Baby Names and Initials

[Joanie]

We are expecting a baby girl in July and our favourite name for her is Emily. Incidentally, we were worried that this name was too old-fashioned and unpopular, but have read in a magazine that this is currently 2nd most popular girls name!

Anyhow, the question: our surname begins with T so her initials would be ET. Do you think this would matter? Would this be difficult for her to live with? What do people think? Perhaps we should find another name?

Now I've posted twice, more oops. R.

Thanks for all your thoughts! At the moment Im erring towards Georgia Olivia. Our son will be Harry James. James being my fathers name.
I dont think one name got more votes than another so hubby and I agreed on my fave Georgia followed by his fave Olivia. Must admit though someone suggested Scarlett and its got me thinking??

about 5 years ago when my husband was graduating from university with his phd, i was scouring names in the listings of all the graduates looking for names of future children! (at that time i was just doing it for fun!!!) i came across emily and have loved the name ever since, thus i always said if i had a girl she would be called emily, and to top it off i loved bagpuss as a child (the episode with the chocolate digestive being a particular favourite!!!) and the phrase "but Emily loved him...." always makes my toes tingle, thus when a baby girl was born this year July... out popped emily... although she is most commonly an Emmy!!... a lovely name and i don't care how popular or common a name it is at the moment!!

good luck with whatever name anyway!

ps i also like Sally, but mil is a sally and my sister is a sally so we thought, one sally too many!

Georgia Olivia? Are you sure you have not been subliminally influenced by George and Olivia Harrison?!!

Hi again Sara - Georgia Olivia! Lovely (as long as your surname doesn't start with a D! Or A,B,N,R,S,T or V...sorry I had to point that out in case you hadn't considered it!)

I came up with my favourite 3 names to go with Harry - Rose (Rosie), Ruby and Lucy. I also like Charlotte, Ella, Tara and Sophie.

My question is this: Do you think it is more unkind to give a child a "common" name, or an unusual one? Obviously you need to wary of initials and probable nicknames...my dh actually works with a guy named Richard Brain. No lie. Can you imagine what HE got called at school?!

There seem to be more unusual girls names around...I managed to find 20 of each (the ones with asterisks are names of children I know!)
GIRLS: Amethyst, Magenta, Essence, Caris/Caresse, Alisandra, Flame, Kalinda, Mirella, Chenae, Shae, Jessamyn, Gracemaree, Gypsy, Brooklynn, Taryn, Summer, Skyla, Paris, Kiara and Cherilyn*.
BOYS: Henley, Kai, Bayley/Bailey, Kaiden, Blaise, Jurien, Jamen/Jaymen, Kelby, Radley, Reed/Reid, Selby, Sturt, Torryn/Torren, Tynan, Ty, Denham, Reyne, Rourke, Denver, Darcy.

So is it "better" to have an unusual or original name? Or does it just make you crazy having to spell it all the time if it is tricky or spelt differently (like Jorga/Jorja or Mikeal). Is it easier to have a more commonly known name? Does it mean less teasing? Or doesn't it make a difference? Feedback please!!!

PS By the way, Cherilyn is Cher's real name...and mine too... and yes I do get tired of spelling it (and everyone always starts it with an "S"!)

Hi Mollipops

Do you happen to live in Brighton as I also know a Taryn, Skyla, Paris and Kai!

I also know of a Honey, Dixie and Silver. Must be the sea air!!

For what it's worth my partner and I both liked the name Jamie for a boy so that is what my son is now called. However, we had real problems with girls names and couldn't decide so thankfully we had a boy! At the time I liked Leila but my partner couldn't stop screeching the song every time I mentioned it. I then had a preference for Regan (one of King Lear's daughters) but then dp couldn't stop singing The Sweeney theme tune. (Noticing a pattern yet!) At the moment I like the name Sasha but I'm sure dp will think of something to put me off.

BTW I like the name Olivia.

I like Georgia, I like Henry for a boy. If we had a girl we were going to call her Tsarla, an old English gypsy name.

I wanted to call mine Pelagia after the heroine in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, we read the book on our honeymoon so it had romantic memories and the name means 'Goddess of the Sea'. But it simply wouldn't be practical up here in the North, she'd be picked on at school, no-one would know how to say it or spell it.
We settled on Benita Josephine, so long as she doesn't get called 'BJ' we should be ok!

Mollipops - LOL about Richard Brain - poor bloke! That reminds me though about a friend of mine who went to school with a Richard Head! (I have to say though, I went to school with lots of them!!)

