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

Of course you are allowed to be judgey! @MysteryNameChange I don't know where this myth has come from that people don't judge others and you are also entitled to join in with this most human fraility!

I just wanted to point out that, while you declared that you and those who live in your "poncey liberal neighbourhood"- to quote you- would never judge a child's name, you were happy to judge what is a "shit" rough" school. It's worth knowing that we all judge even if we do it without speaking aloud.

You also judge the children in those schools because you admit that your son might not have too easy a time of it in one of those schools-I infer that, from this, you are saying the pupils there would deride his name because they are not liberal.

I certainly hope your child never goes to prison or ever has to live outside your "poncey liberal neighbourhood" but I just wanted to bring it your attention that he might and, if he did find himself living among those who went to a "rough" and "shit" school, then he might find his name judged.

He shouldn't-of course not-but as you point out, he would if he went to their school and I'm just pointing out he cannot avoid them his whole life.

In the meantime, continue to judge and don't pretend that your friends and neighbours in your "poncey Liberal" neighbourhood don't do the same because they will and just like us illiberal types, they will judge names. Care or don't care but a survey found 99 and a half out of 100 people do. The source for this survey is: NamezIssUssAndJamesIsABoyzName. 1921: Authors: Rogers and Hart.

No, I read their posts on the baby names forum.

It always makes me laugh when I see people mocking certain baby names on here as 'try-hard' or similar because ultimately, ALL baby name choices are trying hard to be something. A middle-class parent who calls their child Ottilie or Raphael is 'trying' just as hard as a working class parent who calls their child Lilly-Mae or Jaxon, as are parents across the board who call their children George, Emily, Henry and Charlotte.

I really don't care whether you agree. I stand by my view that if you choose a name from another culture and claim that you're honouring it because great grandfather Anatoliy on one side came from Russia in 1887 then honour that culture properly - otherwise you're doing nothing more than paying lip service to it in your attempt to be unique.

I would say when the name is overly strange and at odds with most people’s idea of names. But it’s usually used for names someone doesn’t personally like - there are unusual names that are very nice so not deemed try hard and instead praised 😁. I’d say Moon Unit was a try hard name and Zowie Bowie. Bowie of course reverted to Duncan Jones as he must have thought the same 😁

I named my child a name from a foreign country 😮. I can’t speak the language. Loads of names originate in foreign countries. I think it depends how foreign it sounds. No one expects you to have ties to France because you called your dd Amelie do they? If you called her Eun Kyung then yes you probably should have a bit of connection to Korea more than just kpop.

@MysteryNameChange it really isn’t lovely. Imagine going through life as a woman, with a name that is 99.999% of the time used for a man. Constantly having to confirm that yes, you’re a woman, and yes, your name is James. Or when you say your name is James, people wondering what sex you are. Whether you’re a woman with a man’s name, or a very feminine-looking man. Or if you’re trans. Like if a man was called Mary. A lifetime of awkwardness, just because parents wanted to be a bit “different”.

@MysteryNameChange I assume your son has a slightly pretentious wannabe upper class name, or something hippy-esque, which will be fine in his middle class Oftsed outstanding school. But what if he wants to become a plumber, or mechanic, or join the army? Will he have the piss taken out of him? Do you care? Or was it more important that you gave him a name you thought reflected well on you, and made you seem more wacky and interesting?

Well you certainly seem to have a unique sense of humour. I can’t see anything remotely chortle worthy there. So what if one was Italian and the other wasn’t! 🤷‍♀️ If I had been the Italian mother I would have been very interested and would have chatted to other mother about the name and enjoyed the fact the name had appeal outside Italy.

Out of interest what nationality is that chip on your shoulder? Is it a chip or a French Fry😁

Tbh it's just people who put themselves first (as in this will show the world how cool I am)and consideration for their child last (as in it doesn't matter if it's a made up word, stupid spelling or ridiculous choice they're going to love to live with it)

And actually trying isn't the greatest evil.

As an aside, gosh so many threads are getting crabby lately. Is it the lack of sunlight or what?

I already explained the humour. However, as humour is subjective I don't expect you to agree or otherwise - it's of no consequence to me.

My great grandfather once went to Blackpool on a day trip and so I called my daughter, Albert Ramsbottom Wallace Stanley Holloway,

I feel it honours the Blackpool heritage that our great grandfather bestowed on us.

We were not sure how to spell Holloway-one L or two- but that really doesn't matter and so we vary it. It's only a minor detail, after all Shakespeare spelled his name in various ways!

We are from Wigan and and a welcome side effect of this brilliant idea is that it lets our neighbours know that we are not as boringly pedestrian as them.

We also let them see us with copies of The Guardian and we do not use it to wrap wet fish.

You left out Grimshaw 😁

I did leave out Grimshaw. I wonder if this is why some of our Wigan neighbours aren't as impressed by our Blackpool heritage as they should be.

I might adopt Grimshaw as a nickname for her or re-name the dog-thanks for pointing this out!

Why are plumbers or car mechanics more likely to be so narrow minded and rude as to ‘take the piss’ out of a colleague’s name???

I’m so glad we live in an open minded diverse areas where most people, whether they’re tradesmen or not, are open minded and kind.

I wonder where you live and how you raise your children that they grow up ‘to take the piss’ out of their mates and make fun of their names.

For me it’s names like Bodhi as I imagine the parent trying a but hard to be cool and different. But it’s actually quite popular now which always seems to happen. Ottilie too. Rare names I love so it’s not really that.

Why are you assuming that ‘trying hard to find a name’ means it’s necessarily a ridiculous and stupid made up name?

i don’t think ‘trying hard to find a name’ is what try hard means. It’s trying hard to find a ‘cool’ name that makes us look like cool parents

Geez, what did poor little Blight do to be saddled with that name?!

There’s an ‘Otterley’ at DD’s nursery 🙃🙃🙃🙃

😬😬😬😬

In my mind "try hard" is like calling your child Ferret because " it's a nature name, innit?" rather than an established nature name.

The amount of assumptions some posters on here are making about why parents choose names is actually hilarious! It says so much more about them than the parents who actually try hard to find lovely names for their children!

I think people sometimes just try too hard to be different and it does end up being a bit silly and “try hard”. Examples I’ve heard recently would be Onyx and Zephyr. I’m sure they are beautiful to the people who chose them, but to me they are cringey and I inwardly rolled my eyes on hearing them!