All baby names were made up once

[jewellerysign]

I see a theme on mumsnet of people not liking names that are made up or 'aren't proper names'. But all names were made up at one point. I don't see anything wrong with making up a new name that is completely unique.

I'm not a fan of celebrity names such as apple, North West etc

but names I have made up for the sake of this post such as Vesoria, Orlynde, Jovelie, Klyria, Iselora: I don't see any problem with people making up names like these.

Why are people so against it?

On Mumsnet people generally tend to favour names that signal how middle class they are. Made up names don’t do that hence whey they’re met with less than positive responses on this site.

Most names were probably made up at some point, but there's a big difference between using a name that has been in use for centuries, and one that is unusual.
I wouldn't know how to say most of the names on your list and if I heard them I wouldn't know how to spell them.
I wouldn't want my child to go through life being asked 'What?', 'How do you spell it?' etc or having their name mispronounced each time they met someone new.

A name says a lot about the socio-economic background of the parents, so a regular name suggests a normal sort of background,
Classic names tend to date better.

'All names were made up' is a phrase that really grinds my gears because it's not accurate at all.

Most names have etymologies, are developed over time and/or are related to other words and meanings. They were not just 'made up' in the sense that people were putting a random string of letters together that had no meaning or relationship to anything else.

If people want to do the latter then that's fine, my gripe comes with when they refuse to own what they're doing. I've done the rounds on lots of names forums (autistic special interest) and countless times I've seen people making up a name and claiming that 'No it's actually Irish and means butterfly' for example 🙄

Totally agree with what @TheBirdintheCave said - names were not just invented out of nowhere, they have meanings and history, they aren't just random strings of sounds. Even if you don't pick a name for its meaning, the history of it still exists.. Many people won't consciously recognise this, but I think that's why it ties in with class (and why made up names are much more common in the US, where everything culturally is much "newer")

The other reason of course is that noone will ever know how to spell a made up name if you say it to them, which is a pain in the butt. That's the only reason its a "problem", the rest is just down to peoples tastes.

I don't think just because a name is made up its a good enough reason to shut it down. You can take two parts of two different meaningful names and merge them together. Most of the names I made up are two names merged together.

@jewellerysign , but they look like they're a mixture of two names. I don't particularly like Klara or Lyra, but Klyra looks wrong. If it was a name it would be a brand of kitchen paper or something.

Most names arent made up though.

They often have a pleasant meaning in another language. Or nature names. Or place names. Or mythical/biblical names.

My kids have very traditional names. However I don’t mind new names at all.

I read a book a while ago about naming and it discussed the trend in the US in the 60s and 70s for black parents to give their children newly minted names as a political statement- an active choice not to use names which came from the culture that had enslaved their ancestors and instead to begin afresh. And this turned into a wider trend for new names.

I find the MN sniffiness about new names a bit cringeworthy.

Most names do actually mean something or have developed from real words with meanings. They’re not random collections of sounds. Also, some people making up names ignore the basic rules of how letter combinations are pronounced, and insist that the name can be pronounced any way they want.

This!

I am generally baffled by baby name threads. How is that even different if we would go around and ask random people on the internet if our existing names are OK or if it is too fussy, or should we all change it to Olivia altogether.

“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”
― Warsan Shire

I once knew a boy named Macave, because it was the initials of all the people in his blended family joined together. And also a girl named Tierrah because both of her grandmothers were called Harriet and her parents decided to spell it backwards.

It’s neither here nor there, just interesting 🤣 Those names “come from” somewhere, but still feel made up.

@Neverseenbefore
@heartofglass23

language was made up once, and all meaning we have assigned to words is completely made up by our ancestors.

I don’t think language was ‘made up’ in the sense you mean. Some random homo sapiens didn’t just wake up one morning and think ‘ oh, I’m fed up with this pointing and grunting, I’ll invent words’. Of course new words are coined for new actions or objects , although most of them are actually derived from earlier forms , think television or mobile telephone ( Classical Greco Roman) .

There used to be a fashion for calling your new fifties/ sixties house by a mixture of the occupants’ names. DP claims ‘Llamedos’ was a very popular house name in the North East ( it’s apparently a reversal….)

@jewellerysign , give an example.
Here are mine:
Metaverse
Crowdfunding
Staycation
Finfluencer

The words are new but they are compound words made from existing words.

I'm not saying all made up names are nice, just that the concept shouldn't be looked down on

If its made up names you want examples of

Miadora- Mia and Theadora
Ameliana -Amelia and Liliana
Alilah - Alice and Delilah

It depends on the 'name'. Something like Faylacana Ooh it's Irish for Butterfly is truly awful.

@jewellerysign, all those get a big fat

NO

from me.
Of the actual names you've used I only like Alice.

All names are made up once but it’s the “did they catch on” factor.

and if they didn’t, probably because everyone thought they were shit. This is why Gary is almost extinct 🤣

All common nouns were made up at some point, but does that mean you can call a chair a vyseloria, or a table an orlyndia?

Vesoria, Orlynde, Jovelie, Klyria, Iselora

They look like birth control tablets.

I'd say some of them look like pills for erectile dysfunction and some like contraceptive devices.

I mean you can decide that you're not going to look down on them, but the reality is that some other people will, whether you think they should or not 🤷‍♀️