No Holds Barred

[danascully96]

Please give me your unfiltered thoughts on some or all of the names! Other name recommendations also welcomed.

Juliet or Julia

Charlotte

Violet

Bridget

Georgia (honor name for my grandma; full name would be Georgia Blake in honor of her brother who she lost in WW2 — George Blake)

Caroline (“line” pronunciation)

Madeline (“line” pronunciation like the books)

Felicity

Margot “Maggie”

Tessa “Tess”

Elizabeth “Eliza”

Louisa

May

June

Grace

Serena

Elise

Susannah

Pippa

Natalie or Natalia

Flora

Dahlia

Heidi

There probably aren't many 60 year old Susannahs, but plenty of Susans and Suzannes.

I'm put off Serena because of the ones I know only one is actually Serena, the others have different spellings like Sarina.

I like pretty much all of them but I really like Julia, Elizabeth and Georgia, very classy sounding names I think.

All lovely.

Juliet or Julia - ok but feel middle aged to me

Charlotte - lovely but make sure you like both Charlie and Lottie

Violet - I love this but I know others see “violent” which puts me off a bit

Bridget - feels dated, don’t like “Bridge”

Georgia - Love, love, love

Caroline (“line” pronunciation)- nice - like the nn’s Callie / Carrie

Madeline (“line” pronunciation like the books) - too much hassle to correct constantly from
made-lyn pronunciation

Felicity - lovely but I dislike all the shortenings

Margot “Maggie” - like a lot

Tessa “Tess” - like a lot

Elizabeth “Eliza” - love (prefer Eliza as a standalone name as I love it best out of the shortenings for Elizabeth, and it avoids people using other nn options)

Louisa - like, do you like “Lou”?

May - like

June - like - still feels a bit dated to me but I like it enough to use anyway

Grace - nice but the ones I know aren’t graceful and it stands out more because of the mismatch with the name meaning

Serena - nice but the one I know is called “Sreen”. Prefer Seren.

Elise - slight middle aged French lady vibes - but pretty

Susannah - nice but lots of 50 year olds with the name if that bothers you - makes it feel dated to me

Pippa - love, prefer short for Philippa

Natalia or Natalia - dated, don’t like Nat. Talia is nice as shirt for Natalia.

Flora - nice if you don’t mind occasional “and fauna” jokes

Dahlia - ok, but could become “Dahls” in secondary school

Heidi - love this so much

I’d pick Georgia, Heidi, Philippa (Pippa) or Eliza.

I like Juliet, Heidi and Madeline

Yes Georgia is my favourite on your list when you consider how meaningful it would be for you. No brainer I think.

I also like Elizabeth/Eliza, Felicity and Violet - though Violet is getting a bit heavily "done" and I possibly prefer Violetta for that reason.

Grace is popular but to me a very ugly, heavy-sounding name, I don't like the hard "G".

Dahlia is awful (sorry).

Juliet or Julia - like both
Charlotte - nice but too pop
Violet - no
Bridget - Quite like
Georgia (honor name for my grandma; full name would be Georgia Blake in honor of her brother who she lost in WW2 — George Blake) - No, sorry bit 90s
Caroline (“line” pronunciation) - no
Madeline (“line” pronunciation like the books) - no
Felicity - yes
Margot “Maggie” - yes
Tessa “Tess” - yes (though both Teresa?)
Elizabeth “Eliza” - yes
Louisa - lovely
May - Yes
June - Yes
Grace - OK
Serena - no
Elise - OK
Susannah - No
Pippa - No
Natalie or Natalia - No
Flora - Yes
Dahlia - not sure
Heidi - I like it but I wouldn't choose it.

All 'nice' names but some are more to my taste than others, any would be fine though. Louisa and Felicity are my faves.

The first three on your list are my favourites.

Most of the others are ok other thsn Bridget & Caroline.

Like them all except Bridget. Bridget is a stout 60 something in tweed with lots of dogs not a baby.

And please not Eve either it is the most boringly overused girls name in England. So generic. One to avoid..

Lovely names.
I like Susannah, Caroline, Louisa, Flora and Heidi best.

