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.

My partner and I have different accents, mine is broadly southern and he’s from Manchester. He reads possible names out loud in his dad’s accent and we avoid anything ending in an ‘ee’ sound. I’m with you on this one.

Oh no they’re awful!

Most of the girl names make me think someone’s about to birth a stern looking Amish woman wearing a white bonnet.

I love quite ‘frilly’ names for girls, and soft names for boys, but I can understand the amish thing with Maud, Esther and Ruth for sure😂

I've just googled my name and it appears on a list of popular Amish names 😀

Violet - mouth full
Agnes- acne and sounds too masculine
Margot - maggot
Kasha -need I say more
Edward - such a horrible shape in my mouth

Names that sound terrible with a heavy accent, names that people don't pronounce the letter correctly on like Natalie (na'alie)
and made up names and names of fruit/veg
And stoopid zpelling.

Agree with all yours. And OP with yours too.

Boys:

Kai
Sid (on my pregnant sisters list god love her I just nodded and sipped my tea)
Oakley
Connor
Callum
Rio

Girls

Anything hyphenated with -Mae/May
Anything too 'try hard', like Ophelia, Arabella, Genevieve or Rosalind
Summer (don't know why)
Mia (as above)
Paige (she's needy)
Sadie (she's soft)
Layla/Lyla- Reminds me of tampons or incontinence pads.

I dislike cute names particularly for boys I can’t imagine being 45 and called Teddy etc.
I quite like more classic names for girls and boys that will grow with them.
I don’t like double first names or surnames for first names.
Ultra modern Dexter, Hunter types aren’t a favourite more because of the shortened versions.

Hyphenated first names.
Yoonique spellings.
More than one middle name.
Naming the child the same name as the father.
Anything with Junior in it.
Using an adjective, especially when coupled with a noun eg Navy Ocean.

This reminded me I recently met a DC called Cash, got to be one of the worst names I’ve ever seen.

I really like Sidney/Sid for a boy but reminds me of Sid from skins. Also the tryhard girls names are on my list except Arabella 🫢

Also Junior on it’s own, I don’t like that at all.