We're hippies at heart, and I regret choosing such a 'normal' name for DS1 - help please for DS2?!

[sushistar]

DS1 is Ethan. We gave him a really really rare hippy-sounding middle name, but I wish we'd been braver and gone for something more unusual for his first name. I don't want to do the same this time...

I like Asher but I think it's about to become really popular. We also love celtic / old english names.

Suggestions?

My mum wanted to give me a hippy name, and my dad vetoed it and went for an unusual but real name instead.

I have to say I do like having an unusual but real name, BUT I realise that a lot of people don't remember what it is, and tag me as "Unusual name beginning with certain letter". So if my name were Hortense, say, I constantly get called Horatia, Harriet, Hester - and I answer to all of these as I know that's what they mean. I do sometimes think this means that I've ended up with a rather less personal and individaul name than my mum wanted!

I'm so glad I don't have the stupid hippy name my mum wanted to call me as it just doesn't fit with my personality.

'No one will ever say,"Oh, that's unusual!" EVERY SINGLE TIME she gives her name for the rest of her life.' - They certainly won't and some people hate having a commonplace/ boring/ ordinary name.

'Maria's staff won't snigger behind their hands at her name, or make jokes about her name. She will never feel the slightest hesitation at giving her name to someone, even if she is a spotty undersized 12 year old. Or a tubby middle aged grandma. And the staff in the old people's home won't laugh at her.' - You can guarantee these things?

We choose names for our children based on many criteria. I realise that you can't please all the people all the time and so the only thing I can do is choose a name for my child which I love and the initials of which do not spell something unpleasant/ isn't a medical term/ made up/ rhymes with my surname etc etc.

The one thing I wouldn't attempt to do is a choose a name everyone would like, that really is an impossibility. I have a name that is widely liked on here but funnily enough I have always been embarassed telling people, not because it is an embarassing name but because I feel it doesn't suit me. This is not something my parents could have anticipated. I also used to get teased at school with other words that rhymed - again if someone wants to tease they will find a way.

The OP has obviously thought long and hard about her DS's name and has regrets. Are the regrets worse if the name is more unusual?

Ethan and Ashwyn sound good together as sibling names.

Ashwyn/win means 'light' in Hindi - I have also seen the meaning as first star of the night.

grendels mum but isn't that a bit of a 'chicken and egg' argument

the name your mum wanted albeit 'stupid' and 'hippy' would have just been your name had she given it to you...you would have grown with it. as would your peers. it would most probably have been neither of those adjectives in that situation

my name is on the different end of normal

not silly but not to everyones taste

raised few eyebrows in my youth

by some accounts shakespeare 'invented' or 'made it up' does that make it stupid now?

"But I do actually know real life people who've had very unusual names in their pre and early teens. Does anyone else?"

Yes, seeker - Me! I love, love, love my unusual name, and always have. It often gets commented on, and people are always interested to hear the story behind it. As a child and teenager, I frankly felt sorry for all the Katies and Sarahs at school - no disrespect to Katies and Sarahs! - because they had to be distinguished by their last initials.

Power to you, sushistar!

Cyradis: Definitely Garion for a boy!! (No surprise with your username!) Been petitioning dh 11 years now to use that name!

NotanOtter - Well, that's perhaps true. The problem is that my mum wanted to call me Rainbow, which I think is a nice name for a little girl or teenager, but which I think would make for a somewhat pugnacious, chippy young adult. I think that the name 'Rainbow' comes with certain connotations to those who hear it for the first time, and that I would be fighting against those connotations - not a problem with friends, because they would be used to it, but I think in my job, constantly phoning people up and saying, "Hello, this is Rainbow Jones, and I'm phoning about the very important XXX project" would be wearing. Whereas a colleague has a highly unusual but 'real' name, and I don't think that any of the connotations of it are negative.

And I think I know what your name is, NotanOtter, and I think it's lovely and ... much admired ?

But if it's what I think it is, I wouldn't actually have described it as particularly unusual or eyebrow raising ... I must have really way-out standards!

Just popped back to see if anyone had read my post of 6.25 this morning - but it's obviously a case of "real life examples that agree with me are data and should therefore be taken seriously, real life examples that don't are biased and therefore should be ignored"!

Rainbow Jones. I can tell you it is very wearing phoning up and saying your name and nobody takes you seriously in meetings. Some real data for seeker.

