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I love that.</p>
<p>One of my closest co-workers, whose name I say all the time, has a first name that ends in L and a last name that begins with L. It is very hard to say and to convey to others.</p>
<p>“the Irish name that really confuses people is Siobhan…people don’t know how to pronounce it or spell it unless they used to watch Ryan’s Hope. lol”</p>
<p>Siobhan is my Irish born friend’s middle name and though she has told me many times how it is pronounced I still get it wrong. I also pronounce her first name - which is Catriona, wrong. :(</p>
<p>Looked at the most hated names list. Kaitlyn is an old Irish name as well, but I don’t know how the original was spelled. My sister just got Kathleen :)</p>
<p>I wish my parents did not name me Xiggi! :)</p>
<p>H and I had trouble agreeing on S’s name. H’s family rule is oldest S is given paternal grandfather’s name as 1st name and maternal grandfather’s name as middle name. That would have made S the third in a row with the same very common, dull first name (and prone to being called an even worse nickname to distinguish him from H and grandpa). I put my foot down and offered to name him directly after grandpa, but call him by his middle name. H didn’t like that idea so we switched the order of the names, so grandpa’s middle as his 1st and the common name as his middle. The whole family was annoyed with me for messing up the tradition.</p>
<p>So D was supposed to be named similarly after the grandmas. I refused to have anything to do with that (terrible combination of early century trendy names) and named her after my own paternal grandmother with my maiden name as her middle. H loved the name as well and no one in the family complained (to my face at least!).</p>
<p>Both names are common enough to be easy to deal with, Italian sounding enough to go with last name, and more traditional than trendy. I went through a few anxious years waiting to see if D’s name suddenly got popular. I have several nieces and nephews whose names seemed unusual when given and then were suddenly everywhere (Hannah in 1995 for instance.) So far, D’s name has stayed fairly uncommon.</p>
<p>I see many young kids with old person names now: Henry, Gus, Grace, Hazel. Soon Stephanie and Brittney will be grandma names!</p>
<p>Funny the dislike for “weird” or trendy names with unusual spellings. If names never changed we’d all still be stuck with our ancestors’ country of origin names. Isn’t diversity grand! </p>
<p>I have a name that would tell you immediately when I was born and what songs were popular at the time. I’ve never met anyone with my name under 50. My middle name is made up, a feminine version of a Catholic saint-one of those “Must have a saint name no matter your gender and what your parents really prefer” things. UGH. </p>
<p>Luckily my ex and I weren’t tied to convention and picked names we liked for our two kids-S is just a boy’s name we liked, with ex’s middle name. Older D’s first and middle are from a baby book-neither are common, though her first name is more common these days. They fit the kids, they’re vaguely ancestral sounding on one or another side of our families and they’re easy to pronounce and spell.</p>
<p>H is a “2nd”, not a junior, because the southern tradition with “juniors” is to call them Junior rather than their real names until they die. His mother wasn’t having it. He hates his full name and goes only by the short nickname version, even professionally. He came up with our D’s name as a version of what was my screen name when we met, which in turn is based on my tattoo. If she ever meets and marries a boy name Jack they should never take a cruise. Her middle name is a very common traditional name that just sounds nice. </p>
<p>I’m all for tradition, but I think kids should have their own names and not be saddled with the same name as someone else just because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”. I have no dislike of new or fad names but studies have shown that when they are too odd or too “ethnic” the kids can get lower marks and interviewers are somewhat biased against them. It apparently happens with rentals too. A friend of mine participated in a rental sting for one of the housing authorities and “black sounding” names got fewer call backs.</p>
<p>Smiling after reading the ‘most hated names’ article. I know two little girls with two of those names.</p>
<p>Sis in law used a name for her son that I had never heard, but was a family name. Now a character on the Disney channel has that name.</p>
<p>You’re right with Siobhan - it’s my middle name and I could count on one hand the people that actually knew how to spell it. And my last name now starts with “S” so, we too, agreed that Sean was not an option. With our luck the child would have a terrible lisp.</p>
<p>Love reading about name choices. I used to read name books for fun, like hearing the different preferences people have. </p>
<p>Kids have very common last name that starts with a vowel. I like a lot of names that start or end with a vowel. Hard to pronounce some names if too alliterative. Son has common first and last name, with a middle name a family sir name. Daughter’s name is never above 500 on popularity lists in the US. She loves it, but it needs spelling because choosing the most common way wasn’t enough to keep it obvious. </p>
