Aren't there enough girls with Grace and May and Rose as middle names?! Can we stop now?

[lowrib]

A personal bug bear ...

Did I miss a law being passed that every family with a girl must use one of these as a middle name?

I mean they're pretty names, sure, but it's getting boring now!

Use your imagination people!!

When I was little all my mates had Louise as their middle name, these names are the Louise of the moment I reckon.

Rant over. As you were

I love that list, lowri. How about dcs called Wrestling and Virtue? Imagine the fun at dinner, "I think I'll seat Wrestling with Virtue tonight, darling."

lowrib, thank you for knowing exactly what I meant! I can't believe anyone didn't - must be utter obtuseseness

obtuseness I mean

pmsl

lol at 'i can't believe anyone didn't'.

Hee hee Chessiers

Or what about Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save and Job-raked-out-of-the-ashes

What a mouthful!

and Fly-fornication?!!!!

slowreadingprogress no worries!

Chessiers you well may be right about Albert. Have you read Freakonomics?

This reminds me of their theory on names.

Babynames Garden explain it much better than I would, here goes ...

"In their mega-bestseller, ?Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything?, authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner ask the question ? ?where does a name come from??

The authors are not talking about the origin or meaning of a name, but rather about how a name ?surfaces? in our culture, how it rises and falls over time, or, as Levitt and Dubner ask, how does a name ?migrate through the population??

In Freakonomics, the authors answer that question by stating that, based on their statistical examination of data, names move through the population from a higher socioeconomic level to a lower level. Levitt and Dubner found ?a clear pattern at play: once a name catches on among high-income, highly-educated parents, it starts working its way down the socioeconomic ladder.? When the name is adopted ?en masse,? then ?high-end parents begin to abandon it,? and presumably, the whole cycle repeats itself with a new batch of names.

Are they correct? Is a small group of wealthy, highly-educated parents the engine which drives baby name trends over and over? Levitt and Dubner seem to think so. They?re sure enough that they actually predict the Most Popular Boy?s and Girl?s Names of 2015."

Baby Names garden are keeping track of the names here.

Here is the Freakonomics predicted top baby names for 2015, based on what the wealthy, highly educated parents were naming their DCs at the time of writing.

Bear in mind they're American though.

I wonder what the UK ones would be?

Boy's Names Girl's Names

Aidan Annika

Aldo Ansley

Anderson Ava

Ansel Avery

Asher Aviva

Bec kett Clementine

Bennett Eleanora

Carter Ella

Cooper Emma

Finnegan Fiona

Flan nery Grace

Harper Isabel

Jackson Kate

Johan Lara

Keyon Linden

Liam Maeve

Maximilian Marie-Claire

McGregor Maya

Oliver Philippa

Reagan Phoebe

Sander Quin n

Sumner Sophie

Will Waverly

i don't think that freakonomics is sneering at people, though... it's just stating a fact, this is how names catch on. or are you one of the upper class types who don't want a name if the oiks are using it?

my daughters middle name is grace, i didnt no was ment to b the lousie of this time!
we didnt use ours as a cop out it was the name of our lovely midwife! so tought i sounded nice with her first name!

if u dnt like them or think they r common then dnt use them!!

I agree they are over-used as MN, although very pretty. I've been working with elderly people these past 8 months and I've never come across Rose, May, Grace, Ava etc as first names. They tend to be Kathleen, Margaret, Joyce, Beryl. But maybe there's a reason these haven't become popular as middle names.

lol, so now you're not only telling us what to name our children, but telling us what our dead grandmothers were called?!

OMG bloody Grace is not only on the list of C16th Puritan names I linked to earlier it's on the Freakanomics list too!

I can't escape it, it is following me around - you see?!

it's got nothing to do with you, lowrib. it's just a name that is popular now, has been for a long time and will continue to be so for many years to come, despite your protestations.

Aitch do you think you might be taking this a leetle bit too seriously?
It really was meant to be light hearted, I did not mean to insult anyone.

I said the names were boring and pretty - certainly not the worst insult? Anyway I reckon I could live with my name being boring and pretty - better than interesting but ugly, no? (My personal preference is interesting and pretty but then that's just me)

I don't think Freakonomics is sneering at people, I mentioned it because I think it's interesting.

Also you say "should they be put off by the fact that you're goiing to be snooty about it?"
No, they shouldn't, please THINK FOR YOURSELF PEOPLE!

What does it matter to you what I think anyway? Is it such a surprise that there are people in this world who think popular names are boring?
Aitch you need to toughen up a little, lady. This is not meant as a personal affront to you - I was just having a little rant at 3am!

My DS's name was called boring on this thread and I didn't take offence - why should I? I know my reasons for choosing the name and I'm very happy with them. Why should I care what someone else thinks?

why should i indeed? and yet here you are, still yakking on about it.

and i know freakanomics isn't sneering. you, however, were. you weren't sneering at the name, but the people who choose them for their children, don't try to change the goalposts please.

and even at 3am in the morning, unless you are catastrophically stupid, you know that you are going to encounter people who have called their children these names. like you say, they're popular.

so don't tell me to take a chill pill, you're the one insulting people absolutely on purpose. and you keep coming back to do it again and again and again on this thread. if you're interested in names and how they move through time, start a thread about it.

The one syllable names are always popular because they fit with most things.
One of my dc has May as a middle name, for us it was a family name.
There's no harm in informing people, I had no idea May was so popular or I'd have looked again.

Why are people taking it so personally? To all have the same middle names makes them pointless and redundant. I do think that.

because lowrib is operating on the mistaken premise that people know that these names are popular middle names and that they are sheep for having chosen them. it's downright insulting. plus, she keeps making little digs like '(My personal preference is interesting and pretty but then that's just me)' i mean ffs.

she has acknowledged earlier that her OP was not sensitive or polite, yet she continues to bump it and to snipe at those of us whose children have 'boring' names.

so i'm taking it personally, because she is being deeply personal. and knows it. and apologised for it. and came back and did it again and again.

and because she called me 'lady', which is highly provocative and rude. but, y'know, i should take a chill pill. and she should get some manners.

I have a 12 year old with the middle name Rose and a 7 year old with the middle name Grace. I don't understand how you can accuse people of going along with the crowd or being unimaginative by using these names, I certainly had no idea at all that they were popular middle names (or popular at all), I just liked them. My DDs don't use their middle names in an everyday way, but as their first names are foreign and therefore a bit more unusual and difficult to spell, we thought they should have pretty English names to sue as an alternative if they wanted to.
But as to blindly following the herd, I don't see how I could have been. How many people know what other people's middle names are anyway? Surely you ususally only know your family's middle names.

ROFL at middle names having to be imaginative.

Waterloo?
Macadamia?
Flautella?
Gypsum?
Ephemera?

I didn't take offence when I posted earlier about my dd2 having Grace as a middle name, but I am starting to now.

Fiction writer by profession so not quite sure how the 'unimaginative' jibe works.

My dd's middle name is Rose but I was completely unaware that it is a popular name now. I don't know of any girls with the same middle name. I named her after a favourite great aunt and I call her by both names as I think the name is too pretty to be hidden.

My dd's middle name is Rose but I was completely unaware that it is a popular name now. I don't know of any girls with the same middle name. I named her after a favourite great aunt and I call her by both names as I think the name is too pretty to be hidden.