Yusuf, Ibrahim, Issa, Dawud, Musa, Suleiman, Ayoub, Idris are the English renderings of Arabic versions of Joseph, Abraham, Jesus, David, Moses, Solomon, Job, and Enoch.
I think it’s okay to not like a name. That doesn’t mean someone else has to agree. We all have preferences.
My kids names were either in the Christian Bible or Shakespeare. So was my Hs name. My name is only one that isnt. ( its Danish)
In our neighborhood, the young kids have names that sound like they were lifted from Lonesome Dove.
What I find interesting is how, in English speaking countries anyway, except for s handful of very traditional boy’s names, other boy’s names keep being converted into girl’s names.
Evelyn, Jocelyn, Ashley, Alison … and then there are the surnames turned into girl’s names like Madison, Harper, Kennedy, etc.
Madison can be a boy’s name (and a scary Halloween monster for Kansas City baseball fans).
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/67/5f/b4/675fb45aaa3603f5a0d0eac00a537d99.jpg
I really dislike the name Madison. (Sorry if I’m stepping on anyone’s toes. ) The name was virtually non-existent, with the exception of people who had it as a family name. Then Daryl Hannah, as a mermaid, is asked her name in the movie “Splash.” She looks up and sees the sign for Madison Avenue and says her name is Madison. The following year, the name Madison broke into the top 1,000 for the first time. I can’t believe how popular it’s become!
I freely admit the only reason I dislike the name is because to me giving your child the name a mermaid made up on the spur of the moment in a Disney movie from a street sign, seems silly.
Those sound so white bread.
Evelyn is a very old name. At least I have a friend who is in her 90’s, named Evelyn.( it also has feminine roots)
I do like names that can be shortened, although I admit, it would be difficult to shorten youngests name.
I remember when she was 5 or so, she wanted to be called Alice, so her teacher made her a badge with her new name.
Her middle name is one mentioned above as disliked because it was too common, but it also was my mothers name, as well as a feminine version of the first name of my great grandfather, as well as Hs great grandfather.
( they pronounced it differently)
Now many couples know if they are having a boy or a girl, beforehand.
While initially, I thought my oldest was going to be a girl, I needed hormonal treatments to maintain the pregnancy, that were more detrimental to girls, so I decided I was having a boy. So ten weeks before my due date, all we had was a boys name.
However, I delivered her 10 weeks early, and I felt the need to name her before they took her away to work on her, so I just feminized the boys name we had picked out.
How was I to know that it soon would become one of the most popular names!
Edmund Crispin wrote a mystery novel set in England, with a character named Mammon. The guess was that Mammon’s parents had a very uncertain command of the Bible.
I remember vividly more than one thread on here going on about how they KNOW someone named La-a (Ladasha).
In part, I am playing Devil’s advocate because I truly love many of the names listed. On the other hand, I am dead serious about the things I say because I’m sick of hearing “I HATE made-up names”… made-up, of course, because you have never heard of them.
On an unrelated note, when I was younger, I demanded to be called Sparkles. I don’t remember this but everyone in my family does. My cousins still call me Sparkles.
Re post 106, saying that Evelyn sounds like an old-lady name –
For whatever reason, the name Evelyn has shot up in the popularity charts in the last couple of years. It was in the top 20 in 2013. A relative named his baby Evelyn and I thought it was a surprising choice, but then I saw how popular it has become. I wonder why. It’s a perfectly fine name, but I wonder what is spurring its present popularity.
On an episode tonight on HGTV’s House Hunters, the wife’s name was Tequila. WTH were her parents thinking (or drinking)?
I didnt actually say it was an " old lady", name.
I said it was an old name, and feminine, as opposed to being a masculine name, as suggested in #103.
I have zero idea if this is even a slightly contributing factor or not, but Evelyn is the name of a character in the most popular online game in the world. I would never think of it as an old name, personally.
I know kids named Ira, Owen & Gus. Also Atticus, Stella & Lucy. And Sol.
I love the name Duncan but my husband was like, “You’re kidding, right?” I still think it’s a good name.
Owen ranked 38 in popularity in 2012 and 2013. It has been in the top 1,000 every year since 1900.It’s been in the top 100 every year in the last decade, so it’s not surprising you know a child with the name. Lucy was 66 in 2012 and 2013; it’s close to being as popular now as it has ever been. Social Security link above shows its high was 61.
My nickname is common in the early 60s in the midwest. Yup, that’s where I was! My legal first name is a longer version that was my maternal grandmother’s first name. S1 and S2 have traditional ethnic names. They weren’t outliers, but were often the only one in their grade with that name. (Except for S2’s kindergarten class, where there were three of them!) We would have named a daughter Elisabeth (s not z), in large part because we liked the ability for her to decide what she wanted to be called.
I changed the spelling of my name in kindergarten. I dropped the “e” at the end and told my mom that the “e” was too babyish. I’m betting she cried once I left the room.
One of my son’s classmates had a 4 syllable first name…it wasn’t bad but it was long. She was especially embarrassed at graduation when her full name was used (long first name) then two middle names (Marie Antoinette) then a 4 syllable last name…13 syllables total.
I was fond of Baxter and Felicity (pre America girl doll or tv show) but voted down on both. Babies I know from the past few years are getting names like: Declan, Finn, Asher, Wren, Pearl, Ruby, Liddy, Cora, Evelyn, Kelton, Calvin, Conrad, Sophia. Everything old is new again. My girls did end up with names that hit the to 10 in the years after their birth, but they all seem satisfied with them.
^^^Actually, if my second daughter had been a boy, he was going to be named Asher.