Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Other subjects
Original poster

children's names

135 replies

Tusky · 05/06/2001 09:57

I'm fascinated by what people choose to name their children (proper names rather than nicknames I mean) -has anyone chosen a name that they now regret or have 'gone off', or named their child from a tv program or celebrity etc... ?

OP posts:
Debsb · 05/06/2001 10:22

I love my kids names, but my mum told me last year that she wished she had called me Kate!! I think I'm about to have a personality crisis at 30 something. Thinking about it, I probably agree with her, I've never really felt my name fitted.

Hmonty · 05/06/2001 10:29

The names we chose for my first son were driven by family politics as much as anything else...Tomas (without the 'H' as this is the Portuguese spelling and keeps hubbies side happy) Hugh (my late father's name to keep his side of the family happy and annoy my step father!). When it came to no 2 son we'd run out of names. We liked Joe but didn't want a Joseph...so went for Jonah. Our surname begins with M so hubbie wanted a middle name that started with 'A' but I refused to have a son with the initials JAM...Imagine what the kids at school could call him! We compromised on Edward so that son no 2 is our JEM....

Hubbie's Mum used TV characters to name her children. He and his sister came of fine but their brother is Rodney. I don't know if my MIL regretted it but after 'Only Fools and Horses' became popular I know Rod did!

Hmonty · 05/06/2001 10:33

Apologies to any Rodney lovers out there.

Had a friend at school with the initials WAS....She was always known as a has been.

Tusky...What are your children called?

Marina · 05/06/2001 10:46

I went to school with a girl called Imogen Lake. It's TRUE, if unbelievable.
Our name, William, has pleased both sets of grandparents (no easy objective) by being the name of a much loved and long-departed great-uncle on both sides. We just "knew" he was a William as soon as we saw him. I wanted Basil as a middle name, after the dear old Cardinal, who was buried the day our son was born, but the anaesthetist laughed so loudly when I announced this in theatre that my husband chickened out. I was accused by both of them of being under the influence and they were probably right.

Hmonty · 05/06/2001 11:23

I heard about someone calling their baby Olive...Surname Groves!!!

Janh · 05/06/2001 13:24

i went to school with a girl called marilyn bacon; her mother had a baby when we were 14/15 and marilyn swore he was called egan...
also at our school, but younger, were a flavia crum and her little brother marmaduke.

Janh · 05/06/2001 13:25

and i know a family with a boy and a girl - sam 'n' ella...

Hmonty · 05/06/2001 14:25

Peanuts fans will get this one....I have a friend who's first two children were called charlie and Lucy....She joked that the third would be called Linus (She chickened in the end and called him Sam!).

Marina · 05/06/2001 14:32

Not so funny as these but also true... My sister went out with a guy whose uncle was a Frank Sinatra fiend. He called his two daughters Nancy Frances and Frances Nancy. Aren't some parents loopy?

Janh · 05/06/2001 14:45

we had some work done by a plumber called andrew, and his younger brother whose name i never did get, but when i asked why andrew's business card said B A surname, he confided that both he and his brother had been given brian as a first name by their father (brian!!!!). brian andrew and brian whatever.

what an ego!!!

Bloss · 05/06/2001 18:43

Message withdrawn

Kate71 · 05/06/2001 19:05

Naming a child is a great responsibilty. There's nothing the kids like more than going down the register and finding other kid's embarrasing middle names. I have to say that I have a feeling of great joy when I discovered a really 'challenging' Y10 boy's middle name was Hubert - Sorry all you Hubert lovers.
On one of my first days teaching a huge strapping lad stood at my desk and refused to sit down when told "Please Miss," He wispered "don't call me Bernard."

Rhiannon · 05/06/2001 19:55

A couple of years ago I went to the Register office to find out the most popular names for an NCT magazine article I was writing. They told me all the usual ones then about a name someone had tried to register but was refused.

SHINY BALLOONS SAVE THE WHALES

Poor child I wonder what name it ended up with.

I once knew a Beryl Bottoms and a Sharon Sunshine my daughter's middle name is Rosebud hope she doesn't hate it in a few years.

Janh · 05/06/2001 21:00

kate 71 - what did he want to be called?

Original poster
Tusky · 05/06/2001 21:47

Hmonty - my boy is called Theo Richard - Theo because I just really like the sound of it (and I confess to liking it from when the Cosby Show was on and one of the kids was called Theo - it sounded cool !) and Richard is the name of my younger brother who died when he was ten - I wanted to remember him. My cousin did think of naming her eldest Charles Richard Armstrong Pryke,but then thought better of it !

OP posts:
Chairmum · 05/06/2001 23:00

When my sister called her baby 'Justin' another mum on the ward liked it so much that she thought she would call her son by the same name. Fortunately, the midwife managed to persuade Mrs Case that maybe it wasn't quite the right name for him!

Lizzer · 05/06/2001 23:55

Oh I'm glad someone brought this up because my friend used to teach two sisters one called Christy Nicholls the other called Lacy! AND she swears she knows a pupil called Jenna Taylor - I kid you not!

Chelle · 06/06/2001 02:04

When I was at school there was a boy two years above me who's name was Richard Head (truly!!!). I also went to uni with a Sandy Waters. My opthalmologist when I was a child was Dr Wong See and my Dad's fishing buddy is a urologist by the name of Dr Uren. They both swear they know aesthesiologists called Dr Ether and Dr Death!!

On a different note, our son is Thomas James. Thomas just becasue we like it, but as it turns out is an old family name on both sides, and James is my Dad's middle name and the name of his Scottish grandfather.

(Tom should consider himself lucky he turned out to be a boy as my husband was set on calling our baby Kate Winslet if a girl!!!)

Bron · 06/06/2001 08:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pupuce · 06/06/2001 10:27

I called my son John (first grandchild) - that's partly because his last name isn't "English" and I didn't want him to have to spell both first and last name - having said that we keep being asked... "With our without an "h"?"

My sister in law had her son a few months later (the 2nd grandchild) and named him Johan ... is it just me or would this annoy you too..... I am now expecting a girl and she told me that if she had a girl she would call her Sophie... and that I should therefore NOT use that name. My husband said we should call our daughter Sonia (Russian for Sophie).... we're not!!!! However much I'd like to get my own back.
I am sure some of you are going to think my protest is futile !!!

Janh · 06/06/2001 10:34

pupuce - if it was me i would call her sophie, never mind sonia - what a cheek!!! (or how about sophia, and sophie as a pet name?)
what are you planning to call her?

Pupuce · 06/06/2001 10:47

Well I haven't told anyone yet... so between you and me : Amy !

Janh · 06/06/2001 11:29

oh, amy's nice.

i still think you ought to tell s-i-l you are thinking of calling her sophie, though!!!

Rhiannon · 06/06/2001 12:50

I know this is really gross, but I was once told that there was a girl at another school in our area called Carey Hunt!!!! It could have been an urban myth though!!

Twinsmum · 06/06/2001 13:00

Before my children were born I told my friend the name I would choose if I had a girl. Its a fairly unusual name and not one that would immediately come to mind. Her baby was due a few months before mine and she didn't have any definate ideas for names. When she found out she was having a girl she told me (slightly sheepishly) that they had decided to call her that name.
In the end it wasn't an issue because I had boys BUT I did feel a bit pissed off really...what would I have done if i'd had a girl?
Do you think I was being pathetic to be a bit fed up or would others feel the same?