Which names get made fun of?

[Newsenmum]

I often see this as a worry.

As a teacher, which names do kids genuinely laugh at?

Jack Hunt made me choke on my coffee though.

I went to school with Richard Head. Not sure what his parents to were thinking.

LOL, this actually made me chuckle! The name is asking for it, just no escaping

I think if your name is part of a famous song you could end up being teased by people singing it. I knew a Stacey who was at school around the time that song Stacey’s Mom was popular and she hated it. You can never predict what character or songs will have a name in the future! Like the earlier Harry Potter example.

The previous owners of our house had the surname Dick and I honestly feel sorry for their young daughter. I even felt awkward having to send the estate agent an email when I had to refer to the couple as “the Dicks”.

Apologies to anyone with the surname Dick but I think it’s cruel to the child.

I don't recall much teasing (or bullying - not the same thing) because of names during my time as a primary school teacher.
All names are equally new and unusual to young children so they generally just accept their classmates' names without giving them much thought.

It seems that it's a bit later on that problems may begin... but then if someone wants to tease/bully/attack someone then they'll find something to do it with, a name or something else.

The teasing won't happen in front of an adult.

It tends to be teasing along the lines of Smelly Ellie or Specky Becky.
If the child doesn't rise to it they give up.

Many of the kids at school had nicknames and some are still known affectionally by them. Some of the nicknames weren't all that flattering but they weren't too bad.

Kids don't laugh at names. They take things as they are.

Its adults who have a snigger or an eye roll. And mostly at the silly made up names, wacky spellings or calling your child after an animal or piece of fruit. e.g. Tiger, Apple

I went to school with a girl whose surname was Roundbottom. She was teased about her name from primary school onwards and it intensified at secondary school after she put on quite a bit of weight. No one had any problems with her first name even though it was considered quite an old fashioned name at the time.

We laughed at names but it was fairly tame. Names that could be shortened to Dick, Fanny etc.
I can think of a surname that we sniggered at.

Anything that can rhyme in my experience

Harry Potter KC is a very eminent, senior person in the legal profession - and of an age where he was already well-known long before the children's books were ever written.

I also recall reading during the height of Robbie Williams' arrogance fame, he instructed his lawyers to stop a much older man named Robert Williams, known to everybody as Robbie from long before the well-known singer was born, from using his own name!

All these anecdotes about what posters remember from school 20-30 years ago are irrelevant. Read the replies from teachers. Bullying about names has pretty much disappeared for the simple reason that children’s names are now so diverse that the children don’t really have a sense of what is out of the ordinary any more. Adults care about names, children really don’t.

I'm in my 30s and barely know the Jessie connotation. I really don't think schoolchildren would think anything of it.

Names which people avoided in the past

William - Willy
Richard - Dick
Fanny
Nancy - Nancy boy
George - George’s Porgie pudding and pie (ie, fat, chubby)
Jemima - Jemima puddle duck
Betty - oo, Betty (Some mothers do have ‘em)

@LaeralSilverhand , because the teasing doesn't happen in front of teachers.

Names are diverse in areas where the population is diverse. If you are in a small school in a rural area, an unusual name might seem 'weird' whereas it might be completely 'normal' in an inner city school.

@MerryChristmasToYou very little bullying and teasing happens in front of teachers, doesn’t mean that they aren’t aware of it.

I live in an extremely white rural area and kids still have very diverse names, we’re not all called Jethro the ploughman and Martha the milkmaid these days. Plenty of different traditional and modern English names, Eastern European names, Traveller names. I maintain that concern about names is an adult problem nowadays, often born of their own childhood experiences.

@LaeralSilverhand , you can say it doesn't happen as much as you like. It won't change what actually happens.

Well, that sounds like a credible and robust defence of your position.

Gosh, how times have changed! I wasn't bullied BECAUSE of my name, but the bullies certainly used both my christian and surnames as part of their bullying - making unpleasant rhymes and deliberately mis-pronouncing.

Surely the name gaylord wouldn't go down well in uk schools or Jezebel for a girl

Presumably nobody was planning on calling their sons Nancy? So why would they avoid giving that name to their daughters?

The slur 'Nancy boy' was historically used for a boy or man who came across as effeminate and 'like a girl' - because Nancy is a girl's name.

I remember an old joke in Not The Nine O'Clock News where they were deliberately juxtaposing Ronald Reagan's wife (named Nancy) with his son (playing on 'camp' stereotypes).

But what kind of advantage would any bully possibly expect to gain by telling a girl that she looked/spoke/acted/dressed like a girl?! And even if they were that stupid to do so, why would the girl get upset by being correctly identified as a girl?

be careful of initials, don't name your child freya alison thompson, or george anthony young, or daniella imogen clarke-kelly.

here are some fairly obvious ones to avoid

fanny
dick
willy
gaylord
cox

Never heard a kid tease another kid about their name