Surely there's a website somewhere that gives you the most popular name listings? At Christmas they always publish the year's top ten in the papers and I checked each time I was pregnant to make sure my old favourites hadn't suddenly sneaked in there. I aim for spellable but not 'four in a class'.
I've seen a lot of Isabella's in the Saturday Telegraph births columns recently. (Actually that's one of the main reasons I buy it - I'm really a Guardian reader!) Lovely name, though, but when I suggested it my dh also started off about bells and bicycles! What is it about men?!

I desparatly wanted to call the sluglet Ngaire, but dh vetoed it on the grounds that no one would be able to spell or pronounce it, so it's her middle name. She's called Alex because that was the name we had chosed for a boy. We couldn't agree on a girl's name, so had joked we would call her Alex if she was a girl out of sheer laziness. When she was born, we only got a very brief back view of her before she was whisked away by the paeditricians. You know how baby's genitals can be quite swollen when they are born? Well, dh said that he has biology degrees and has worked in a hospital for the last fifteen years, and dammit it looked like a boy to him, so she was called Alexander for the first fifteen minutes of her life until the midwife pointed out she was a girl. By that time we just thought, sod it, Alex it is.

I know what you mean about Regan. That's the name of one of my nieces. They are currently trying for a second, and dh insists it should be called Carter. If that isn't bad enough, I have another niece called Jolene, which always elicits bad Dolly Parton imitations.

We've got a Regan at school, his Dad plays for Everton apparently but I've yet to see him turn up to collect him! R.

Rhiannon Are you talking about Paul Gascoigne?
He plays for Everton and his son is called Regan.
Is it a private school.

The very same. My little boy is sooooooo impressed! R.

Debster, I wanted to call my first daughter Charlotte - it was my grandmother's name and I love the short form Lottie - but when I mentioned it to a friend he started chanting "Charlotte the harlot"...
So we didn't!
And somebody I know has a new daughter called Lola - I hope for her sake the Kinks song isn't re-released or copied!

I thought I'd pick a nice easy name to spell - Rebecca, how many times have I been asked whether it's spelt the normal way? aaaargh!! (she hates to be called Becky - MY NAME'S REBECCA!)

and,

Benjamin - to us he's a Benjamin, yes I realise that he will more than likely be called Ben by his friends as he gets older. This arrangement has worked fine so far - all his friends at school call him Benjamin (only in Reception at mo), and at nursery there was another one but his family wanted him to be called Ben.

As for initials RLB and BLB.

and, when Benjamin was born, there were FOUR Benjamins born within two days and all on the same small ward (8 beds). When Rebecca started nursery at 6mths there were 3 Rebeccas in the same group. Common names or what? (sorry - popular).

I agree with Inkpen - I didn't want a name that our child had to constantly spell. Also, we wanted a name that wouldn't be unusual for a person of any generation. But anyway, was anyone watching CBBC birthday cards (cheaper than buying lots of weekend papers for the birth announcements) the day there was a Trinity, and also a Cayenne (yes, like the pepper!)

Someone I know actually misspelt her daughter's name on her birth certicate! She got two of the letters the wrong way round. So it is spelt one way and pronounced another!

Wasn't Regan the name of the child in the Exorcist?

I think I'd worry about giving my child too exotic a name in case it looked odd as an adult. Now Cayenne would be great if the little girl in question turned out to be a 6 foot model dating a film star, but chances are young Cayenne could end up behind the fish counter at Sainsbury's. And please, Essence?! What were her parents thinking of? I hope she doesn't grow up with a BO problem or she is going to have a very time in senior school!

Yeah, Regan was the name of the kid in Exorcist, but hardly anyone remembers that ... unlike Damien!

Cayenne is going to be name of the new Porsche 4x4 which is being launched next year. Thought I would just add in this useless piece of information!

Isn't Essence French for petrol?

We called our son Ciaran (Irish spelling of Kieron) and I have no end of problems but then I had it all my life with my name. A friend called her sons Barnaby and Giles which are not to my taste but then its up to her. Best name I know of is Conan - now I'm sorry if I offend anyone here but the poor kid. Its like the Arnie film.

An old friend named baby no 4 Bliss Tallulah - and she is always referred to (by my kids) as Blister!

Also wanted to add that when I was in hospital after the birth of ds there was a woman opposite me who said her and her siblings were all named after herbs. Now this wasn't too bad for the one called Rosemary but she was called....Coriander!!