I seem to notice that a lot of names now sound like they have been made-up or had the original spelling changed around with a medley of silent h's & double ii's & ee's & sometimes even accents marks thrown in too. I notice a number of Celtic names now have the traditional spellings changed around - so they still sound Celtic but the name does not look Celtic when it is printed.

Are classical & traditional names seen as too staid & dull by some people? Perhaps some would see them as timeless instead?

Are made-up names seen as tacky, inspirational or creative by others? And pronounciations - I have been caught out thinking a name is pronounced a certain way only to be told by the parent that it is to be pronounced in another way.

Trendy modern names to me are names like Debbie, Tracey, Kelly, Jody, Sharon - well, I guess they wouldn't be considered trendy modern now - but as a child of the 70's I considered them to be trendy names as so many girls had these names at my school.


So I was wondering - what are your thoughts on the current crop of babies & children's names. I am interested to read opinions of both parent & childfree people.

I was pretty determined not to have an Emma, Hailey or MacKenzie, in any incarnation. Not that the names offend me - it just seems that half the babies I saw were named one of those for a while.

We went with family names for our kids, but we combined two monosyllabic great aunts names into one for my daughter's middle name. We left the capitalization in the middle where the second aunt's name begins. I get a little "huh?" out of some people, and I'm sure we'll see it split into two middle names, without the center capital, or some other way over the years. I just wanted both aunts to be honored in the name, and I figured if there was a place to do something 'funky' with her name, it was better to do it in the middle than the first.

I've seen kids in my son's classes who were given elaborate unique names, and the poor dears can't write or spell them out in Kindergarten. Seems kinda cruel.

The main issue I realize I'm going to have is that my husband 'Americanized' the pronunciation of his (now our) last name, and now that we're living in a place where more people can identify and correctly pronounce it as it should be, I've started introducing myself with the real pronunciation. However, part of the decisionmaking on the kids' names was how well it would flow with the altered pronunciation. Hmmm.

I have an ancient name (mythical character) myself, which was very unusual in my childhood (now less so), and would probably pick such a name or name my child for a favorite authors (either first or last name). I'm sure I would tend to pick an uncommon name.

http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/

I'm not one for the incubating of fleshloaves, but I like a few French names for girls and I think the Brits do well with boys. Prefer classical, always. Also not a fan of nicknames unless the person clearly prefers it.

Well, aside from wishing I could have been able to incubate another fleshloaf, the rest of your post read like what I would have posted, Laurenb. ;-)
Definitely prefer more classic names and love French names for girls (they do have to "go" with the last name, though -- wouldn't have worked with my husband's -- it's VERY Irish) and British names for boys.
And...I'm not a nickname person. My father had fits when people shortened my name and that rubbed off on me...and I hated it when people did that with my son's name.
Sadly...my son now goes by his initials. Bleh.

Love classical names , of many different ethnicities , loathe "trendy".

I must admit I am glad to have dodged the Maria bullet ... I could easily be one of few of my ethnicity who have.

Classical all the way. Not into any of the others.

I like names to be somewhat unique, but not weird. I purposely avoided the most popular names in my area. My oldest son has 3 Dylan's, and several Katie's in his class in school, youngest has 4 Conner's and several Kaylee's and Caitlin's--I wanted to avoid that situation. No odd spellings for me either. I have a friend whose daughter is named Avah (pronouned Ava), and she gets mad when people say it "A-vah". IMO, she should have spelled it the common way if she wanted to avoid confusion. It seems to me, especially amoung my fellow suburbanites, there is a huge cachet in finding the next "it" name. Classic names are still very popular for boys, and old-fashioned girls names are the latest fashion. It is also popular to name kids after TV characters it seems. I remember when Ashley and Taylor both took off after popular heroines on soap operas sported those names. Also I would attribute the popularity of "Addison" to Grey's Anatomy. My own son is named Chandler; however we did not pick the name because of the Friends character, but everyone thinks we did! One has to be careful too about choosing boys' names when they morph into girls' names. I worked with a guy named Ashley for several years. He was my age, (now 40ish), and absolutely hated his name (to top it off, his middle name was Gale!). I did start to worry when on Friends, one of the girls Phoebe had as a surrogate for her brother was named Chandler. Luckily, it didn't seem to catch on as a girl's name.

