Do you think about the ‘area’ that your child is growing up in when naming them?

[SecondBabyGirl]

Just that really. Obviously there’s certain things to take into account like accents. But also just the general area and what sort of name you can get away with. Eg my friend lives in Brighton and called her daughter a very hippy/earthy name and I don’t think anyone bats an eyelid. But people would probably spit out their tea where I live if I said I called me daughter that name. Some areas are more hippy, some more posh/traditional, some much less so. Where I live isn’t particularly ‘out there’ and most of the girls names I hear at the park at Lily, Emily, Olivia etc and it makes me wonder if I can get away with a more unusual name or not?

I wouldn't give my child an "out there" name because they're going to have to live with it forever and take it wherever they go

I feel like I should clarify that I’m not considering calling my child Yoghurt or anything like that I suppose I mean more within the “normal” range.

My first time at Glastonbury I was stood behind a family queuing for food and their kids were called Rainbow and Star, it did make me think that it might be fine if you live in Street or Brighton or Stroud (or even London) but they might feel ridiculous when they’re older if they end up living in Hull.

What makes you think you’ll always live in the same place, even when your child is young, far less that your child will stay there in adulthood? DS, who is 8, was born in north London where our NCT group included babies called Thiago, Sebastian, Laure, and Buzz, moved to a midlands village where all children were called George, Louis, Jack and Alice, and now lives in another country entirely.

I think once (very small) people have names, they become their names. If someone called Rainbow rocked up in Hull, I’m sure the good folk of Hull would take it in their stride.

I went to school in the eighties. There was much more narrowness of naming then. Now people don’t really blink at much. All my DC have been at school with a much wider name pool, as it were. Moonunit or Yoghurt is how far you’d have to go to get double takes.

I don’t mean it as an insult to Hull by the way! If anything more the other way around. There seem to be particular places where you can get away with what would probably be considered ridiculous names elsewhere.

But @Slacktide point is kind of what I mean, it is easy to be very influenced by your immediate surroundings/groups when naming your child but you don’t know where they will end up living and whether it will just sound very odd.

@SecondBabyGirl

I don’t mean it as an insult to Hull by the way! If anything more the other way around. There seem to be particular places where you can get away with what would probably be considered ridiculous names elsewhere.

But @Slacktide point is kind of what I mean, it is easy to be very influenced by your immediate surroundings/groups when naming your child but you don’t know where they will end up living and whether it will just sound very odd.

No, what I’m saying is that you’d be mad to think ‘I live in Nuneaton/ ether Wallop/Newcastle — what can I ‘get away with’ when naming my child?’ I mean, do people actually think this?

Area has an effect but so does class, ethnic background, religion, past influences, our conformity level. Dozens of things.

I can’t tell if you are raising it because you are in a practical naming dilemma situation or whether you are just musing, or something in between, but I’d just say so do what feels right for you, pick names you truly love and don’t worry.

I don’t think it matters if someone from Totnes called something hippyish wants to go to the smoke and be a QC. I think we’re past all that.

I do have slightly more of a concern about babies being given underclass-marker names but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

@RickiTarr it’s both! Partly musing and partly because I’m due Dd2 in a few weeks

What are underclass marker names?! Never heard that term before!

What are underclass marker names?! Never heard that term before!

Oh good grief now I’ve dropped myself in it, although this subject does crop up on MN from time to time so I’m not the first to say it.

I just think unfortunately social mobility has stalled and making your way in the world with a name that marks you out as clearly from deprived origins puts you at risk of being discriminated against.

I hesitate to give examples because I’m not trying to offend people, but non-standard spellings often figure or currently there is a fashion for girls names that are hyphenated and end in -leigh or -mae or similar. I remember an absolutely massive Mumsnet row about the socio-economic significance of the name Jayden once too. I think everyone who read it does. 😣

@RickiTarr ah ok I think I know what you mean. I didn’t see that particular thread but have seen discussions about that before.