Some other suggestions:
Nadia
Tamara
Josephine
Miranda
Erica

Don’t add Eve to the list!! Perfectly nice name but boring and loads of similar names like Evie, Eva , Ava etc.
Your name list is one of the nicest I’ve seen in a long time and I like almost all of them . Favourites are probably Violet, Felicity and Serena.

Juliet, Georgia and Heidi are all lovely.

Since it has such meaning to you, I would vote Georgia Blake. However, I really love Caroline, it is my dd's middle name and it ia my favourite from your list. I realky like Felicity too.

I love Nadia. Funnily enough, my grandma was named Josephine. I’ve always loved the nn Josie, but I’m not sure about Josephine 🌸 I’ll have to ponder on that!

Thank you to everyone so far! Lots of great comments. I’m not precious about my names — some of you have me cracking up with your comments about me birthing a 60-year old woman in tweed 😜 British humor is definitely the best 🤣 I was afraid to say that these names will likely be said with a Midwestern American accent (we put Ds where Ts should be) as I know we speak very nasally. Ready to be torched for my accent in the upcoming comments 🤠🔥

That said, I spend a lot of time in the UK for work visits, so I appreciate hearing from the other side of the pond! For instance, Julia and Caroline seem to be much more dated in the UK than they are here in the US. Whereas Eleanor and Harriet have always been classic/popular in the UK, they’ve only recently been dusted off (within the past decade) here in the US.

Generally speaking, I’ve (slightly) narrowed down my favorites to:

Juliet, Elizabeth “Eliza,” Louisa, Tessa, Charlotte, Caroline, Georgia, Felicity, and Madeline.

As for Madeline, I hate the nn Maddie, so it’ll probably drop off too. However, I’m a redhead, so Felicity and Madeline would be cute if I had two redheaded girls (Felicity is an American Girl doll and Madeline for the books).

Georgia

I’m not in the UK and named dd an underrated classic and it’s been good only ever being the only one in her schools. Everyone easily identifies her.

As with pp, Caroline is definitely an underrated classic here, too.

Really dislike Felicity. Love Georgia but since you’ve said you’re in the US I actually think it works slightly less.

My favourite to least favourite from your shortlist

Georgia
Eliza
Caroline
Louisa
Charlotte
Madeline
Juliet
Tessa
Felicity

I like Grace best from your list.

I think Charlotte is getting a bit overused and stodgy - especially Lottie, which sounds a bit like Clotty.

It isn't a bad name in and of itself, just way too common.

Love Julia, Eve, Caroline and Elizabeth- classic, timeless “can’t go wrong” names imo and quite international (especially Julia and Caroline). The Ev- variations admittedly are very popular at the moment but the original Eve itself has never got much beyond Top 50 here afaik.

Love Susannah, May and Juliet too but I suppose they might have more spelling issues (as Susanna, Mae and Juliette are nearly as well known. Actually I suppose Elizabeth does have the spelling Elisabeth too but that variation is much less well used in the UK).

(Btw I don’t get the 50/60 year old comments about classic names such as Julia and Susannah - statistically they have never been popular enough in the UK to really feel middle aged imo. I can only think that posters are confusing them with similar sounding Julie and Susan which were extremely popular here in the mid century).

But I don’t dislike any of your choices, apart from Margot (too trendy), Heidi (too cute for me), Bridget, June and Violet (just not keen on their sounds). I do personally prefer more “classic” variations of some of your picks though - so Teresa rather than diminutive Tessa, Philippa rather than diminutive Pippa, the original Madeleine over variation Madeline etc.

While Georgia isn’t a favourite of mine in particular (nothing wrong with it, it just makes me think of the State or the Country before it being a woman’s name); I think the family links are lovely so imo it should be a strong contender for a middle name at the very least.

It doesn't sound like Clotty. OP is in the USA, and it might not be as popular there. @Calliopespa.

I agree that Georgia probably works better in the UK since Georgia is known as the state in the US. Not sure why I feel that way, but it’s like being a Chelsea who lives in Chelsea… too meta 😶‍🌫️🤣

My favs are Susannah and Louisa, but I do genuinely like them all (with the exception of Dahlia, which actually would be a pronunciation challenge across uk and USA with day-lia va dar-lia).

Exactly but then I thought that was maybe your thing seeing as Caroline, Louisa and Charlotte are leaning heavily towards US place names too. V Patriotic! They’re all pretty names though.