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Baby names (again): Did your name influence your child's?

stolen from another site but thought this was a good topic.

did your own name have an influence on the name you chose for your child(ren)?
for example, I have a very boring 70s name and have never been the only person with my name in a class at school or even at work. in my current job i was so happy to be the only one with my name, then a year after i started so did another! grr. So people at school used my surname :\( my parents didnt even give me a middle name, whcih i always wanted, which would have been better than using my surname. So for dd i chose a name that wasnt very popular.

did people who have unusual names for their age group choose a popular name for their children?

if you dont know how popular your baby's name is, the link is here. it's the 2008 name lists.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15282


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  • we all have normal names,lol.
    we chose Lizzie Mae and not Elizabeth as we don't like Elizabeth but hubby is Andrew and is Andrew to family not Andy whereas my family call me Gemmyclaire instead of Gemma so I suppose in a way that did make me happy calling her by a shortern version of a name as Ive always been happy with what im called and hubby doesnt care what he gets called.
    dd1 however- her name is Katelyn. now I call her kates always have always will but hubby always calls her Katelyn. he likes to call the children by their proper names- i think this probably helped him chose Lizzie as he wants to call her Lizzie and not Elizabeth.
    hope this makes some sense to somebody!!
  • I have an unusual name and always said my child would have a common name but somewhere down the line I reconsidered. My OH has a common name for his age group and yes his friends and some family called him by an entirely different name and still do!

    We have Gabriel Andrew so he has a *slightly* (but not particularly - it was number 78) unusual name with a common middle name.

    Next time I want to go more unusual - I love ds's name and he is the only one I know but really hope he doesn't end up in a class with lots. Guess if he's number 78 there could potentially be another one in the year group, like there was with my name.

    If he'd been a girl I liked the name Jennifer. Jenny or Jen for short. Used to be a common name but not so much now xxx
  • My name isn't too common (Lorna) and i was the only one in my year at school. My only bugbear with it was that I was always mistakenly called Laura by teachers and there were about 5 Laura's in my class at school! I actually also hated the fact it couldn't be shortened and i didn't have a nickname. Apparently my mum named me after reading Lorna Doone :lol:

    My dd is called Emily which is very popular in England but in the area i live in Scotland it isn't even in the top 10. I don't know any wee girls called it either. I wanted a name that was timeless, pretty and could be shortened if she wants image

  • i've never even heard of my daughters name before so i doubt she'll be one of many in her class unless some people from my maternity ward stole her name! lol i wanted a not so popular name as i loved being the only jemma most people knew, however it does get on my nerves always having to say 'it's with a j not a g' but i think most names you have to spell now!
  • I have sn unusual name Roslyn Martha but it didnt influence what I would call dd, I didnt look at popular names lists or read baby names in books etc....I originally chose Reecca when I was pg and then when inlaws shortened it to Becky I went off the name immediately so picked Olivia Grace and didnt tell anyone, I know this is a really popular name in England but I live in NI and it isnt a very common name here.
  • We seemed to have went the opposite way. I have a very very common first name, Claire. I was in a primary class with FIVE other girls called Claire/Clare. My husband also has a pretty common name, for our generation anyway.

    However, our son's name was over number 1500 on the boys 2008 list (took me forever to find it!) We didn't plan for his name to be so uncommon (maybe, subconsciously?) I doubt very much he'll be at school with anyone with the same name, never mind five others, and I'm glad.

    I hated been know as 'Claire2' (being the second oldest) at school. Baby 2 will also have an uncommon name, but more to 'tie in' with ds.

    Interesting.... :\)
  • My mum always wanted a girl and had the name Laura chosen for years but it took her 10 long years to have me,..unbfortunately by that time it was 1984 and Laura was the most popular name a good few years in a row so i was in school with about 3 or 4 others in my class (one even had the same second name as me which wasnt that common!) and i hated it but had i been born when my mum 1st tried it wouldnt have been so bad for me i dont think...

    we couldnt think of a name for our DD - i liked Orlan and Isla when i was pregnant (both of which seem to be becoming more popular now) but she didnt suit those when born,....i wanted a more unusual name for her after me having Laura but im not keen personally on names which can be shortened (unless you call them that e.g Abbie which we did consider) the problem is my married name is horrible so i then didnt want to lumber her with a 1st name she is likely to hate as well...

    in the end i said to hubby 'what about Megan?' rather randomly as we couldnt agree on anything else...its not necessarily a name i liked alot and had never considered it before but i do like the name and when i said it i thought she 'looked' like a Megan and everyone agrees it suits her...

    i also dont think its as popular as it was about 5 years back...on that table it number 15 and in the Scottish table for 2009 number 22 but i dont know any other Megans and have only met one other one briefly and she is 8 now so i dont see it as 'common'and dont think she will have as many in her class as i was with Lauras but i guess only time will tell...

    Lx
  • I remember in my class at school there were two girls both called Michelle McLaughlin, so the teacher tried to go by their middle names, both were Louise, so she went to their confirmation name both were Bernadette, how unusal!!
  • I was also 1 of 5 in my class at school, but it didnt really bother me that much, and tbh I couldnt let anything influence me as choosing 2 boys names we liked was hard enough! Although, like my mum, I did want names that couldnt be shortened, or didnt need to be.

