Comments about names that you just don’t get

[jrt2022]

On mumsnet, I always see the same comments repeated about certain names, and while some I get, others I just can’t get my head around at all! For example:

On every thread asking about Lydia, someone mentioned ‘Lydia dustbin’. Lydia dustbin??? As in … lid of your dustbin, I assume but … WHY? Firstly - what about the lid of my dustbin? Also, loads of things have lids, so why only ‘lid of your dustbin’ in particular? Why not ‘lid of your jam jar’ or something. And even then - what about it? What is funny or interesting or bad about it? I just don’t get it.

There are loads of others but I don’t want to list them as I want to see what others think rather than just rant on about my own! So, any regularly thrown out comments to dismiss names that you think are weird/don’t make sense?

@Strawberry291 , I have a name that doesn't sound how it looks. Everyone who comes across it for the first time mispronounces it. A lot of them don't read it properly and add or change letters. It makes me cringe. It's not something like say calling Amelie Amelia or Emma Emily or something, they often make a mistake like substituting an ugly old-fashioned name.

I get prescriptions with my name written incorrectly, people telling me that my name is not what I say it is, misspelt on communications, e-mails etc.

People can be ignorant and rude.

"I don't want my child to be one of several Amy's in her class"

Why? Only your Amy is coming home with you? And it doesn't matter what their name is, sorry to be mean but if they don't have a personality they still won't stand out.

"Don't use Amelia, it's a medical word"

Yes, it means 'a birth defect of missing one or more limbs'. Had never heard this before coming on MN and have never heard a single person say this in real life. Know lots of Amelias.

"Francesca will be on the BC but we'll call her Frances"

WHY?! Just give the child the name you like!

It's weird reading similar thread on reddit as it's predominantly American and there is far higher predilection for 'made up' baby names. Or maybe it's the age range? Not sure. But some of them are pure madness.

Also - I've just seen on another thread "we considered using X name but it was becoming too popular".

The assertion that your child's name will definitely be abbreviated, probably with the very abbreviation you really hate.
"Clover is a cow" "Flora is a margarine", "Stella is a beer" - well, John is literally a toilet, Charlotte is a pudding, still good and well-used names.
A try-hard name - know your place!
It's weird how we are all so obsessed with names really, and I count myself in that, I was making lists of names from the age of 11. In the vast majority of cases children take the names of their friends completely for granted and once you have heard a name a few times it becomes quite normal.

'Pretentious' names.
Only in Britain...

'How will (child with Irish name) possibly learn to spell that?'
This one is actually mind boggling, because it clearly hasn't occurred to some that there are thousands of English-speaking children in Ireland who manage just fine with the spelling of their Irish names.

The nickname thing baffles me. “Full name Charlotte, known as Elly”. I think there was one the other day about nn Etta and what could they use a full name.

Also those who insist on no shortening of names, like Philippa, Andrew, Isabelle and Catherine won’t get shortened at school 🙄.

*"I don't want my child to be one of several Amy's in her class"

Why? Only your Amy is coming home with you? And it doesn't matter what their name is, sorry to be mean but if they don't have a personality they still won't stand out.*

But it's not about who's coming home or whether they stand out....

It's not wanting to be one of 5 Amy's at school or in the workplace, not being known as 'big' or 'little' Amy etc. Its about wanting a name that's beautiful, easy to spell and pronounce and memorable

This reminds me of when I was pregnant 26 years ago with pfb
i loved the name rose-it was as popular as it is now
i got so many snotty comments about ‘second hand rose’ I called her something else-and still got comments about how ‘posh’ and ‘above your station’ her name is-zero fucks given

with no2 every single name we liked,my mother had taught one and he was always ‘naughty’
we went with a name I didn’t like,just to shut her up
massive name regret years later

no3-I called him a name I’d never met another of
10 born in the year after him and he was know by name-letter-of-surname all through school
still know 5 others with the same name (in one case and the same middle name) but I love his name

no4-went the other way and his name is unusual
I got so many double takes and nasty comments-I don’t care-I don’t like what they chose for their kids and wouldn’t have dreamed of commenting

no5-a nickname style name
still love it even though it was popular at the time

no6-I only knew a lady with the same name and she was dead within a year of me having my dd
i didn’t like the old cow but I stand by her name and it suits dd perfectly

I didn’t like that someone else in my class had the same name as me (I mean, I was only 4 at the time). She was Sarah and I was Sarah G (not my actual name). I was always Sarah G and just wanted to be Sarah. Hated it.

