Wow this is a great thread - names are so, erm, emotive! My main problem with names is just how cringey it is, now I have a son in school, that they’re all called the same thing! The teachers must be sick of having to tell apart 30 Olivia, Amelia, Amelie, Oliver, Isla, Freddy, Millie etc. Although I suppose it could make things easier in some ways - just toss out one of those names and you are probably going to be correct.
Do people purposefully find comfort in choosing the most excruciatingly common names? Like, do they consult the top ten baby names list and choose from there? Or do we think we are being wildly inventive then it gets to five years down the line and they start school and we realise we’ve all been brainwashed into using the same names somehow... I find it fascinating!
Haven’t seen my kids names much on here, though Beatrice was mentioned earlier. I have a Beatrix, with an X on the end, but so many people insist on calling her Beatrice still. Again, so fascinating. So fascinating in fact that I’m starting to feel gaslighted that I must be saying it so it sounds like Beatrice instead of Beatrix
I don’t have kids but I’d say it’s the latter. When I was younger everyone was Sarah or Rebecca or Rachel or Laura, even Lucy and Alice was less common. Boys were Michael, Daniel, Andrew, Thomas, Matthew lol. These are kids born in the 80s. Then I feel like it moved onto trendier names in the 90s like Madison, Taylor, Kai. Then came the “eternal child” farmhouse style names - molly, Millie, Tilly, Lily, ruby, Alfie, Archie, Charlie, frankie, billy. Like people thought they were being different by using old style names we considered out of style when we were kids. This is when I was about 15 and at the time I loved names like Isabella, Ava, Isla etc but as you say there was THEN a point where I feel everyone felt they were being ‘different’ using those names and now everyone has them and you have 5 Amelie in one class! It’s the same way that names I mentioned like Taylor, Tyler, Jordan, dylan, Madison were ‘different’ in the 90s compared to what our parents picked out before that, but now you wouldn’t blink twice meeting a Taylor it’s not strange these days! I feel like every decade maybe you get a wave of people using names they think are unique and then find out they all had the same idea.
personally I still get people say they’re suprised by myname and have never seen it before. it’sAimee - not hugely uncommon and simply the French way of spelling Amy! However one day recently I was saying how silly it is when people either put Ys where they shouldn’t (eg kymbyrly)OR change a Y to an EE needlessly (eg charlee). The girl I was talking to looked at me funny and thought she was hilarious pointing out my names the same whereas it is actually just the French spelling
I mean ngl my parents aren’tFrench LOL so it’s still pretentious but not as pretentious as just swapping Y for EE!
Oh and awful names I’ve come across:
Herbie
Siblings pearl, jewel, gem
Siblings blade, storm, kym (a boy)
My friends a teacher and said she had a kid called nature
There’s a few I could name from my current FB friends but would die if they read here LOL
I dislike the trend for names relating to .. well, the throne? Reign etc. I’ve heard a ton of variations of nameswhere you can tell the parent thought they were being inventive in making a name around the word ‘reign’ or ‘regal’ like their child is the next actual
iv seen people mention crystal
when I was little this was really rare too but I met a girl with it and thought it was so cool. It just sounds awful to me now so chavvy! Chanel is another name that got overused by chavs. I knew a Chanel-Renee in school and she actually was like a wannabe Jordan page 3 type. Also knew a whiter than Taylor swift latesha in school, no hate on that, it was just funny at first so unexpected.
OH and we had boys in school named Clarence and Fredrick hahaha
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