I think some people also (purposely) give their children upperclass marker names, ie names that you would only give if you are from a very wealthy background, maybe to try to ensure that they will get the opposite effect (the positive discrimination that comes with those names because you sound like you come from a posh family/top school etc). I’ve often wondered about particular names and then thought “actually we probably don’t own enough land to use that name” 😂

The Portias and Tristans? Yes it’s just the opposite issue isn’t it?

When I named my first two I went through this whole careful thing of “trying” each name aloud on imaginary barristers, retail managers and market traders because I really, really wanted names that “traveled” in terms of class as well as geography. I wanted my DC to fit in anywhere. So I do understand that part of your question.

Unfortunately what happened is that every name sounded absolutely fine to me in any job role, so I concluded that I must be quite non-conformist at heart and gave up on that technique by halfway through my second pregnancy!

Good luck with it, though. You’re probably more sensible than me.

@RickiTarr

Area has an effect but so does class, ethnic background, religion, past influences, our conformity level. Dozens of things.

I can’t tell if you are raising it because you are in a practical naming dilemma situation or whether you are just musing, or something in between, but I’d just say so do what feels right for you, pick names you truly love and don’t worry.

I don’t think it matters if someone from Totnes called something hippyish wants to go to the smoke and be a QC. I think we’re past all that.

I do have slightly more of a concern about babies being given underclass-marker names but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

All that is true, but your ethnicity, social class, religion, past, conformity etc you bring with you, they’re not area-dependent, and the OP seems to be suggesting that what will not stand out too much locally is her primary concern when naming her baby..?

Yeah, sorry, went off piste in a bit of a general muse around the whole subject!

@RickiTarr

Yeah, sorry, went off piste in a bit of a general muse around the whole subject!

Well, you’re right! It was just the OP’s sense of conforming to her area that interested me, as it had genuinely never occurred to me as a factor when naming DS. Who has a name so unusual it didn’t feature exact numbers in the ONS for his birth year.

I think I might be a bit more exciting with names if I lived somewhere artsy like Bristol or Brighton.

as it had genuinely never occurred to me as a factor when naming DS.

No me neither, although I did instantly see what OP meant about Brighton and Glastonbury.

@RickiTarr

as it had genuinely never occurred to me as a factor when naming DS.

No me neither, although I did instantly see what OP meant about Brighton and Glastonbury.

Whereas I didn’t, until I moved from London to a village where there seemed to be about five names. DS had three Alices, a Harry and two Harrisons, two Imogens and two Georges in his class at school.

Do I think about the area? No. But I live in an area that does reflect the class I view myself as. None of the names I was considering would sound out of place here, but class, age and religion are much more likely to be influencing factors, even subconsciously. Wherever I lived, I can't imagine suddenly wanting to call my baby Chardonnay, Rainbow or Tristan.

Dh is forrin so we went out of our way to pick names that work internationally.

I live in a very multicultural area. Most names are very different to each other, and no one bats an eyelid. I can’t put social markers on names because I don’t know what they are. There is usually only about one child per country in my DC’s class. Eg, one child from Italy, one from Germany, one from Nigeria, one from Ghana, one from Bangladesh, one from Jamaica etc. Mine was the only child in the class that had two English parents. Some names seem very old fashioned to me - eg, children called Keith, but maybe it’s not if you’re from the Caribbean.

Area? No. I would personally worry about how well the name works internationally, but that’s because I’m someone who moves countries every 2-3 years and it won’t be that often while the children grow up, but we will still have a million connections in different countries.

I want names that can be read phonetically in most countries and the result is similar, and that reflects their heritage if it’s not a fully-international name (eg Anna).

I used to work with someone called Beau didn't realise for ages it was short for Beaujolais!!! So rainbow and star might become Bow and Steve, think about David Bowie's son Zowie who is now called Duncan

I thought more about our social class than our area to be honest. I loved the names Allegra and Raffaella but we're just not Daily Telegraph enough as a family... I think that there would have been a lot of "eh?" among friends, family and school.

There are huge local trends in names.

In Scotland the top names by local authority area are released every year.

Names are also a huge class indicator.

Yes but as PP says, you might not always live in the same place, and your child might travel as they get older so a name needs to "work" anywhere.