What's in a name?

Noooooo!!!!!!

Sadly very true. They see plenty princess tinkerbells etc. etc. but that shocked the whole hospital!

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This is ridiculous! I didn't even think you could have punctuation or numbers in names. Not to mention people would read it as lahypena.

Otter makes quite a cool boys name.

Definitely not as bad as La-a but I once met someone called Harley Davidson. Felt a bit sorry for him.

I have a cousin Woodie!!

I have a friend with an aunt Lady, and a cousin Princess! When I was in high school I knew fraternal girl/boy twins named Chance and Chancine *cringe*

we like quite traditional and/or pretty names. I don't want to say our favourites, though, because we're keeping them under wraps at the moment. One is a very popular name right now, but if don't care! My name was the number one girls name the year is as born, I had 4 other girls with the same name in my class at school, but I like it and I survived just fine.

My name is going to be an old lady name in 50 years' time unless it makes a reappearance at some point - it was in the top 10 for several years around when I was born (there were three in my primary school class and a "Helen the medic" in 5 consecutive years at my college, which only had 12 medics per year!) but now it is not even in the top 500. ☹️

I see a fair range of interesting names at work, but it's the "interesting" spellings of otherwise normal names that really annoy me. Djessycka - just why?!

We have Charlotte for a girl. I liked Olivia but my friend named her daughter that.

Not sure about boys..

I hate stupid sounding names, I refuse to name my cats stupid names or cat names for that matter. Elise is technically named after a car but its a real name. I could never subject a child to a terrible name, it must be horrible for them when they start school.

My name is fairly average, few people older than me with it and some younger.

I have come across some amazing names in my work years, one of which was something Thundercloud. They must have had a normal first name because I can't remember it.

No. BAC was the full name. I just put it on separate lines in case it showed up on Google!

That's my stepdaughters middle name! I hate it.

I like traditional names, not sure whether it's because I have a normal name and so does my brother (we're Charlotte and Alexander) and our mum HATES our names being shortened although my sister Alicia does get away with calling me Lottie.

I love the name Evan for a boy but stupidly told my MIL I loved that name and she turned her nose up at it... Lesson learnt, never tell people you know future children's names.

I knew someone called Candy, it wasn't short for anything like Candice etc and I did feel a bit sorry for her as she was this tiny little blonde girl with naturally huge boobs and I think with a name like that on top she got a fair amount of abuse/stick from people.

I'm assuming you mean Elise but part of me is hoping you mean Thundercloud!!!

I like Elise when it rhymes with please, but, a lot of people now pronounce it like the car (as in similar end sounding to Alice) and I don't like it as much like that but maybe it's because I think of the car.

On people getting teased for having bad names, I think kids universally tease people about most names however ordinary it is, even kids with popular names get teased too - Nicholas' get called knickerless - Richards get called Dick, any name that rhymes with something rude, if you've got the same name as someone famous that can be a cause for teasing too. Also you quickly get used to a name when you're around it for a while, even if it is odd. so I don't think it's too bad in most cases (for most mentioned here). And so many children have unusual names now that I don't think it matters so much. When you've got a class full of different names how are they going to know who to pick on?!

Ha! I think I would be happier if it was thundercloud. Their moronic mother insists on using Elise as a hyphenated first name as well. Vile.

I would honestly never give my child a name in the top 10. Out of 5 boys born recently at my work 3 were called jack and there are 2 olivers in my postnatal group. I dont hate those names for the record, just that they are very overused
Worst names I have heard are Diamond for a girl and buddy for a boy. Buddy is a dogs name.

Neither would l. At school l was never Erin M, l was always just Erin. Like a lot of people l prefer vaguely unusual names but not crazily unusual name. Like Molly or Orla. I find boys names a lot harder, it feels like there are a lot less nice boys names.

Funniest names l have encountered include Blade (can't think where they got that from?!), Wiramoo and Lala (Mr Erin's nurse for the medical trial he is taking part in)..

it's an easy name to say ? I have vision of the registrar pronouncing it .. ''clur'' ?

