Why are Albert, Stanley and Violet OK but.....

[seeker]

....Brian, Kevin and Sharon aren't?

Is it that your Grandparents's names have gone round the clock and are cool again, while your parent's names have't, and the next generation will be populated by Tracys, Colins and Garys?

My grandmother was called Lucy - she would be 87 now so the name Lucy was very before it's time when she was young.

My uncle was called Herbie (not Herbert, christened Herbie) and this was well before the crazy run away car became popular in the cinema.

When a close friend named her newborn son Harry 16 years ago, everyone looked agog! Harry? What an odd choice! Now every class in ds's school has a couple of Harrys.

If you strip away all the associations, Sharon is a beautiful name, nice sound and nice meaning (princess/one who laughs or garden of roses).

I have a 2 year old with Irene (pronounced Iree-nee),as her middle name. It was nearly her first name but it just didn't stick.

Lucy is a classic name-it is another one that doesn't date.

sorry for being dim, but why the shock at baby's being called Richard, or Peter or Alan, all good classic boys names. I don't understand the fashion for calling babies really cutsie names that "suit them as a baby", they're only a baby for such a short time...

I agree about Richard, Peter, etc. I would choose one of those in preference to the current trend of Stanley and Arthur, either of which I can easily envisage toppling Jack from the No. 1 spot.

Just my opinion though (I speak as someone who has DCs with extremely popular, but very enduring, names).

Reality - I would have liked to called DD Megan but PIL have had 2 dogs called Meg, which Megan would inevitably shortened too, so it went out the window very early

I work with a lot of Europeans, and a interestingly quite a few of them (in their 20s and 30s) seem to have mid 20th century UK names e.g.

Raymond
Dennis
Frank
Barbara
Martin
Linda

Might be wrong, but I can't see Raymond making a comeback anytime soon...

Ah, yes, I knew a very cool (at least he thought so) Spanish teenager called Raymundo - not quite the same in English

Hee hee! My MIL is called Barbara (63) and she had sisters called Brenda and Jackie (Jackie was quite a few years younger and seems to have crossed a name-boundary).

FIL sometimes calls her Barbie, which sounds weird on SO many levels!

We have a slight cat problem too - we would probably like to call a possible future DD Rosie, but the cat I inherited is already called that. She's very old, so hopefully it won't continue to be an issue....

Hahaha, this is so interesting! I kind of escape it because my son has a Welsh name (actually two very old ones - but most Welsh names are ancient) and any other children I may have in the future will also have Welsh names. Somehow the Welsh ones don't date quite as much - although every third girl in my generation is called Nia, and almost none are now. But it's not an old-fashioned name.

Anyhow, my pennorth: I was at school with a Mabel, my age (33 since you ask...) who always hated her name and now calls herself Caroline.

And my favourite 'dated' name - sorry to anyone of this name but I doubt there are any in their thirties or younger! - is Margaret. It's totally disappeared as a name for girls now, I swear. Never met a single one younger than my mother. Margarets, don't hide away: I actually like the name. (Although not the most famous one...)

Actually, I retract what I said about Welsh names not dating - I've now thought of a whole load. Eg., if you're Welsh, Gwyneth is an older woman's name. Gwyneth Paltrow is like the Welsh equivalent of Edna.

I met a baby eric today....have to admit it didn't strike me as a name in use at the moment...

Agree with the idea that naming your baby is foolish...cutesy names just don't last very long at all

How is Harry not historical? King Henry V was known as Prince Harry and he was born in 1387!

I thought Harry was short for Harrold which is a historic name - I don't get the Harry/ Henry thing.

agree about Lucy not dating

i think the boring safest thing to do is look for a name which is already spanning a few generations, ie Catherine or Elizabeth and that's pretty much guaranteed to be in style forever.

that's really playing it safe though... where's the fun in that?

oh eric is so on the comeback (met two)

met my first toddler David today, what a great name I thought after years of thinking it was a dull as the 10 Daves I knew!

my neighbour is a lillian and is about 55 she hated her name growing up but kepts having neices named after her!

I know 2 toddler Margarets (Maggie)
A preschool Erik (ok, maybe the K makes it cooler, I dunno)
And an 8 year old Mabel.

The Harry short for Henry thing is Shakespearean I think.

cyclical. Names come around every 90 yrs. Give these names another 45.

I love the name Richard/Richie.

I will be so upset if I end up grandchildren called Barbara and Trevor. omg. So ugly.

sorry i stick with harry not being historical. no historical figure has ever been christened harry. and we have no proof they were actually called harry by anyone at the time, so its probably just retrospective. no harry's in shakespeare either.

i dont know why i am getting so obsessed with this !!!! anyway, my orginal point was that its amusing that harry is popular, barry isnt, and theres only one letter difference. neither for that matter is gary, which is sort of similar...
god i need to get back to work.

I know around of 15 little girls all under 10 with the name margeret or deriratives of.(Maggie, Megan). Where I live there is a large traveller community and they tend to name their kids after relatives ie the granny was Margeret. I think it is a nice tradition but confusing all the same!

Harry is a very old nickname for Henry.

Henry V calls himself Harry in Shakespeare "Cry God for Harry, England and St George!"

"A little touch of Harry in the night"

And many others.

Prince Harry was actually christened Henry.

Harry has always been popular because it is a shortened form of a classic name. In the same way Jack is popular in its own right, but used to be a pet name for John.