Botanical girls names - please vote!

[sunshineandmango]

Hello all

DH and I have finally narrowed down our list to our two favourite names, which we both love. We’ve considered lots of names but botanical names do hold a personal significance for us so we’ve decided this is the way to go!

Lily
Flora

Which is your favourite and why? And how popular is Lily in your experience? It’s in the top 10 but I personally don’t know any!

Thank you 💐

Not botanical but my daughter thinks you should call her Fauna instead.

I love the name Lily but my partner will not allow it because when they were a child they decided to eat a lot of them, quickly discovered they were allergic and spent a week in a hospital.

Shame really because it's by far the best name out there for a girl.

Flora by far.

@Raininguntilmonday 😂😂 great anecdote

@70isaLimitNotaTarget yes going with the latter haha!

I dislike Lily but love Flora.

‘Lily May’ is shouted far too much by certain people.

I really like Flora. My favourite botanical name is Iris.

My favourite botanical names are Daisy and Briar.

But from your choices, Flora.

you make a good point about popularity, and we certainly wouldn’t let this dissuade is from using Lily (I was more curious as it seems very popular in the tables but I’m yet to meet one.)

@sunshineandmango there’s a Lily/Lily-May/Lily-Mae in every primary school class. It’s super popular, on par with Olivia. It’s still in the UK‘s top 5 most popular girl names list. Even the alternative spelling ‘Lilly’ is in the top 100. However, I much prefer Lily. I really, really dislike Flora. All I can think of is Flora butter.

@CoffeeYes funnily enough I haven’t come across any Olivia’s in my nursery/playgroup social circles either despite it being number 1 😂
I understand Lily is far more popular than Flora, but we just want to pick the one we love the most (which we are having a difficult time deciding). Wouldn’t not use Lily just due to popularity, but appreciate she may not be the only one in her class if we do pick it.

What about Lillia? goodness no! There used to be a brand of sanitary towels called Lilia Whites back in the day. I'm old enough to remember them.

I love both Flora and Lily, and Lily is my favourite of the two. It's simple, pretty and classic.

@DramaAlpaca thank you for the heads up regarding Lillia 😂 Lily all the way!

@sunshineandmango from following the thread I feel like you prefer Lily. You've mentioned a few times your not put off by it's popularity so I think you should chose Lily xx

I like both but prefer Flora.

Just because Lily is in the top ten though, doesn't mean that every other girl will have that name. Last year there were around 300,000 girls born in England and Wales, and 2,182 were named Lily. That's one in every 137 girls, so not as if there would be more than one in every class! I'd say just go for whichever you prefer. Also, you can't really predict how these things will go; my friend was saying recently that she's teaching a class with two Ingrids in it, having only heard the name on one other person ever!

What about Primrose?

Lily and Flora have been done to death. My daughter's prep school at 4 girls called Lily in her year. There were 7 at her secondary school out of approx 120 girls. One girl came for tea and called herself Lily 'G' as appears so many they all added the first letter of their surname to differentiate between them.

Flora is lovely!

@Mrsstart in all honesty I think my original preference was Flora but I am genuinely worried about how strong the association is with the spread for some people and whether this could cause her an issue in the future. Lily was a later addition to our shortlist but loving it more and more.

@salamithumbs totally agree with you!

@Asformending not my experience with either name, Flora isn’t even in the top 100 so I definitely wouldn’t say it’s done to death! Guess everyone’s experience is different though.

I think Flora is lovely. As a teacher, I’ve never taught a Flora but I have taught many a Lily. In my experience, girls called Lily are either precocious and rude or chavvy and rude and now that’s what I associate that name with.

Honestly, all I think about with Flora is the margarine but I know at least 2 toddler Lilys (with sisters Poppy or Violet - people like a theme). It's popular.

Yes, this is why DH vetoed Flora for our DD.

Tansy?

@SpaghettiSquash and @Daisypod luckily this advert/dodgy slogan was before my time and I certainly don’t think it would be an issue for young children today.

So you have a preconcieved bias that any girl called Lily will be Rude/precocious or Rude/Chavvy .

Nice

Especially for a teacher

@Bert2e Tansy is not a favourite, thanks for the idea though