Can someone explain the term ‘try hard’ in the context of baby names.

[Redcst]

As the title says. I’m reading the threads and someone always uses the term ‘try hard’ to give their opinion on a name. I genuinely don’t know what this means?

it seems to be a derogatory term or even a euphemism?

I get if you love, like, dislike a name. I also appreciate names considered classics or historically posh etc but try hard I just don’t understand.

just curious

@DuchessOfNarcissex that statement basically proves my point.

When a baby is born no one knows what their capabilities might be. They might be an athlete with couch potato parents, or a mathematician with innumerate parents, or a musician with tone deaf parents, or a best selling author with illiterate parents. By giving them a specific type of name, it puts them in a perceived category, making it harder for them to fulfil their potential.

And your statement demonstrates perfectly how someone called Fairy Princess Tinklebell will have a mountain to climb if she wants to break the mould.

I think parents owe it to their children to give them names that won’t define them. Kids should be left to define themselves as they want to.

Yes this. It can mean trying to be upwardly mobile but more generally is someone who it doing a “look at me and how unique/kooky we are”. Normally parents named Jane and Steve, with a Rainbow, Tiger and Xavier.

There is also a Sant Candida who founded the Sisters of Jesus (I think was the name) so it is definitely Catholic as well.

You are all so beige

I love it as a middle name because of the Scott of the Antarctic link, but it was the surname of his Godparents, not a first name.

Totally agree. I don’t think of Jaxon Lennon Bodhi as try hard. In my opinion they’re fairly hideous names but the try hard ones are where parents clearly think they are, oh so superior, cultured and educated

We have a Jaggar and an Elvis at my school. These I would say are 'try hard'.

What's the name OP?

People who post that a particular baby name is ‘try hard’ are people who genuinely think only their opinions are the correct ones to have, which of course they’re not.

If anything, it signifies that they’re socially conservative and possibly quite narrow minded too.

The sort to be avoided in real life. 😂

Attention seeking.

'Oh, her name is so unusual!'
'Wow, I've never heard that name before.'

Invariably tacky.

OR a wacky name / a name from a totally different culture / or an unusual combination.

Try hard. Trying to be different.

It's quite possible to not be socially conservative without being 'try hard'.

Try hard is when you're just trying to be unusual for the sake of it.

Quite often giving your child a name they either shorten, abbreviate or just actively dislike in later life.

James for a girl is a lovely, there's something up with you.

Sorry, but that's terrible. Does she know what Cove means?

My youngest sons name has been called try hard on here. It's a normal, but not particularly common name. I chose it because it was the name of a character in one of my favourite childhood books.

Ah well, what do I know, according the mumsnet two of my other kids have "chav" names or naughty kids names.

So I'm both a chav and a try hard.

Or I just chose names I liked, like most parents.

@cramptramp I know that, not sure what your point is though considering I also want to use it as a middle name and said as such.

Also if someone wants to call their child "Falcon" as a first name they can, its no different than a little girl being called Wren.

It isn't. It's preposterous.

I think it's more naming your kid after a city or an every day object or to spell a commonly used name is such a way that the child in question will forever be correcting people about the spelling or to give your child such a long name that it doesn't fit on any form.

For me it’s the “yoonique” trend of calling kids by normal sounding names but which are an absolute ballache to spell or pronounce from the spellings. Such idiots people then get really annoyed when people don’t pronounce the names properly or spell them in a sensible fashion (like Liberteigh, Maizee, Sophya, Klowee).

Or the downright bizarre where the name is purely a reflection of the parent’s ego and clearly no thought at all to the poor child (yes you Elon, Kardashians, love islanders). Who wants a judge called Bambi or e2#glottalstop?

Or I also think it can mean people who name their kids so that they fit in with a certain “set” in later life rather than because they like the name, like Katie Hopkins.

I was agreeing with you that it was a good name!! Just pointing out when it was used for Scott it was a surname.

Those names sound like Latin for some sort of medical condition or something, eg "I've had a nasty attack of Renaelia and I've got to have a scan to see if it's damaged my Oriavella".

I think I interpreted it as preventious maybe? Trying to hard to impress or be ‘trendy’. But like many terms like this it’s totally subjective and therefore utterly meaningless

A (Brit) child we once met on holiday was called Piper.

I’d call all the Beckhams’ kids’ names ‘try hard’, too, or perhaps ‘busting a gut’ would be more like it.

See, I just don't get this? I don't understand how you could think it's preposterous. It's just a nice sounding name. I don't have a daughter called James btw but one of my kids has got a bit of an out there name 🤣 luckily he's a good character so he gets away with it.

Try hard to me is deliberately going out to try and have a name only your dc will have. Often then very put out when it transpires there’s more than one ‘Otilly’ in brownies in a small village. We have multiples of several names across 100 girls and they aren’t the top 20 names.
Or trying to sound cool and edgy eg adding ‘Tiger’ or similar to name.

Men don't have this problem. The pecking order is clearly defined by physical prowess, intelligence and money. For women, the pecking order is constantly up for debate. So to be a card carrying member of the respectable middle class you have to meet a random set of standards which all have a Goldilocks quality (eg you should be not too fat thin and not too fat, your house should be quite big but not too big etc)

So to get to the sweet spot with children's name they have to be not too popular but not too Try Hard/Out There. Try Hard/Out there means you are deemed to have been too creative and there is a risk people may laugh at your chosen name. Both of these mistakes risk social shaming, of course.

The silly thing about these rules is that the names that were in the sweet spot this year will probably become too popular. And inevitably some of the Try Hard/Out There names will be moved to the sweet spot next year.

So you can't win. Do what you want. Care not what people who have entrapped themselves in this timewasting, meaningless game say.

I tend to think of try hard as going to great lengths to be original/unique with the name or spelling. But it can mean different things to different people. My daughter's name is often mocked on here for being try-hard-posh and "too frilly" but I still like it (and so does she more importantly) so I'm not bothered.

There are names I'm less keen on but I always say "awww that's nice". It's the only polite response.