To think people should try and be a bit kinder

[Trivie]

I haven’t been using this baby names board for very long however I have noticed that some people are down right horrible to an unnecessary amount.
Of course if someone is asking for opinions on a name and you don’t like it, it’s fine to say that. But why do people spin off into “it’s chavvy” “it’s cruel” etc.
Not only are these responses often classist as any name not rigidly associated with the middle class gets abused but they are also totally dramatic and unnecessary. The same goes for the “I can’t imagine a doctor/lawyer/politician” with that name comments which to at least to me just suggest the commenter is bigoted and narrow minded if they really can’t imagine a lawyer or a doctor with a non-traditional name.
I don’t really understand why people can’t just say “it’s not to my taste how about x name in a similar style”.
I know the internet removes a lot of accountability but I don’t think it would hurt people to remember that the odds are these names do belong to real people or their children, and someone might read how cruel you are being about their name and find that rather hurtful.

Why do people feel the need to be so horrible on this board? Why is it so classist? and what do people get out of making comments akin to a bully instead of politely saying it’s not their favourite and moving on?

But that's a different situation from posting a possible name that you haven't chosen yet on an anonymous forum for opinions.

I don't personally use descriptions like 'chavvy' but I would say honestly on here if I didn't like a name, and give a reason.

If I met someone in real life with that name, or whose child was called that, I wouldn't dream of expressing that opinion unasked. Even if asked, I'd be diplomatic ("it's really unusual/retro/edgy" or similar).

The simple difference is that OPs here are looking for opinions on a choice they haven't made yet, whereas people you meet have already chosen a name, or had it chosen for them.

It's like, it would be fine to tell a friend a dress didn't suit her if you were out together on a shopping trip and she tried it on with a view to buying it; but only a grade A arsehole would tell their friend her dress didn't suit her if you'd just arrived at a party and she was wearing it.

My children have perfectly average, common names. Some would go as far to call them dull. I’m not doing this out of defence of my own choices.

Stupid people judge. Out of touch adults judge. Snobs judge. Little Englanders judge. MNers judge.

The children’s peers don’t judge, whether their parents have called them Humphrey or Ella-Mae.

Sure thing. We all believe that.

River is quite a common name. It’s really not that ‘out there’.

i know two Rivers in real life and two famous people Rivers.

Better that people are made aware of the possible name calling that a child could face or worse from other people, instead of it actually happening.

Some names being given are not loving to a child. There will be some which become the cause of unkind comments or worse by circumstance, or someone with that name committing heinous crimes, which is different.

This is true. I remember seeing a Mumsnetter say how annoyed that she was that her son’s extremely popular name, was so commonly used now and that he was born in X year and that barely anyone used it then. I checked and the name was the 10th most popular name for boys then so far from being barely used but names can vary hugely from one city to another so it can be helpful to know if it is common because some people value having more unusual names.

It’s still a god awful name.

Right?! Just shows how out of touch people on this board can be.

I have 3 children named George, Lucy and Eve.
I just can’t stand people feeling the need to be unkind.

I had an assistant with a ‘stripper’ name. In a professional office. She was lovely, but it really wasn’t great having ‘please contact Xxx’ on the out of office, and the clients did sometimes seem to malfunction a bit when asked to speak with Xxx.

While people do get over it, it’s not the greatest for first impressions, and thaw first impressions is always what sticks in the mind.

On the Gigi and Lola thread the OP pretty quickly said she hadn’t realised, suggested a different name in place of Lola and still got abuse for wanting to use Gigi, which is a perfectly fine name.
The associations being called out was fine, the abuse for not changing both names to Emily and Sophie; was not.

Gently, OP, if you’re going to crumble because someone on the internet says your baby’s name reminds them of a Golden Retriever or a stripper, I think the issue is with you, not the internet. As pps have said, the reason people post here is for frank feedback.

