Are there any usable Victorian/Edwardian names?

[bipbopdo]

Pregnant with my first (at last!). I’ve always had a soft spot for faintly eccentric names, but I’m conscious of the fact that my baby with be a real person that has to live with the name and I don’t want to saddle them with something just because I like it. So, I thought I’d get some feedback on my fairly chaotic list of favourites:

Boys -

• Algernon (Algy)
• Montague (Monty)
• James
• Hector
• Albert
• Auberon
• Rollo
• Rufus
• Peregrine (Perry)
• Inigo
• Ivo
• Benedict
• Rafferty

Girls -

• Clementine
• Felicity
• Petra
• Imogen
• Matilda
• Alice
• Eleanor
• Cecily

Boy names seem to be so much harder to pick compared to girl names.

What about the wonderful Victorian trend for biblical names: Ezekiel, Ezra, Gabriel, Raphael, Joshua, Elijah, Nathaniel, Samuel?

I really love Rollo and Ivo from your boy list.

The girl list - all very popular MC names. Cecily and Alice are very pretty imo.

How about Victoria or Edward 😂

Victorian names could be unusual - Friendless, Leicester Railway, Zebra, Faith Hope Charity and Princess May Cheese, among others, (according to Google). I expect they were considered “chavvy”, or whatever the equivalent term was in those days.

There's a wonderful Horrible Histories sketch about real Victorian names. From memory Freezer Breezer, Princess Cheese, Scary Looker, Raspberry Lemon and Minty Badger...

I read a lot of Anthony Trollope. The names of his characters fit the bill. How about

Fineas or Adolphus, Septimus, Josiah, Obadiah are some

Every boy baby seems to be James where I am!

Rafferty is an Irish surname rather than a first name. I'm not sure how it came to have this faux posh Victorian vibe.

Hector and Albert aren't too weird. Rafferty is nice. I like all of your girls list. I know a Cecily and she gets called Cici

I always loved Oberon (prefer this the Shakespearean spelling) and Imogen

oh I love Auberon and Ivo

I wouldnt use any of the boys names except James and Albert. In your girls list I like Eleanor Alice and Cecily.

Mary Bridget Margery/Marjorie. Clara Grace ?
Albert (Albie) Edward Matthew

Alexa was popular in Victorian England.

Some of them are very unlikely to be problematic, and don't seem the same "type" of name. As in James surely can't be an issue, same as Alice (the song is the only thing that could possibly bother anyone, and that's surely very few people!). The girls names are all fairly common (not bad, I just mean I wouldn't find them unusual like some of the boys ones you have).

Your girls names are fine, but unless you’ll be sending ds off to boarding school or at the very least a very good private school and living in a very well to do area, I don’t think little peregrine is going to do well. Same with algy. obviously James (though I actually hear this more for girls these days) is fine. hector albert ivo, Benedict and rafferty aren’t my taste but they’re pretty run of the mill now. I love Rufus but I know quite a few if you were wanting unusual.

Alaric
Sylvester
Cedric
Bernard
Ambrose
Alastair
amos
phineas
Vincent
zacharias

The girls’ names are all nice. Your list of boys’ names is horrendous, with the exception of James. Algernon? Auberon? Rollo? Please don’t. Just pick a nice normal boys’ name like Richard or Christopher - or James.

And Clementine had the advantage that if OP has another girl, she can call her Grapefruit! 🤣🤭

Those are almost as bad as OP’s list of boys’ names! They all sound like the names of pretentious pricks, except Vincent and Alistair.

Honestly, I think the most radical thing you can do these days is call your child a solid, traditional name!

Haha fair enough they wouldn’t really stand out round here and most of them have got easy nicknames but they are obviously not ‘John’ or whatever
they are all traditional too, but I assume by traditional you mean names that stayed in the top 100 through most of the 70s-2000s?
that seemed like those wouldn’t be ops choices given her list so no point suggesting them!

• Algernon (Algy) - no
• Montague (Monty) - love, posh vibes
• James - classic, popular throughout time
• Hector - quite like
• Albert - quite a few around
• Auberon - no
• Rollo - no
• Rufus - ok
• Peregrine (Perry) - posh, , but quite like it
• Inigo - no
• Ivo - posh but like it
• Benedict - love
• Rafferty - ok

Girls -

• Clementine - love
• Felicity - increasing in popularity
• Petra - quite line, Blue Peter dog to older generation
• Imogen - quite like
• Matilda - ok
• Alice - not a favourite but ok
• Eleanor - ok
• Cecily - love

I really like Monty and Cecily

Are you a sponge or a stone?

My kids are 18 and 20, of your list, 8 of the boys names and 7 of the girls names were their school mates, so I’d say not particularly unusual. Theres lots of baby Wilfreds and Freds around here I’ve noticed recently.

I voted Conservative