I think in Kansas, we lag behind a little bit. Names that hit the national top 10 ten a few years ago, are just becoming popular here. Also there are more "trendy" type boys' names and fewer "classic" names than a national top ten.
Kansas Top 15 Baby Names 2006
Girls/Boys
1. MADISON/ AIDEN
2 EMILY/ CADEN
3 EMMA / BRAYDEN
4 ABIGAIL/ JACOB
5 KAITLYN/ ETHAN
6 ADDISON/ LOGAN
7 KAYLEE/ ALEXANDER
8 AVA/ JACKSON
9 HAILEY/ LANDON
10 OLIVIA/ MICHAEL
11 HANNAH/ CALEB
12 ALEXIS/ WILLIAM
13 MIA/ ANDREW
14 SOPHIA/ CONNOR
15 MADELINE/ JOSHUA

I prefer the classic English names for girls and boys, and dislike nicknames. I was amused at a gathering this past weekend where a self-consciously funky filmmaking couple had a 19-month-old daughter named Gabriella. I would love to have been an invisible witness to their baby-naming conversations. What's next? Persephone?

Gabriella is a perfectly 'classical' name in many parts of the world, I gather (Gabrielle was Coco Chanel's real name). As far as I know, it is in no way on par with Persephone, which is the name of goddess from antiquity...

What kind of drives me bonkers, and I acknowledge that it's my own personal peeve, is when they take a traditional name and spell it in some ridiculous fashion that has the poor soul spelling their name to every known entity throughout the rest of their life.

Guess how many times people have said, "c-h-e-r-y-l ?" or "s-h-e-r-y-l ?" and I've just said "yes" to not deal with it. Because it's never just a one-time deal. It's so different that committing to the correct spelling means I'm going to repeat it at least twice to most people because their brain wants to go somewhere else with the spelling.


So a little aside: we've all probably wished for a different name as children, right? I really, really wanted to be a Beth. I also fancied Maria for a time.

All of our six kids have very traditional names, except for the one that my husband alone chose. He chose Kayla. We must have had our heads in the sand on that one, because we actually thought we made it up. We'd call to each other across the house - Can you take out the trash? etc, 'kay love, the other would respond. 'kay love = Kayla (sort of )

I am very strongly in favor of classical, traditional names, spelled normally. If parents want to go for something a little "different" let them look to names that were popular generations ago. I think it's a terrible burden to a child to have an outlandish name that no one knows how to pronounce or spell. I had an experience just this week that illustrates the problem. A doctor's assisant called and left her name on the answerig machine. It's a name her mother made up and there is no way that I can tell if it begins with any number of letters that sound very similar, both at the beginning and in the middle of the word. I have to call back and either ask for her or leave a message on a machine that serves a large group of people. Who do I ask for?



This is probably a very common name in Israel. That reminds me of another potentially negative issue. You don't know if your made-up name has an actually and possibly inappropriate meaning in another language. I once heard a mother in the supermarket looking for her lost daughter, "Shonda, Shonda." The word means disgrace in Yiddish.

I know I said I hate "trendy" names and I honestly do , but the odd, strange and exotic non trendies can be kinda fun , trust me this is not just a net persona its my name *


I have however had a lifetime of love/hate with it though , thankfully more love than hate these days.

UGH! I HATE Madison more than any of them!
Aiden??? Please. Kaylee? Hayley?

I especially hate the ones that they made up that they think are so unique. The ones that are obvious like Shironda.......Kenisha..........YIKES.

Aiden , ok , fine , but Brayden , Cayden , Hayden , Jayden ......make it stop!

Madison, Taylor , Tyler and any Mac as a given name have now gone into serious overkill territory.

I know someone who named their son Smith. Is that cool? I can't decide. Not named after anybody. Just Smith.

Oy. How to answer this. A cross-section of all of the categories. Example a few of the Celtic Gaelic ones charm me and the others I do not prefer. The odd made-up one is amazing, many of them induce eye-rolls, as do most fanciful spellings. There are many things I'd love to be able to say concisely here coming from a family with major issues around names, naming and linguistic evolution, and knowing some of the linguistics necessary to discuss it on that level. It seems however as though that is impossible today without falling into infintely recursive digression.

Aidan is pretty traditional, actually. Gaelic, I believe.

Some of the Gaelic names are gorgeous, IMO, but a little harsh to give a child in the US because we are ignorant of them and they will get butchered. Names like Siobahn and Sinead. I think Sinead in particular is very striking, but I was probably not alone in calling her Sin-eed OConnor until someone corrected me. A boy's name that's become somewhat trendy in Seattle is Declan. That's one that seems to be trying too hard. Of course, it could be a family name but I kind of think not.

Glo I truly must unscramble my brains when I read posts , I had read your post as Just ( given name) Smith ( surname) , doh! So this kid is Smith Jones or whatever? Goes with one huge trend right now of assiging surnames as given names , tiresome , MacKenzie anyone?

