Names You Would Never Use

[AubernFable]

I am an absolute name nerd and love hearing other people’s preferences, but instead of being boring and asking for your favourite, I want to hear your least favourite baby names.

Disclaimer: I am not encouraging anyone to hate on anyone’s name choices—everyone has different tastes and it makes life interesting. I just want to hear the names that you personally dislike or would never use.

Some of my least favourites…

Boys

Hunter – also see Gunner or any other violence-based, American-sounding name (Nameberry Baby Name Trends 2025)
Kai – Jax and similar three-letter names
Kayden – Jayden, Brayden
Archie/Teddy – shortened names in general
George – just don’t like it

Girls

Luna – and Nova sound like pet names to me
Emma – Olivia and Amelia type names, just because I know so many DC with those names
Savannah – I don’t know why
Francesca – weird because it’s similar to names I love
Poppy, Rosie, Ruby – cute but I feel like they don’t suit adults
Angel – also see Honey or Princess (all real DC)

In general, I don’t like unique spellings or really modern names like Graeyson, Blakely, Azra, or Kyndall.

It’s a real name, french feminine version of Otto I believe, it isn’t especially lovely though. I feel like it’s one of those ‘rare’ names that a celebrity popularised but I don’t remember who.

Felicity and Florence are in my names list but now more so middle names due to the popularity.

edit: It was the youtuber Zoella, she has Ottilie Rue and Novie Nell which IMO are both… not nice.

I prefer names which can't be shortened and I'm not keen on made up names.

Some names I don't like the sound of:
Olive, Eileen, Ruby, Jayden, William, Denis

any silly 'ie' nick names
anything ending in Mae
Olivia, Amelia, Lily

Mae and Leigh/Lee type middle or hyphenated names I don’t like.

Wouldn’t use any name that hasn’t been in constant use for 500 years. No Kaydens, Jaydens, Kimberleys, Dorises, Storms, Tracey’s, Willows etc. They date.

That’s interesting, I love a lot of old fashioned names but not necessarily ones that have been used often.

I’m thinking along the lines of John, William, Thomas, Henry, James, and George for boys? Girls are trickier as the names date quicker but Victoria, Florence, Lily, Eleanor and Charlotte type names?

Boys
Kevin
Vernon
Ashley
Taylor
Tyler
Ethan
Jayden

Girls
Sienna
Scarlett
Desiree
Fanny
Griselda
Isis
Kelly

Just reminds me of Gollum

Blown away that none of my three children's names are on here. I get some funny looks when I introduce my children!

Sadly, I don't like boring names, just to buck the trend. I'm tired of:

Emma
Emily
Lucy

Having worked in 2 eu countries and in North America, I'm done with those names sadly.

Equally we have lots of missionaries at our church and thus lots of Old Testament names for kids under 10, some of which are so sad like:
Obadiah
Jessom
Marah (bitter waters!!! Why??)

As an ex-teacher, neither did I!

Emma is one of my personal least favourites, it’s just bleh.

There’s some awesome old testament names, really out there, I grew up with a Hezekiah and always admired it but they’re very grown up names for little DC…
and we’re atheist. I still adore Abel and Gideon.

Oo whats the vibe? Obviously you don’t have to say their actual names but similar?

I don't like the liver sound of Olivia or the meal sound of Amelia. Also find names like Lorna and Norah very plain.

Boy wise, Oliver for same reason as above. George as find the collection of letters really unattractive.

It's mostly about sound and written down aesthetics for me.

Jessica
Emilia / Amelia
Olivia
Tiffany
Lottie (because it rhymes with potty)

Arthur
Calvin
Cameron
Jude
Harry
Harrison (anything with -son)
Oliver

OAKLEY!!!!!!! Nearly every baby born in the last 3 years has been called Oakley and I can’t stand it!! I think it is so American!

Your naughty boy names... do you happen to be a primary school teacher ?!

Totally @AubernFable there are some ace and beautiful OT names. I need to start a thread on them, Hezekiah would definitely be up there along with Zephaniah and Gideon. But hey, I'm no angel Gabriel/lla, and so I love em all in Sunday school.

One of them is similar to Arlo, one is a character from a popular movie and the other is typically a dog name 😅

Most names touted on Mumsnet tbh!

Maude
Harriet
Esther
Ruth
Rebecca
Charlotte
Kate
Mabel
Calliope
Clementine?!

Sebastian
Casper
Jasper
Zachary
Nathaniel
Rafferty
Jonathan
George

Obviously, the Talulah-Rose, Maisie, Daisy Milly, Tilly, -Mae and Kaiden, Jayden, Brayden, Okayden names go without saying.

Artur isn't the result of poor spelling - it's the Eastern European variant of Arthur. We have a Ukranian chap called it in my dc's class.

I think that some people don't take into account regional accent when they name their child. I love the name Emily (although none of my DDs has it anywhere about their person) but in my local accent it comes out as 'Em-el-eh'. When you've heard 'Emileh! Sopheh!' bellowed across a supermarket a few times, it puts you off.

The local accent also renders Laura and Lara as exactly the same name, and tactful questioning is often required before writing it down.

I knew a woman with male/female twins. He was William Joseph and she was Roberta Josephine. They were known as Billy-Jo and Bobby-Jo, or the BJ's for short.

This is a new level of awful baby names, it’s really got everything awful going for it, poor kids 😂

I actually love a lot of these! 🫢

Maud/e- Hate
Harriet- Like
Esther- Like
Ruth- Hate
Rebecca- Love
Charlotte- Bleh
Kate- Hate
Mabel- My cat!
Calliope- Love
Clementine- Satsuma
Sebastian- Overused
Casper- Love
Jasper- Cute
Zachary- hate Zach/Zac
Nathaniel- LOVE
Rafferty- Don’t like
Jonathan- Hate
George- Hate