And who wants to be known as 'photocopy' Sarah or 'little' Sarah at work? There's sooo many names to choose from, that I absolutely understand parents' desire to avoid top 10 names.

I think a lot of people’s view on wanting to avoid popular names is based on their own experience with a popular name rather than wanting to be special or unique. I know mine is. I was Toast Town in every single group situation until the job I started at 25 where I was finally the only one. At school I wasn’t even the only Toast Town in my class. My husband had a letter threatening bailiffs to our house because a DVLA check for the person the enforcement was intended for matched his (common) name and birthday. Some people wouldn’t be bothered by that, and that’s fine, but I am and that’s also fine.

Giving your child an unusual name is absolutely no guarantee that it will remain unusual or that someone else won’t appear with an unusual name won’t appear. My friend and her DP gave their child an unusual name from another culture (I have no idea why) for the reasons given upthread and lo and behold, a child from said culture with the same name appeared in the P1 class. They were the only two pupils to share the same name - whereas Jack, Oscar and Oliver were the only ones with those names. Was v funny.

Of course not, though the impact of a repeated name in a classroom is lessened when it's not everywhere else as well. I know someone with a Balthazar, one of five in the year he was born, and guess who's in his year at school? But he's not going to have anther Balthazar at swimming, yet another Balthazar at gymnastics, loads more Balthazars join at secondary school, go to uni and there's still Balthazars, start a part time job with another Balthazar, start his graduate job and join a team with a Balthazar (which was my experience with a popular name).

And none of that happens to Jack either. There’s a higher chance of meeting another Jack, yes, but if your sole intention when naming your child is to prevent them from coming across any others then be prepared to be disappointed. Give them a name you love - don’t obsess over the top ten lists - and teach your child they are far more than their name.

At my children’s school there are 5 Laylas and 4 Charlies in one class I kid you not!

That did happen to me. I was an adult before I was in a group situation without someone with my first name. I don't want my children to never come across someone with their name, but also want to increase the likelihood that they won't have to be known as Firstname Surname their entire childhood like I was. I'm fully aware I am more than my name, and still I didn't like how popular it was. Like I said upthread some people wouldn’t be bothered by that and that’s fine, but I am and that’s also fine.

That names like Peter,Micheal and John are so beautiful and underused

Of course it’s fine if you don’t like it, but just as you shouldn’t use the high court judge test when naming your child ‘just in case’, don’t be prevented from giving your child a name you love just in case they end up in a class with another child with the same surname and being known as Jane G and possibly not liking it (or in the case of my friend’s child, unusual name from another culture G)

I work with so many people with my name, I’ve done a whole shift before and we all had the same name. That was strange.

Giving your child an unusual name is absolutely no guarantee that it will remain unusual

Nobody is suggesting that

But it certainly massively reduces the likelihood of there being many others with the same name.

There should be a balthazar in every group, it's an amazing name that I wimped out of using so went with the much more standard Castiel instead

There was one other girl with the same first name as me, and we had the same surname initial, so we were (the equivalent of) Anna James and Anna Johnson. I was not pleased. Also she was a horrible little cow.

But it wouldn't stop me if there was a commonly-used name that I absolutely adored. I think some people get funny about top-100 names because they are thinking of their child as adorable-unique-magical-precious, and when introduced to another Angelica they are suddenly not "their special unique Angelica" after all because there are (shudder) two.

Time for them to grow up a bit lol, I guarantee there's going to be several other similar-looking kids with the same ponytails, same dinosaur bag, same lunchbox and same fascination with Peppa Pig as your little unique snowflake. Like someone else said, only one Amy is going home to your place each afternoon 🙂

My sister had a name that no one could spell or pronounce and she got sick of it. The best bit was that people didn't know if it was a male or female name. Her title was Dr. So everyone presumed she was a bloke.

I have a sibling with what was an unusual name in the 1970s and 1980s. That became one of the most common baby names 20 years later.

I suffer from this! In my defense, she really wasn't very nice & every time I hear the name i am reminded of her.