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.

I was the only one with my name at school, but now I am one of five at work. I wish I had used a nickname when I started, but too late now, it's just confusing. Even my co-workers say there are too many of us.

so you only want people that agree with u to join in debate seeker and by saying someone is disingenious i would say that your slaging someone of. Why do u care so much what someone elses child is called anyway?. U name your kids and leave everyone else to name theirs without being judged.

You're not joining in the debate, double trouble - you're saying the debate's boring and that I should to shut up and go away!

because I did not want dd1 to be the third chloe in her class. Her name is different and somewhat unusual - especially when we lived in the UK - I would guess she was probably the only one or close to it perhaps.

Here in Aus - I have come across two other people with her name - one was in a newspaper and the other was in an ironwomen race.

My other two have regular names that are not that common again I know one other with dd2's name.

Dd3 is a shortened name - did not like the longer version so she is just the short version. No doubt when she is older - as has happened already - people assume she is the longer version and we just shorten it for ease rather than it just being her name.

nappy- google Bendarroch School!

I think you should name your child what you want and you dont have to have a good reason, my 3 DB's all have slightly unusual names, well put it this way they are getting less unusuall fast but you still cant get any mugs, badges or stickers with their names on.
my name is quite normall but no body spells it correctly, this is a little annoying,
i love my kids names and am glad the aren't one of five different 'toms', 'jacks'(nothing against kids with those names)

duchesse - it looks lovely. am very tempted to move there! the only thing that worries me is that it looks very small by the fact they mix all the recption to year 6 children into 3 classes. how does that work? do they all do different work?

Eisvold, I don't know what an Iron Woman race is, it sounds like Gladiators or something, which makes me wonder - is your daughter's name Vixen or Amazon?

They all work to their ability, which means that the little class has 4-7 yr olds, the middle class has 6/7-10 yr olds, and the big class has 7/8-13 yr olds. They move up when they are able to, rather than because they have reached a particular age. Soon there will be a fourth class, when a new head comes in September.

but surely the 4-7 year olds can't all be doing the same work?

Depends on the 4/7 yr old. Some children are slow to pick up letters and numbers. This is the case for the 7 yr old in the little class. Others are at the reading and writing stage and are in th middle class, yet others have an age 12-13 level of understanding and are in the top class.

The 7 yr olds in the school are an interesting mix. Some of them came from other schools precisely they were slower to mature and needed more time at the foundation stage, and were floundering in the state system expectations. Those children don't just go away or get better in the standard system- they fail and leave primary school unable to read/ write (I have had the delight of trying to teach modern languages at secondary level to barely literate 11 yr olds).

We get a fair few state school refugees. Some are still illiterate at 9 or 10. Usually they're reading and writing at a level more appropriate for their age a few months later (much smaller classes, individual attention, variety of teaching methods, far more active school day, etc...)

and no, they're not doing completely the same work, that wouldn;t be appropriate for their emotional maturity. They are all essentially still at the foundation stage though. But there are only 7 of them and 2 members of staff (teacher + TA), so much easier to give individual attention than in class of 25+.

if they aren't learning the same things how does the class situation work? i assume it's not like conventional teaching where the teacher's at the front telling them all about such and such - more of a case of them all sitting down and the teacher going round to each child and telling them what they should be doing? also if there's only 7 of them do you think they miss out on the social aspect of things?

A little uncertain as to when a made-up name becomes a real name: has Wendy qualified by now?

All names have to be made up at some stage; some then go on to become astonishingly popular.

Lots of the favourite names of today were unknown in this country 50 years ago, whether because they have been made up since or (more commonly) introduced. Does that mean that the first person who used them was wrong? The second person? The twohundredth?

As everybody knows, names go in fashions. So naming your child with a name that is currently out of fashion is going to provoke at least as much comment as making one up, unless you happen to be assisting at the turn of the tide.

And then there are the venerable names that have never come into fashion again. Personally, I have access to an unusually good private library of Medieval literature in many languages so I could certainly have come up with a range of stunning and unusual names, but I doubt if I would have done my children much a favour. What good would it be to them to know that Aethelfrith was a genuine name with a proper history; would that really have made all the difference to their mates?

My children are in the same position as those of many other MNs: their names are foreign, so sound odd (and, for all their friends know, might as well be made up), but are actually perfectly ordinary unremarkable names in their other culture. Never had a problem. They don't mind spelling them out and noone has ever made fun of them.

Just remembered that we have a copy of the series Corpus Inscriptionum in the university library. If I can find you an instance of Halcyon actually used as a name in the Greek world, Seeker, will this alter its acceptability in your eyes? Presumably, it would then become at least as respectable as Richenda? And it sounds to me exactly the sort of name that a Greek slave may have had.

My parents had reasons for all the names my sister and I have and none of them are "because we liked it" - all more meaningful. As a result I have a very unusual middle name, which I hated when I was younger, but not that I am thinking about baby names's myself, appreciate and respect what it meant to my dad. It is a place in Jamaica where he lived for 14 years.

Personally I draw the line where it looks as if people can't be bothered to get their kid's name right, e.g. Maximillion, Maximum - why? Just call him Max and save him embarrassment at interview panels in the future... I knew a boy called Ceith at school, as well as a girl called Adell. Doomed in their teachers' eyes.
Cory, my fave LOL medieval boy's name has to be Dodo. Truly.

There's unusual- which is, by and large, fine, and then there's invented, spelled "originally", hyphenated, taken out of its original context (like Halcyon and Sequoia!) etc etc, which is just deeply saddening as the people who do it labour under the misconception that what they are doing is cool. It's not.

I don't understand why you are so wound up about this Seeker. As long as you are happy with the names you chose for your children, why is it any of your business what others choose to name theirs? Given that there are so many other cultures in this country now, there are always going to be children whose names sound 'made up' or invented. Or are you suggesting that there should be a central list of approved names and we should only be allowed to choose from that? It sounds very controlling to me.
My sons have names that are not overly common and certainly not with their spelling. But the spelling we chose for each, was the original Gaelic spelling, not the anglicised version most people are familiar with. My nephew has a name which has the Russian spelling since the name originated there. Are you seriously saying that these names should not be allowed just because the spelling appears to be unusual?

I'd surmise that the resistance to 'unusual' names stems from the British reserve and desire to fit in with everyone else and live the quiet life. That's why anything that doesn't conform to the norm is dismissed as weird, spoiled and 'American', like it's an affront to the entire nation's identity to not keep the Johns, Toms and Harrys going. rolls eyes

See, I can make sweeping generalisations based on ill-founded assumptions too! LOL

Personally, I really do not like old fashioned names. I understand why some people do, but I just do not.

Also, when you think back to school, you know someone with that name, so you don't like it because you associate it with that person if you see what i mean.

Also, loads of new names are nice, so why not pick one of those? All names are picked for a reason and it's up to the parents.

There's not particular reason why people HAVE to pick an old fashioned name. Each to their own.