<p>Pluses and minuses to all choices. Just glad they both like their names. Funny to read z mom’s link of hated names, which includes a family sir name that is panned for being a commercial product. I always thought it would make a great first name, but skipped it because when paired with last name it sounded a bit too pretentious to my ears. </p>
<p>Glad the naming days are over; it felt like a lot of responsibility to get it right.</p>
<p>*I wish my parents did not name me Xiggi! *</p>
<p>they thought it was a shout-out to your homeland. :)</p>
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<p>I know! My daughter used to know a girl named “Haliey.” And I know an adult named “Carylnn.” WHY?? These letter combinations are not found in the English language. In Carylnn’s case, she hates her name and the impossible spelling but didn’t change it as an adult out of respect for her parents, who were no longer living.</p>
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<p>I admit that I have occasionally been biased against job candidates with stupid-sounding names (I like ethnic names, though). Not to the point that I wouldn’t interview them, but I instinctively react to the names as a sign of lesser intelligence. Which is really not fair, since the names are generally the parents’ doing. So I work hard to look beyond my initial impressions.</p>
<p>18 years later I am still happy with our choices!</p>
<p>sally, that’s the kind of thing I mean! I don’t have a problem with ethnic names – it’s people who don’t adhere to common spelling rules/norms and then get bent out of shape that we’re supposed to know that “Carylnn” is supposed to be pronounced like Carrie Lynn. And what’s up with Haliey? You don’t get to pick random vowels out of a hat and expect people to know what you mean. I don’t have a problem if you want to spell your kid’s name differently, just don’t be surprised when no one knows WTH your intention is.</p>
<p>Haha…exactly.</p>
<p>^Siobhan was my first choice for D. That got a lot of opposition. Surprisingly the name we ended up with turned out to be just as bad. Might as well have gone with Siobhan!</p>
<p>Trend alert:</p>
<p>several newborn boys in the past few months “sporting” the first name, Beckham.</p>
<p>I’m too young to actually be thinking about this but I definitely want my children to have “ethnic” names. Most people of my ethnicity and religion have names based on Sanskrit words and they sound extremely beautiful to me. Sanskrit is a part of our culture that I am very proud of and which I hope will never be forgotten by me and my possible descendants, regardless of where we reside. Plus, that way you get “unique”, nice sounding, religious (if you want), and the “makes sense” thing all rolled in one 
. </p>
<p>I think some people from my original country ask their grandparents/parents for input but my family didn’t do it. In any event, I have names that I really like already although I’ll of course have to get input from the father. There is one caveat, however- I expect to stay in the West for business and whatnot. As such, any name that is selected must be one that if pronounced in the “American” way, does not sound terrible. I know people that have lovely names that end up being mispronounced in a way that sounds like swear words! :eek:</p>
<p>Edit: I’m sure I saw “Edward”, “Bella”, “Jacob” and “Cullen” becoming more popular in the years of Twilight madness.</p>
<p>I know a Rainey, and a lot of other southerners/prep school girls with weird first names, and also old fashioned nicknames, like Boo and Muffy.</p>
<p>My kids have traditional names with traditional spellings. My older son’s name turned out to be quite popular. He got my last name as my middle name and the Germans required a letter from the US Consulate that it was acceptable in the US to have a weird middle name. My younger son was named by his big brother after a Beatrix Potter character. (His name is another Potter character.) His middle name is my brother in law’s first name. I like the French version of the name better than the English spelling, but he’s got the English spelling for better or worse.</p>
<p>My MIL gave us great advice—we have an extremely common last name and she said do whatever you want for first names, but give them something unusual for a middle name so they can always get the proper legal records, etc. So both S1 and S2 have a fairly unusual middle name — spelled correctly. First names are family names of those we loved and admired. My SIL and I were due with boys at the same time and even talked about names to make sure we were sharing the good ones. During pregnancy, every baby in our extended family gets a prenatal name, usually some awful ancient family name like Griselda .</p>
<p>The world does not need another Isabella, Dakota, Beckham, Finn, or Makayla. We even have kids in school who have parents who made up their LAST names, too.</p>
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<p>Do you consider that an unusual name?</p>