The last name thing seems to be some outcropping of the "you live up to your name" mentality, IMHO. Kind of like they give the child this very imposing and serious sounding name in the hopes that they will grow up to be powerful or...intellectual, maybe?

My favorite name for boys is David. I just love it.

Smith is his first name. Has nothing to do with anything or anybody. Then.........of course he has his last name.


I love the name David, Michael, Daniel. Just regular names.

I must confess though to being a huge Marillion fan , this resulting in one of my kids having a name that was not so common then which is now all too too common all due to a song ....drat! No regrets though , still love the name.

This post pointed out to me how the trend for names runs with a certain suffix for a while:
Right now it's "xxx-den" for boys and "xx-son" for girls.

When my brother was born in the mid-70's "xx--in" names were popular--Dustin, Justin, and my brother is Rustin. The irony of that one is my Mother never wanted him called "Rusty". Russ was okay, but never Rusty. Well, as he got older he prefered to be called Rusty. To this day, my Mom will not utter Rusty, only Russ.

And here's another one to ponder, at a wrestling tournament last weekend, I saw a kid listed on a bracket named "Spencer Tracy". I wonder, is it an accident or strange tribute?

Vidabo, I know Gabriella is a regular name in some parts of the world, as is Gabrielle in France. But in the U.S., it strikes me as "trying too hard." Especially when you hear the parents repeatedly call out to the child, "Gabriella, blah blah blah!" And Persephone was kind of a joke. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if someday some of those who are trying too hard decide that it would be just the right name. After dismissing Gabriella as being too ordinary.

I agree about David. It is one of the most beautiful of names.

When I named my son...........I couldn't think of anything ...........I wasn't a fan of family names because my Dad's name was Arnold. Hence........my brother got hung with Arnold Peter. Of course they called him Pete. My youngest brother's name was Sayles Anthony. Of course they called him Tony.

I was just glad I didn't get hung with Bertha which was my grandmother's name.

So...................I got out the phone book!!! Where else are you going to find more names I ask you?

I found my son's name in the phone book. I named him Preston.

I like classic, simple names. However, I don't want my child to have a name that six other children will answer to. If I have another son I will probably name him Paul. If I have a daughter I would name her Gemma. Gemma may seem unusual to some, but it it a very meaningful family name.

My husband is from the southern U.S. It is very common to give a child a surname as a first name. My son is named after his great-grandfather who was given his mother's maiden name for a first name. It's simple and I like it, but am amazed by how many people say, "Henry, that's an old man's name". I would never comment on somebody's name.

I like my own name and wouldn't change it, but when I was young I wanted to be named Caroline.

-Noelle

Posidon and Agamemnon! Twins! I want to call them from a crowded playground.

I tend towards classical names but also like some that might be considered a bit exotic but really aren't, like some mentioned already: Aiden, Gabriela.

My pet peeve as far as names go, though, are girls' names that are very un-feminine and faddish, like Madison, Taylor, Mackenzie, and even Carter. Carter??? I also hate "creative" spelling and made-up names that just sound (usually) silly. My children are Sarah Elizabeth and Jeremy Peter--pretty darn classical.

Parents need to remember that unusual names or "creative" spellings of names condemn their child to a lifetime of having to spell their name to every new person they meet or phone. Sheer hell!

Ain't it the truth!!

I don't know. I have an ethnic name, that when I grew up was very unusual - and indeed, I've always felt both attached to it and estranged from it; like you would perhaps with a handicap. It wasn't chosen to be 'special', though; it simply stems from my father's heritage. I got to admit it's a relief to be just Lou on the Internet.

I recall a recent article in the NYTimes about 'strange' names:




http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/science/...ames&st=nyt

I can second this sense of both attachment and estrangement to my own name , it is odd even by my own ethnicity and especially odd here in Canada , but am happy to report no major trauma or issues.

Yeah, 'Shalini' is a fairly common Indian name but needless to say, when growing up, I was the only one around named such. But I do have a namesake, a white baby girl no less. Who'd have thunk it?

Shalini, must be because its a very lovely name , unique in this neck of the woods but lovely.

Oh oh. I was in the local children's museum with my son, and two kids were apparently getting on their mom's nerves.

"Zen! Zen Chaos, come here right now! Indy, don't you start..."

I really wanted Indy to get in more trouble so I could find out if he was Indy Rock, Indy Jones, Indy 500.....

I know what you're talking about. I've witnessed that twice with the name "Sophia". Lovely name, but they seem to start or end every thing they say to the kid with the name, like they're really pleased with themselves. It could all be my dead-wrong speculation, but....I don't know...know how you can just sort of feel it?