Ha that was pretty much it! I pride myself in being able to pronounce the "ll", but I can't roll my Rs ☹️

Oddly, my boys' names regularly appear on top whatever lists (usually within the top 20), yet they are actually the only Samuel, Benjamin and Jacob that I know or in their class at school. I didn't deliberately choose to go down the biblical route with all their names, Samuel was named after my best friend (well, not her, what she used to call her baby bump when she was pregnant) who passed away, Benjamin just seemed to go well with Samuel and we liked it and then by the time I was pregnant with number 3 my choices became limited. OH didn't particularly like biblical names, his choice was Jake, I wanted something that tied in with his older brothers so Jacob was our compromise.

I like a wide range of names, both the more common ones and the unusual ones. H and I went through a lot of names before deciding. The girls name we have chosen is in the top 100 for 2013 but relatively low down; if we were to have a boy the name would be in the top 10 but it's a name we both like and is also the name of his great-granddad. We never considered the popularity of the names when we decided, just went with ones we both liked.

Jacob is what we use when we shorten our youngests name. Well, it's one of many shortenings we use, but when I call him Jacob in public, I get people asking if I named him after the character in Twilight...

I've never seen Twilight (possibly the only person in the world who hasn't?) so would never have know until you said that.

I have an unusual name, and I have only ever met one other female with the same name. I hated it when I was a kid, but have grown quite fond of it now. I do still get most of my post addressed to Mr. Cat in a teacup though, people can't comprehend that it is a girls name too. I am guilty of having a 'made up' middle name too. Apparently my mum thought it sounded pretty.

If I ever did have children I would probably chose unusual names, for a girl I like Auraya, Thalia and Lyra. I like Elliot, Noah, and Nathan for a boy. I don't really want to have kids though, so it probably won't ever matter!

I went to school with a boy named Chase Cox. I felt sorry for him...

The same with me. Not many girls in England of my age have my name, most of them are a lot younger than me!

I went to school with someone called Ryan O'Brian. I don't get the rhyming name thing. I already have reservations about calling any child of mine Molly as combined with our Mc surnames as she might sound like an Irish theme pub... Partly in my defence it is a family name from my side.

I pronounce Elise with a z like please, only just found out that it is meant to be more s sounding but whenever H mentioned the Lotus Elise it always sounded like a Z. Thankfully I have put him off naming our new boy kitten Exige, he will be called Elsworth which is a human name but I cant really see it as a human name.

You are right about people finding all sorts to take the P out of you, my proper initials were R.O but when my first name is shortened it becomes B.O much to the delight of my primary school classmates and a few immature adults!!

Some parents dont help though by calling their son Richard when their surname is Head or something along those lines.

My initials are RJP but when you shorten my name, it becomes B.J.P - you can imagine how many variations of fun can be had from that!! BJ, BP, good job your mum didn't give you the middle name Isobel - R.I.P. Add to that the face that I wear glasses - speccy bekki is lovely - really it is!!! My ex-FIL always thought it was hilarious to ask 'would you like a bicky bekki?'

I think it doesn't really matter what you're called - someone will find a way to take the pee out of you if they want to lol

People at work often make "hilarious" comments about my name being Bex and serving Becks Beer...yes because I haven't heard that one before...

I (obviously!) adore Baby OB's name. I had a real battle convincing H of the name when I was pregnant but I'm so glad he gave in. It seems to have become more popular in the last year. I know no less than 3 now!

I've gone right off the name Isabelle/Isobel because it's just so popular now. It's a shame because it's SO pretty. Same with Amelia. There are so many absolutely gorgeous girl names. I had a list as long as my arm when I was pregnant. It won't ever happen for various reasons, but every now and then H & I chat about what we would call another daughter.

Anyway, I genuinely know someone who called her daughter "Precious".

Do you think the popularity could be down to 50 shades of grey???

Wow some of you have come across some horrific names!

We like Zachary Stephen for a boy and Isabella Simone for a girl. I've loved Isabella for years and hopefully by the time we have a baby girl to name, the whole Twilight thing will have died down. I don't want people to think I've chosen a name because of the films!

I also really like the name Ayla, named after the main character in a series of books I've been reading but I doubt we'll use that.

My middle name is Ann but my initials have been KAB, KAH and KAS so not so bad.

ER - is there a Ted in 50 Shades? I've never read it.

I like traditional names but H has a thing about names that can be shortened. I really like Benjamin but he isn't keen on Ben.

Sophie is my current favourite girl's name. I want May as the middle name for a girl (my nan's name). Boy's middle name is likely to be William.

Kharv - Christian Grey and his wife have a little boy, called Theodore.

Quite a few folks on my FB were talking about using it, but none did.