Does anyone else love the American surname type names?

[IcedCokeFloat]

I do but I feel so alone in this. I'm a big fan of names like Hunter, Hudson, Ryder, Wilder, Sullivan etc.

If you're a fan what are your favourites?

I love it, my son has a name like this. No one we've met has heard of it and always comments how much they like it

I think they are terrible names. Really unattractive and definitely downmarket. I know it’s snobby but when I hear those names I think the parents are trying hard to be trendy and cool.

I see the Scottish version of this up thread - I love those, there are plenty in my family. Was interested in the co-incidence of these two trends when Americans started calling their girl children things like Mackenzie and Innes in the eighties.

It’s a style of naming I quite like. I know

Sawyer
Chase
Hunter

Cassidy was on my list for a girl

@KineticSand

My American in laws know a little boy named Satchel as his first name. It's brilliant and awful at the same time!

Satchel Paige was a very famous baseball player. Satchel was actually his nickname, but I dare say many people don't know his real first name was Leroy. At any rate, in the US, it wouldn't raise as many eyebrows. In the UK of course most people wouldn't know that.

I always associate it with people who stencil their walls with inspirational phrases.

There's a significant number of Rileys at the PRU in my town. It's clearly the Ryan/Connor/Jayden of the last decade for seemingly being the naughty boy name.
I know brothers called Mason and Tyler. It makes them sound slightly like they are a building partnership but they're sweet boys.

I'm not a fan of Madison for girl but the surname as first name I dislike is Jaxon. Just because of the spelling which means the poor lads with that version will be forever spelling it out. Otherwise it's not a type of name I'd chose for my kids but it's fine.

Love them and think they're way better than the granddad names that are so popular now.

Surname names are still a thing in Scotland (often m’s maiden name or other family name), and it used to be more common in England in 18/19th centuries.

Still is in parts of England.
They can be good clues when doing a family tree

@Nancydrawn yes!!

I really don’t like these kind of names either. Bit chavvy, IMHO

They sound very different the cold English drizzle. Particularly with a London accent:

Harper = Hawpah

^

Quite

Love some, hate others. My kids have friends called Hudson, Carter and Cooper, all lovely boys so I guess my associations are positive too.

Great Scots I have known and loved - Grierson; Campbell; Granger; Bremner; Innes.

I don't mind them in fact some of them I quite like. But. My friend's DD just named her baby DS Jaxon. I just can't with that spelling.

Haaaa the descriptions of the 'type' of people who use these names for their children. I don't think I conform to any of those (downright nasty and snobbish) stereotypes but then again who really cares? One of my children is Edison, nn Ned and suits him perfectly. Weirdly a lot of people who hate surname names admit that they'll make an exception for his! I just heard it somewhere and liked it tbh (and it was the only one me and exh could agree on as well, he wanted Mort so I think Edison was the better of two evils there)

Other child doesn't have a surname name at all, in fact it's an ancient Old English name that most people think is made up (I mean....all names are made up but you know what I mean) but it's graced classic texts etc. it's just very unusual.

So what does that make me then? Half-U

@Orphlids, surname names are actually quite U. They were popular back in the Victorian and Edwardian era, and were always a thing in Scotland in all classes.

I personally like surnames names for girls. I live in the US and I know girls named Campbell, Barrett, Bennett, Lennox, Jordan, Lennon, Hollis, Adaire, Marlowe, Madigan, Sinclair, Wallis, Quinn, Hadley, and Ripley.

These names are OK as long as the spelling isn't messed with. At DD's dance school there were a Rylee, a Huntah, a Tysyn and a Taela. Just yuck. But I also know a very charming Tennyson, who suits his name. And we have Campbell, Cameron, Carey, Joyce and Sheridan in our Scottish/Irish family.

I know brothers called Mason and Tyler. It makes them sound slightly like they are a building partnership but they're sweet boys.
I love this!

[quote mathanxiety]@Orphlids, surname names are actually quite U. They were popular back in the Victorian and Edwardian era, and were always a thing in Scotland in all classes.

I personally like surnames names for girls. I live in the US and I know girls named Campbell, Barrett, Bennett, Lennox, Jordan, Lennon, Hollis, Adaire, Marlowe, Madigan, Sinclair, Wallis, Quinn, Hadley, and Ripley.[/quote]
Also quite a thing down South. Look up Mitch McConnell and Jeff Sessions' full names!

Girls with these names often wind up with more traditional sounding nicknames. I have lost count of the number of Madison-nicknamed-Maddy girls I've met.

The surname as first name trend isn't to my taste but after a decade-plus in the USA I am used to it. I do prefer when people don't try to make up their own spellings by adding 17 y's. I do not miss the trend from when half of white boys (and some others too!) were named Jayden, Aiden, or Brayden, though. Oh, my oldest's kindergarten class...

In general no and wouldn’t call a son those, but some of them I do quite like:

Fletcher
Archer
Oakley
Jenson
Emerson
Everett
Harley
Marlow
Marshall
Wilder

@mathanxiety In fact, my family is posh enough to be in the book of landed gentry, and my father and his four brothers all have surnames as given names, so yes, I agree with you, it can be very U. My poor uncle was lumbered with a particularly hideous name - I can’t write it as it is too outing, but it’s another word for ‘girth’. 😂

@TatianaBis

I absolutely hate them. They're fine in the US where they sound natural. Here they just sound contrived, wannabe and downmarket.

This

It’s very popular to names children in these style of names. But like all styles, excluding traditional names, they fall in and out of fashion sooner or later.

I guess it’s how much that matters to you.

They will be the Gary and Cliff of the future. Names taken from America / Hollywood that filtered over the pond and never really stuck around for long.

I don't like most of them, especially the ones ending in -son, because I can't help but read Jackson as 'Jack's son' and so on.

I think the Victorian usage is giving a child their mother's maiden name or another ancestral surname as a first name. Which resulted in some odd-sounding names!

[quote Strokethefurrywall]@Palmfrond - yep, Maverick like in Top Gun.

We didn’t go with it ultimately as I was stuck on Sullivan, but I know of 2 little Mavericks, one is 3, the other is 6 months. It’s a cracking name![/quote]
Strange, for me the word maverick has fairly negative connotations.