Whay do peopel give their children 'unusual" names?

[seeker]

I am prepared to bet (unfortunately there is no way of testing my theory so I am on pretty safe ground) that the vast majority of children would much rather be one of 2 Toms or 3 Emilys in their year at school than the only Halcyon or Sequoia.

I also think that people are very disingenuous when they insist that they are choosing made up or off the wall names so that their children are the only one in their year. I have a Grace, who is one of 2 in a school of 1420 girls,and a Patrick, who is the only one in a school of 430 children. I don't know why people choose off the wall names, but uniqueness can't be the real reason.

Mirren, belgo.

I hope they don't move to England .

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I was one of 3 the same name in my year, and I didn't like it. I would have much preferred to have had a name that was a little less popular.

(Struan is a great name expat, there was a Struan in my year at school that I fancied like mad.)

Both mine have unusual names because we loved them and they have a family connection too, not to be unique. Although I have a very common name and really disliked being one of 3 in my class so at least they won't have the same problem.

expat. My english family and friends have all made an effort to learn the correct spelling and proununciation of dd2's flemish name. It's dh's flemish family who spell it wrong

Don't mind unusual names that are actually names. Although if extremely unusual as in 'no-one in their right minds...' I feel a bit sorry for the poor kids.

Made up crazy spellings or mis-spellings just make the parents look a bit thick tbh - how hard is it to look up the bloody spelling of a name? And how daft do you have to be to think spelling Emily 'aenghije' or whatever is big or clever?

Ds has a fairly unusual for England name, although we have come across of couple of others. But it's a well-known surname* in England and very common in the part of the UK that my family comes from. And easy to spell and pronounce for the English.

(NOT Bradley or Carlton or a surname that isn't actually a first name, it is a proper first name, just not in England.)

MemysonandI - you don't have to go the Halcyon route - as I said, mine are Grace and Patrick - no need for qualifiers. And I could come up with 10 similar names without trying.

I really don't know about the REAL but unusual names thing.

I will stick my neck out however and hazard a guess that, statistically speaking, the popularity of MADE UP names or CREATIVELY spelled names is inversely proportional to the average social class of the parent.

I think some folks have realised this now (possibly due to consulting mumsnet and getting a less than gushing reaction to the proposed name(s)) and there's a bit more "Isn't it unusual, its a family name you know" going on. People are less likely to be so forthright in their opinion if its a family name for fear of offending a whole clan rather than one parent.

what one person thinks is weird another person thinks is fine

'weird' to some people means a bizarre made-up name with lots of zs in it, to others it means any name they have not heard before

my fil thought our choice of names was hard enough but we were eclipsed completely by sil

I find the idea of a usual name slightly weird. Am utterly spooked by the fact that there is another child at the Inferiorettes' school with DD1's name, and that DD2's name (chosen in a drug-crazed post-natal haze) is really quite...well...usual.

I simply cannot imagine a life in which one did not have to spell out one's name (both parts) in long and excruciating detail. I feel it is a Tradition To Continue.

I have an unusual name. My sister has an unusual name. Dh has an unusual name. It's normal for us not to have the "normal" name.

We visited a school the other day and the poor receptionist struggled through the first four names on her list, then sighed with relief when she came to Ben and Christopher!

True...I have a 'regular' name and I still spend half my life spelling it or correcting people. Fortunately I love my name (it's at the unusual end of normal these days) so tis a small price to pay.

DS's name is not currently common, but it has unambiguous spelling and pronounciation, and is known as an actual name.

I don't think it is the un/commoness of names that bothers kids, but anything that takes 3 attempts to get someone to spell or pronounce, or accept is even a name.

"Barley?? BARLEY? as in the country Bali, or the crop?" etc etc.

I have a very unusual name and I love it, always have. It is a nuisance having to spell it, but I could if I wanted to (I dodn't) use a shortening that no one would have any problems with (except me!). I get a lot of positive feedback about it too. My parents chose it because they liked it. My siblings all have names that were unusual at the time, but have all at one time or another been more popular. They all like their names too My middle sister does have a slightly daft middle name which she doesn't use any more. My dh has the most popular name for the year he was born, but never met anyone else with it until university when we knew loads of them (7 or 8) and it was a bit of a nuisance then.

We tried to steer a middle ground but the shortening of ds's name became very popular a year or two after he was born (bloody Eastenders!), and dd's nickname is always in the top 20. She however rather likes meeting other children with her name. At school she calls herself by her full name and we've only ever met a couple of people with that.

I like unusual names, but only if they are nice (subjective I know!) spelt right, have some cultural or family relevance and are the full version of the name in question. I guess whn it comes to names we are all pretty opinionated

"I will stick my neck out however and hazard a guess that, statistically speaking, the popularity of MADE UP names or CREATIVELY spelled names is inversely proportional to the average social class of the parent."

I don't know. The upper classes are pretty keen on some rather odd names. Think Santa Montefiore.

I tend to think, names are supposed to be unique. That's the point of them. To distinguish someone from everyone else.

I think it's nice if your first name is unusual enough that you don't have to be constantly referred to as firstname surname but can just be firstname.

my name is common and boring. I'd rather be a Sequoia or Halcyon.

Of course if you live or work in a multicultural environment then the range of names is so wide it doesn't really matter! When I worked in innner city London spelling my name ceased to be unusual anyway as we all did it (especially with e-mail being the primary communication method).

MeMySonandI (hello btw ), that's exactly why I didn't want to choose "top 10" names for my kids. In my class at school we had two Lisa's, known as "fat Lisa" and "skinny Lisa", and two Sarah's, known as "loud Sarah" and "quiet Sarah". I did NOT want my child's name to have negative prefix once they became one of many.

(and then what did I do? Had two boys and gave them very popular Gaelic names )

(and expat btw, I love Struan, ds1 might have been Struan but it was "spoilt" for us by a horrible brat of that name that we knew!)

My rl name has been very common for decades, it's no fun being one of 4 people with the same name in your class. So I wanted to give my DS a different name. He's not got anything wacky though.

NAmes-dont care about what why or unusual spelling.not worth getting your drawers in a twist about frankly

Love Muireann expat - though where I come from it would be pronounced Mwirren! Even though I am Irish I struggle to say the names of a couple of kids I know who have Irish names - because they pronounce them in a slightly different way to what I would - different dialect I suppose...

What I find interesting is that children generally don't have trouble pronouncing "unusual" names - their brains seem to be more able to hear the name and repeat it perfectly than adults who perhaps have set ideas on how to say words. My dc's can say my neighbours kids names perfectly and vice versa - mine have irish names, the neighbours have Asian names.

I met a friend the other day whos ds goes to nursery with a girl called Cinnamon??...........

i don't like overly common names for the reason i hated having a common name at school.