My best friend's uncle was named Marion, after his father, then when her mother, the little sister, was born, the dad (my friend's grandfather) decided that why shouldn't she have his name as well, so the sister was also named Marion. The even odder thing is that the brother, Marion, met and married a girl named, you guessed it - MARION! I would always hear about Uncle Marion and Aunt Marion, and then her mom was Marion and so was Grampa!

My maternal grandfather's name was Vivian. It happens, but he absolutely hated it his whole life.

My husband's most beloved grandfather was named Sylvester - our third son was due around late Grandpa Sylvester's birthday. Hubby wanted to name the child Sylvester Zukowski as a memorial if child was born on Grandpa's birthday. I ended up being induced 2 days before the birthday because I was in prodromal labor for a week and the baby was not descending - possibly it was a subconscious move on my part to get that baby out before Grandpa Sylvester's birthday ...

I've known a few US Gabriellas. Maybe it's just not used as widely in the south? They usually end up being called Gabby.

The one name that I can't imagine having is Katelyn or Katelynn or Kaytlyn or Kaitlin or Kaetlin or kaytlin or Katlin or Caitlyn or Caitlynn or Caitlin? No one knows how to spell this name!

Certain names can tell the person's age instantly. Most Jennifers and Heathers are in their late 30's, most Lindas and Karens are in their 50's and most Dorothys and Helens are in their 80's. I wonder what it's like to have a name like this where you are instantly aged by your name.

Thank the Lord, Sharil. You get it. Yep, Sophia's another one, and I have a friend who rolls Isabella off her tongue continually (one of her Chinese adopted daughters). Isabella is a beautiful name, but....it's....just....a bit much. Here in the U.S. of A. Down South, that is. Raht cheer in Jawjuh.

Mary would be a refreshing change.

I'm in Washington, and our thing here is "we're not pretentious, we're just more progressive than everyone else". I realize that sounds harsh, but you have to see it to understand it. We are, indeed, quite impressed with ourselves. LOL

Ever seen the South Park episode where they are in danger of high levels of "smug" polluting the air because they are all so self-righteous and pleased with themselves for driving Hybrid cars? That's what it can be like here, near the city. But it's really weird because Seattle is a very young city and within an hour you are easily into territory where people can be very redneckish. It's a trip. I grew up in the sticks, but have spent most of my adult life working and living in Seattle, so I think I am hyperaware of it and try hard to stay real.

Enough hijacking of this thread....sorry.

Now Sharil............would you call most of you tree huggers? hahaha! Just kiddin.

There again - big disconnect. In Seattle there are tons of people who are pretty radical about logging. I grew up 40 mins drive North of Seattle and guess what my father, grandfather, uncles and most of parents fathers did for a living when I was coming up? They were loggers. True story.

You know, I'm all for responsible forest management, but fly over Western Washington some time and you'll see - we have no shortage of trees. I'd be more worried about them logging the rainforest to raise cattle, to be honest, but I'm not educated enough about it to have a viable opinion.

It does sound nice. I've never been to Seattle but I do hear that it's beautiful. I think it gets a lot of rain no? With all those trees it needs to right?

Names evolve and people always resist it. It will be interesting to see what of the names listed as bad in this thread remain with us in 30 years. Many will be gone forever but at least a few will be considered classics.

In Australia the "r" in words is barely pronounced, often not at all if the word ends with it. Consequently you get names that reflect this. Taylor is a popular girls name but often spelled "Taylah" or "Tayla" here because you will never hear even the whisper of the "r" when people say it. I daresay many younger ones using the name would not even know it's origin name has an "r". There are a few other names who's spellings have fallen to the silent "r" but I can't recall them now.

As to "Smith", yeah I think that is kind of cool, lol and it will never be popular. I wouldn't use a surname without family meaning myself. Also this has strong ties to the film "The Matrix" but hopefully that will be forgotten by the time the kid gets older.

Gabriella would not cause even a blink where I live. I think it's quite pretty myself.

I prefer traditional names. My ex had nieces with the names Bailee, Sydnee and Taylor. I'm sorry, but those were just the most un-feminine sounding names to me.

Even though my name (Lisa) cames from Elizabeth, it was a trend name. When I was in college there were two or three other Lisa's on my floor alone. I think it's funny to ponder what my name and my friend's names will sound like as we age. An elderly Lisa, Debbie, Kelly, Tammy, etc...

Speaking of names, has anyone read Freakonomics? I don't hate on names much because American naming aesthetics are so wrapped up in class/race issues... I don't feel right about it.

Also...
"Patroklos! Hektor! Stop perstering little Penthesilea !!"

Well, all I can say is that it's a good thing that I don't plan on having kids. After nearly a decade of teaching, virtually every name has been ruined for me by some insufferable brat. *sigh*