    I have a friend with an Alfie and I quite liked it, but it seemed to grow on me the more I said it, much to parents (and grandparents) disapproval! Ryan was named by a bloke in the pub hubby works in, sort of! Both hubby and this bloke are Man U supporters and at about 35 weeks pg I walked in the pub and he asked whether we had a name for the 2nd one yet, and were we going to name him Ryan after Ryan Giggs! While I was opposed to naming him after Ryan Giggs, I did really like Ryan. Didnt look at names lists/books etc. Just thought a name would come to me!

    We did have girls names sorted and they will be the same.
  • quote :I thought I'd chosen an original name for my son. I've certainly never met anyone by the name (its an Welsh name) but apparently everyman and his dog knows a little boy or someone has a grandson by that name in Wales these days

    im intrigued as to what your lo's name is image i live in wales and the only boys names that have become more popular recently are Gethin and Deian (which i love image) ... I have a Jack and Sophia ...Jack is one of 3 in his class :roll: but the only other sophia i know is one a couple of years younger than me atm xxx
  • I'm a Jayne & my hubby is a dave, both I think very common dull names. Put together with our surname it is so boring lol. So when deciding on lo name I wanted something a bit different, I have always loved the name rhea as I think it's a bit different. It's 422 on the list. But since she's been born a lot know someone with that name. The ppl that didn't know one seemed to remember a rhea being in a programme called butterflies years ago, which I love cause oh & I love butterflies & it was our theme for our wedding, so very fitting I think

    Jayne xx
  • lauz i was the same i am another laura born in 1984 and there was 6 of us in my class, my mum did hyphenate my name to laura-leigh which helped.

    But yes, this did make me consider my babies names a bit more and also especially the girls give them names that could be altered, Madison and Isabella. Fortunatelyy so far in their classes ther isnt anyone else with their names.

    The boys though are George and Henry and I have heard a lot of Georges since having George. And for henry i loved the name harry, but ther is already 2 along my street so that was no-go so went for henry but i wont call him harry in the future.

    Saying that it seems strange as well but all their names become popular in the year or 2 after so are still quite common but just not around the times they wer born.

    xx
  • Well my name did influence my choice for my children but in a TOTALLY different way to everyone else! I am named after my maternal grandmother (first name) and my aunt (middle name) and my brothers are named after family members too. I LOVE that my name has a 'history' or 'meaning' behind it and so I have chosen names for both my boys that come from family either directly or as derivations. My first lo is named after oh's grandad and my great uncle (both of whom are no longer with us) and then my second lo is named after my dad and oh's dad.
  • My name is fairly old fashioned (ruth) and as such there was no-one in either of my primary or secondary school with the same name. I say old fashioned, perhaps its not, but I've certainly not come across many others in my 26yrs! I've never really liked my name as such but a lot of my friends call me Ruthie which I really like image

    My hubby has a very very common first name and I think because of this, it had impacted on us choosin names for our 36wk bump.

    For a girl, we have a name picked out which I think its a lush name, not too out there and not common (or old fashioned IMO LOL).....and for boys, we're struggling slightly altho there are a few we like. We defo didn't want a common boys name or for him to be 1 of 4 in a class from the popular names that are around today so we're after something a bit different without being completely randomly weird!

    4 more weeks and i'll know what flavour i'm carrying - I can't wait image)

    xxx
  • I always thought mine name wasnt very common, i had never grown up with another or known of a person with the same name, until i moved to where i live now and my very close friend also has the same name, confusing i know!
    OH name i would also class an uncommon as i have never met anyone by his name.

    I did know i wanted a name for DS that wasnt popular, but i cant say that our names influenced that decision. So far so good though image x
  • My name has definitely influenced my LO's but not in a common/uncommon way. Abby's middle name is Hermione. The name Helen comes from greek myth (Helen of Troy). Hermione is Helen's daughter. I thought it was an unusual but nice link.

    Helen xx
  • My DD name was picked purely because I liked it, My mum oringinally wanted to call me Kimberly, however this with my 2nd name is a toilet rool provider and since then my mum decided I was to be Katie instead. There were 5 katies in my class and it was so annoying! Along with is it Catherine Lol
  • Our surname is unusual so we had to go to something relatively 'normal' for a first name and short too. We didn't want poor Dylan spending hours writing his name in nursery school :lol:

    xxx
  • Both hubby and I have names that weren't hugely popular when we were growing up, but for some reason are constantly in the top 10 at the moment, so there are loads of babies and children with our names, but not as many our age.

    We chose Sophie for our dd, purely because we liked it (and could not agree on anything else!). It's in the top 10 so there'll probably be a few in her year when she goes to school. I hope she won't mind!

    On a separate note, both hubby and I have two middle names (we're not posh, just had indecisive parents!) and I've always been a bit embarrassed by it as it set me apart from others when at school (you'd always get the question "what's your middle name?" "I've got two" "oh, you must be posh" etc) so we've only given our dd one middle name, again which has turned out to be really popular.
  • tink-a-bell, is your osian the one in the wee notions photo album on facebook? if so he's flipping gorgeous!
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