Firstly, I must admit my 3DC have traditional names. I know a DC called Destyni (spellchecker made me retype that several times), and wonder what the name board would have made of it. I saw her GM anounce the name on social media, met with many replies saying what a lovely unique name it was. Unless I'm way off base, I imagine Destyni going through life being judged by her name.

I don’t really agree with this. I work live and work in a diverse area and hear loads of names I would have thought very unusual 20 years ago so I don’t even think about it anymore. I’m just doing recruitment now and their names don’t come into my decision. I’m not saying if you called your child piss face or something it wouldn’t be abusive but the names on your list seem fairly tame to me.

In your opinion.

I think all the Humphrey’s, Joan’s, Mabel’s and Percy’s are godawful names that were consigned to the dustbin of history for a reason, but the middle classes desperate for some original and unique - but of course not modern or chavvy - dragged them up again and lumbered their children with these dreadful names.

Oh no, wait - their peers won’t know that these are laughably old fashioned names and will just crack in, as they do with the Lola’s, Gigi’s, and all the other names (including - gasp! - some foreign ones) that they’ll come across, without judgement or comment.

Why depending on dialect or religion you can translate it differently depending on how you think it’s said or meant to be intoned

just like afia, affiah, afiya, afiyah afriya

who actually cares. If you actually take a second to think about it, do you actually judge someone whose name is spelt differently?

The trouble with asking opinions about a name to thousands of strangers on the internet is that people will speak plainly and you'll get a wide range of opinions, not necessarily from people whose advice you would seek IRL. Personally I find the name threads rather tediously predictable with people making far reaching associations and the usual dull comments about pretty much every name being a cat/dog's name. I don't know why people bother asking.

Yeah for a second I do. I’m an adult. I’m not going to take someone named Coazy seriously.

I actually think it’s the one time it’s cruel to be kind for the child’s sake. If one weedy lad is saved from being called Wolf or Zeus it’s worth it.

I agree partly , this board generally hates certain names outright , irish names being one such example but some people here are just bonkers with what they want to name their children. Gary-anne was one suggestion a while back for a girl.

I love a baby name thread, though I rarely comment. I think we just need to accept that times change. Until fairly recently we all usually had what were completely normal names for our era. Anyone with an unusual name stood out. To our generation, ‘old people’s names’ were cringey and you’d have died of shame if you’d been called Elsie or Florence, because they were the names of your granny’s friends. Now those names are fashionable, but still grate a bit on those of us who see them as pensioner’s names. Even when they’re perfectly lovely names.

But those names are far preferable to the modern trend of saddling your child with the most outlandish name you can think of.

If you’re going to call your child Ubend, or Apoplexy or Aefulwulf, you can’t complain when people point out that they’ll have the piss taken out of them.

I once saw my own name on here being slagged off and someone said it made them think of "an old Danish woman" - no clue why as my name is Spanish 🤷‍♀️

I couldnt care less what one random person online thinks of my name, I like it and get lots of compliments on it. That said, I completely agree with this:

The simple difference is that OPs here are looking for opinions on a choice they haven't made yet, whereas people you meet have already chosen a name, or had it chosen for them
It's like, it would be fine to tell a friend a dress didn't suit her if you were out together on a shopping trip and she tried it on with a view to buying it; but only a grade A arsehole would tell their friend her dress didn't suit her if you'd just arrived at a party and she was wearing it

I dont know how anyone can be offended about a name they havent even used yet!

More fool you, then. Making a judgement about someone on the basis of a choice made by someone else.

Yup - they’re not the stupid ones in this scenario.

There seems to be quite the drive on MN recently to scold posters for using the terms ‘chav’ and ‘chavvy’, which I don’t particularly see a lot of on here anyway.

Meanwhile, if you ask MNers what they think of ‘Disney’, ‘Bambi’ or ‘Lucifer’ as baby names, and these threads then appear on the Active / Trending boards or MN Facebook, and strong responses are forthcoming, it’s MNHQ you need to take it up with via Site Stuff for ‘advertising’ them as fair game.