Ready for everyone to come at me, but...

[Tucancrossing]

...why on earth do some people not understand that they're naming a person who will be a child for a decade but an adult for the vast majority of their life?!

A friend of a friend just named her baby Ralphie... full name on birth certificate. I actually think it's a very cute nickname for a little one, but real name Ralph, surely?! Imagine being a 45 year old man trying to be taken seriously with a child's nickname 😬

Katie ends with ‘ie’ and doesn’t ever seem to go out of fashion.

I know four Katie’s very well. One is in their early 60’s, on early 50’s, one aged 21 and one aged 4.

I am not a fan of cutsie names nor am I a fan of random spellings or made up names.

Actually I think if you go back 100 years, you'll find that there were loads of adults called these names. Certainly Archie, Alfie, Reggie, Ronnie, Charlie, Teddy, Bobby were all pretty common. And for the girls Elsie, Lizzie, Daisy, Rosie. We've just gone back round. I guess the difference is that then they were given the full names but no-one ever called them it. My grandad was Reggie & my husband's grandad was Ronnie.

I broadly agree OP, but I also think MN posters go too far the other way in thinking the only names that will stop their children falling into a life of crime are Sophie or Jonathan.

I was going to agree with you but then I thought of my colleague's husband, Archie, real name Arthur. He will be retired now so men do get Archie.
I also agree that it will be very common in say 10, 20 years to hear men called Teddy, Freddie etc.

You do realise that a president of the United States was called Teddy, right?!

Isn't a rolfie a puke?

@headintheproverbial his given name was Theodore though, not Teddy.

The top 100 names for 1904 and 1914 include names like Harry, Minnie, Jessie, Annie (higher than Anne), Elsie (higher than Elizabeth), Nellie (higher than Eleanor or Helen), Bessie, and so on.

In 1954, Tony, Terry and Harry were all top 50.

These kinds of names were more common for girls in some eras and boys in others, but it's nothing new to register a baby with a "nickname" form of a name. Some of these names, like Jack or Sally or Nancy, started as short forms but have kind of become standalone names now, because so many people used them as their children's official names.

Basically, I think sometimes people make this into more of a new and problematic thing than it really is.

@statetrooperstacey

Well they don’t suit a grown man now, but in 20/30 years they will, because huge numbers of them will be called ‘cutsie’ names.

Exactly

@IKissedSantaClaus

Harrison is a very normal and not ridiculous name

It’s not specially ridiculous, but I agree that it’s awful.

@toastofthetown I can’t tell if you are kidding. Are you actually under the impression that people name their baby Harrison because they don’t know you prefer something else? At first I thought you meant that they used Harrison because they wanted to call the baby Harry but clearly if that were the case clearly they’d be yelling Harry on the playground, not Harrison. I know a few Harrisons of various ages but I don’t understand your point.

I know a Ralphie in his 70s...never ocurred to me that it wasn’t a suitable name for an adult!

@IKissedSantaClaus

Don't disagree on Ralphie. That sounds like a nickname.

Archie I don't agree with as it's always been used in Scotland and the majority of the Archies I know are men in their 50s/60s.

YY but they are all Archibald on their birth certificates . Archibald was the 40th most popular boys name in Scotland in 1950 but Archie didn’t feature at all.

The only name in the top 100 that could be seen as an abbreviated name was Harry.

I can't stand those kinds of names, but it's not done Jamie Oliver any harm, and in ten years, these babyish names will be so commonplace, most people under 60 will be used to them and not bat an eyelid.

There was a baby boy in the hospital who had been born just before my son. His parents had named him Bertie-Ray. That is so hideously twee, it makes Ralphie seem almost austere. Ralphie is hideous too, and I would feel a twinge of humiliation to introduce myself with such a name if I were a middle aged man.

But when all the Archies, Charlies, and Alfies are adults it will sound completely normal because there’s so many of them.

I prefer full names for birth certificates personally, but I can’t see it being a problem tbh.

My great uncle Reggie is 94 and has always been known as Reggie or reg.
My grandad is Ted. Never, ever Edward. His brother, my other great uncle, was Tommy. Never Thomas.

This isn’t a new thing. Maybe not using on the bc is more common now, but for adult men to be known as Archie, Charlie, Reggie etc is not uncommon or ridiculous at all.

I’m sure nobody ever calls the footballers Teddy Sheringham or Billy Sharp their “proper” names and it doesn’t seem to of done them much harm as adult men.

I was given an 'ie' name in 1969. It was shortened to the grown up version (by me) by 1979!

Shittie will come into fashion soon enough at this rate

I'm not a fan.
You're naming a human with a future as an adult, not a cockerpoo.

No doubt, in 30 years there will be a wealth of barristers called Alfie-Bob and Maisie-Mae, but I would bet they'll be naming their children Timothy and Elizabeth.

I'm never sure why people feel so keen to judge other people's kids names. Personally I hate names like Esme, George, Oliver, Daniel, James, Grace etc. But I don't think that matters a jot as people should use names they like. I don't come on internet forums saying that people should not give their kids names which evidence a need for conformity and lack of self-expression. It does seem like those who favour more conservative names as more judgemental of other people's choices. Ralphie can call himself Ralph when he grows up if he wants to with the same ease that Timothy's currently call themselves Tim. So not issue if you choose not to make one.

Is Harrison that ridiculous? Of all the names I encounter these days that one seems quite...ordinary. A very 2020s sounding boys' name along with Theo and Ethan. Is the annoyance that they should be Henry/Harry and not Harry/Harrison?

Who knows!

That seems particularly silly. Cute for a small child.

I’m not a mad fan of nicknames instead of full names on birth certs, but I can see PP’s logic that given how popular a trend it is, there’s going to be loads of adult Tommys/ Archie’s/ Poppys/Maisie’s in 30/40 years.

What does really irk me is when people pick a name that is just so “out there” that is obviously been chosen with no consideration for the poor person who’s going to have to use it for the next 70+ years. There’s a small business I follow on Instagram and the owner has just called her newborn son Bucky. Imagine going through life being called a nickname of a popular fortified wine.