Actually I'm coming round the idea of Rainbow - "Rainbow Jones, Nuclear Physicist" sounds like a great title for a 60s tv show. The show could end each week with Rainbow saving the world and then doing something clumsy like knocking her coffee off the table, and everyone around her would say "Oh Rainbow" and laugh.

yes you get a lot of "oh xxxxxx" with a name like that. I want to see that show

With a name like mine I would have made a good sidekick to Rainbow Jones Nuclear Physicist actually. So do I get the part ?

If you like biblical names Suhsi star

what about Malachi (or with y at end) or Micah? solid old testament names

Grendel yes my name is oft admired

I do get your drift re Rainbow .....- i think it is the noun bit that does it iykwim

my dcs have different names esp the last 3 dcs...many raised eyebrows now but people will soon get used to them

I am learning to cope with the silences when i tell people their names for the first time .... odd really because I always gush whether it be Fred or Ferdinand

Well, NotanOtter, I think your name is lovely, and I've often considered it for a DD.

Araminta Cane and Perdita Weasel can join the cast of "Rainbow Jones, Nuclear Scientist". I think that Araminta Cane may be the sidekick, but Perdita Weasel is definitely going to be the evil boss of the rival research laboratory .

Ahem. Will stop hijacking Sushi's thread. Both Malachi and Micah are lovely names, though oddly enough I've known two Micahs, one male and one female.

Unfortunately when you look at your baby you have no idea whether they are going to be a strong enough character to live happily with the name, so I would always err on the side of caution and at least give them a fairly dull middle name and then they can change to it if they want to. Since I have become interested in family history I have discovered a name running through the generations that I am a bit disappointed to have missed, as an adult. When I said this to my mother she looked very doubtful and asked if I would really have liked it as a DC, and to be perfectly honest I would have hated it when young.

Isa, which was mentioned earlier, is surely the female version of Isaac, which means laughter in hebrew?

Todd (means Fox)
Soren
Joel
Owain
Wynn
Ivan (Ivo?)
Sol
Pablo
Dale
Jago

Jumping into this thread a bit late I'm afraid but finding it really interesting as am pg with DC2 and thinking a lot about old english / celtic names for the same reason as sushistar. I wanted Merlin for DS but DH vetoed it (I'd have loved Taliesin too but didn't even bother suggesting it, would have been laughed out of the house!) so we agreed on Arthur instead, which people always comment on as being lovely, unusual but not too out there (apart from MIL who said 'poor child'.)

I know quite a few people who are known by their middle names, and don't necessarily have weird and wonderful first names - they just don't like them.

Perhaps a sensible suggestion to cover all bases, Sushistar, would be to give your next DC names that you absolutely love but with a middle name that is slightly more 'normal' in case they want to change to that should they experience what Seeker's brother's stepson has experienced?

To put in my two pennorth though, I love Rowan, Malachi and Eldred.

I have to say, Sushistar, good on you for choosing names you love and get excited about - there are far too many Jacks and Sophies in the world if you ask me. Actually, one point about the bullying aspect of names is that when you get lots of kids in one class with the same name, they tend to be differentiated by size / shape / appearance, so they become 'Big Lauren' or 'Fat Chloe' or 'Lanky Lucy' or whatever, which is just as horrible for the child as being teased for being called Taliesin or Thor.

BTW I have a slightly unusual name that no-one can ever spell correctly, and I don't mind spelling it out all the time. You get used to it after a while!

2 of my siblings have very unusual names, and I can't recall either of them once being teased, so if they were it must have been minimal.
My brother (Zebedee, gets shortened to Zeb) has stuck with his name; he has a strong personality and it suits him.
My sister's name is much more unusual and of foreign origin; she started using her very normal middle name in her late teens because she was tired of being mispronounced.

Anyway, what about Woody or Blue?

" it's obviously a case of "real life examples that agree with me are data and should therefore be taken seriously, real life examples that don't are biased and therefore should be ignored"! "

Um...don't know what this is referring to, but I was only answering your question, seeker.

Anyway, we're all quite familiar with your views on unusual names - dare I suggest that you're as guilty as the next person of picking one or two examples from your experience to suit your point of view?

snow tiger what very valid point about ordinary names being differentiated with an unflattering adjective

awww Lucy

I am sure most of the time it was 'the sweet one'

(( N done his first step today and it was towards M for a hug !!SWEET!))

Sorry, have just realised this is for boys names! Yes, Gaia is "Mother Earth".

Pax ? (Peace, Latin)
Silas? (Forest, Greek)
Caleb? (Faithful, Welsh)
Silva? (Wood, Latin)