (?) there isn’t one in the year group.. again I guess it depends on popularity in certain areas.

Thanks for the reassurance it’s nice to know. As many of you have said, there are far more unusual names .. I guess these days anything goes & the negative reactions I’ve had have mainly been from older generations. Perhaps in previous times the range of names was less.. or it just seemed that way?

My daughter has an unusual name. Kids never even blink at it, it's just what she is called.
Adults on the other hand, seem to have very marmite reactions and can be less polite than their children!

Ophelia is lovely.

The woman who used to live next door to my mum was a child minder. One of her charges was Ophelia. The other kids used to call her ‘ awful’ as a nick name.
I love it personally. Much more used now this was about 15 years ago.

People are not, contrary to popular belief, bullied because of their name. Children will always find ways to tease or bully other children who they perceive to be vulnerable. Children with the same name can be bullies or be bullied.

Many names do have the potential to be the form of bullying that a bully goes for, but even with the most normal name imaginable, a bully will find a way to bully.

So just pick the name you like. You can't predict what future children will or won't do, and there is no way to protect your child from everything.

People are not, contrary to popular belief, bullied because of their name.

I was.

@SoupDragon

People are not, contrary to popular belief, bullied because of their name.

I was.

Because of your name or because your name told something about them that they'd have picked on you for anyway? Or because it was an easy thing to pick on you about and they'd have just found something else? And I ask that as someone who was picked on so I'm absolutely not dismissing

As I clearly said, it was because of my name. If I had been called Ann Smith nothing would have happened

I was bullied because of my name at school, but Ophelia is a lovely name, go for it.

I have an unusual name. I was never bullied at school but it is tiresome always having to spell my name and many people cannot pronounce it. I gave my children common names as I think life is much easier then,

@SleepingStandingUp @SoupDragon
I was bullied because my name is Lesley-Ann, so I was 'lesbian'.
I was dating boys, slim, pretty, popular. Some kids are just uneducated dicks.
I didn't deserve to be bullied because my parents liked my name, bloody ridiculous.

I think it's a lovely name with wonderful literary connections. It's definitely not the worst name I've seen on MumsNet lol..buy a country mile.

I think you need a really silly name to be bullied for it. Even then it’s not going to be something that will be long term usually. At school you grow up thinking the people in your class have normal names. There was a girl called Aiden in my class and I grew up thinking that was a girl’s name.

It would always remind me of the burlesque performer "Ophelia Bits", but most aren't as au fait with such things as I.

I've got an unusual name - Morwenna - hated it as a child and was teased a little but LOVE it now!

I think the older generations often assume that there will be issues with names where there really aren't any.
I recall being pregnant with my first and being in hospital with HG. My parents visited and told me about their friends who had cried for a whole day (yup) because their first granddaughter was called Ruby May and "both names are so unheard of and so old fashioned". This was in 2002. I think by the end of the following year it felt like it had almost become the law that you had to call your daughter Ruby May.
Ophelia is a nice name. It's unusual but not unheard of. It's probably going to increase in popularly but I can't see it rocketing.

We have a Castiel 💜 he's 4 ☺️ it suits him so well too!

Ophelia is quite popular at the moment and certainly not unusual

I was teased a little for my name at school but nothing terrible. My name is a perfectly normal name in Wales but I grew up in England. Most of the kids who were teased or bullied about their names at school was because of their surnames, for example Dix or Balls or a child with a name like Wise or Smart who wasn't very bright.

As long as Ophelia doesn't clash with your surname - Balls/Johnson/Dix etc. I think it's fine.

Sometimes as a child it was annoying that I couldn't buy tat with my name on in gift shops. Of course this was before the days of being able to buy personalised things on Etsy. Overall I liked - and still do like - having a more unusual name.

Ophelia is gaining in popularity and also very on trend - seeing Aurelia, Ottilie, Clementine, etc - long, feminine, pretty, flowy names gaining in popularity recently, both on name boards and in real life. I don't think it will be especially unusual for long, and is very familiar - close to Olivia, Isabella, etc. It won't stand out enough to seem weird or cause bullying, I'm sure. It's pretty.