[name]Do[/name] you take it personally if someone insults a name that you chose, that is on your list, or has personal meaning to you?
I saw a post today with a choice between [name]Nora[/name] and [name]Nova[/name]. [name]Every[/name] time someone insulted [name]Nova[/name] it was like a shot to the gut for me. It’s not even my daughter’s name yet, but the name has a HUGE amount of personal meaning for me.
So how about you Berries? Is there a name that you adore that makes you feel possessive/defensive of it?
Yes. I actually do understand how you feel! Some of my all time favorites are “overused or boring”. [name]Even[/name] my own name was placed in the uncool list in cool-ator blog post. And i was like, ouch! I love my name, at the time it was quite stylish and popular but it was given for a personal reason and has a good meaning and its special to me.
I think that this website is great for ideas and history and meanings and for those that want them, opinions too. I try not to take what people say personally because we are asking for opinions and people give them openly but we should always take what people say with a grain of salt, if we listen to them at all. And I never mean my comments to be taken personally either.
I realize that you werent looking for opinions and just stumbled across it, which makes the blow even harder, but dont be discouraged! [name]Remember[/name] the reasons for choosing the name you love, and that will outweigh any comments anyone can make. Best of luck!
I know what you mean, I admit it, I love [name]Chloe[/name] and people constantly bag it out- too popular, over-used etc etc.
I have loved it for ages and when people insult it I feel like I shouldn’t like the name.
But I still do… LOL
I tend to think about how my comments might hurt someone else. When I see posts with names I dislike I tend to use the ‘if you haven’t got anything nice to say better to not say anything at all’ mantra and don’t reply to the post at all.
If it is one name among a selection I tend to just say NMS rather than openly vent on a name I dislike if I do decide to reply.
Cause after all, people are all different, so it makes sense that styles differ.
I think it depends on what they say. If it’s not their style or a tame insult, whatever. I know not everyone likes the same names. But I guess if I had kids and someone blatantly told me they thought my child had an ugly, horrid name, I might take offense. I like to be honest around here and I’d expect the same from everyone else. But for the most part it wouldn’t stop me from using a name I love. Then again the names I like are all pretty “normal” names, although maybe not super popular. They’re also spelled “correctly” or an accepted alternative (such as [name]Elliott[/name]). So I think a lot of my names probably just won’t be someone’s style, and that’s totally fine!
I like to tell people that I’m just a random internet stranger so don’t take my opinions too personally - I like to also follow that myself. I think it’s a little different though with people [name]IRL[/name] vs. online so this is why I might not reveal names (or at least a final name) until the baby is born. [name]Kinda[/name] hard to say you don’t like the name when you see the cute little baby (unless it’s REALLY terrible, lol). I have friends with TOTALLY different naming styles, so they might not like my names. [name]One[/name] has a [name]Kaeden[/name] (made up and alternative spelling, not my style but it’s her kid, not mine) and another loves names like [name]River[/name] and [name]Lake[/name] (word names, again not my style!). Everyone is going to have an opinion.
I should also mention I don’t have kids so this view may change a little when I actually have a child with a name I love. I’d probably take more offense then but it also depends on who it comes from and what is said about it.
yup, weirdly I feel a bit deflated when I see people say things about the name I like… I posted on here the other day that I had pretty much decided on a name but just seeing if there were any other suggestions - and someone said the name I picked reminds them of ‘molesterer’ - um, yeah cheers!!! lol… strangly, I really dont mind what people in my real life think of my names, I know who will and wont like them and it doesnt phase me - but on here I do feel a bit flat - how weird!!!
No, not really. Everyone has their own opinions. I dont like 7 out of 10 names I hear. Most people on this site love the name [name]Eleanor[/name]. I personally cannot stand it. Like on a list of 0-10 it would be a maybe 2.
But I like names like Avelyn and Chevelle. Most people here probably dont. No sweat off my back.
I don’t take it personally at all. I think that it’s part of the appeal of this site; that you can get honest ‘un-edited’ opinions that your friends and family may be too polite to give. It may present to you some downsides to a name that you had not thought of or it may help you realise how much you love the name anyway and are prepared to defend it.
Of course not everyone loves or even likes the same names, thank goodness, or we would end up with only 10 names being used.
I wish it didn’t bother me, but it does! However, that doesn’t mean the critique isn’t helpful, like the pp said. If I get fired up inside defending a name, that means I really love it. The critique doesn’t always mean that the name is off the list- sometimes it cements it.
Not at all. Not everyone is going to like the names you like. And when you have a personal connection to a name, other people aren’t going to know that, unless you tell them that it has personal meaning. For instance, I love [name]Sharon[/name] and [name]Deborah[/name]. I know twin 3 year olds with the names and they are adorable. Also, I have two aunts named [name]Sharon[/name] and two aunts named [name]Deborah[/name]. Most feedback I get for these names are negative, but I love them, nontheless. And it doesn’t bother me when other people hate them.
If I am entitled to hate names like [name]Kayla[/name] and [name]Trent[/name], others are entitled to hate names I love.
I don’t take it personally when someone doesn’t like or insults a name I love usually. Everyone has different thoughts and feeling about names.
I will say though, i take offense when someone insults a name that they know means something to me and continues to be rude about it. My example is the name [name]Persephone[/name]. I don’t care if you don’t like it, and I don’t care if you can’t pronounce it. It is special and has meaning to me. [name]Every[/name] name has the possibility to get mispronounced (I’ve even hear [name]Anna[/name] get mispronounced as Ahnuh and I’m [name]Angel[/name] but I get [name]April[/name], [name]Angela[/name] and Ahngell). A person on here told me that if it was so special to me and I just couldn’t get rid of it, I should hide it in the middle so my daughter didn’t have to use it or tell people about it because that particular person thought it was an ugly name and hard to pronounce. Well, it’s special and has meaning to me. If a name has meaning, who cares if everyone else likes it, use it. My daughter won’t regret it. I had one person tell me that I didn’t know my own name and that my mother wasn’t stupid enough to name me just angel and my name had to be [name]Angela[/name]. So what? I never hated my name or my mother. My name is constantly spelled Angle. So what? My name has meaning to my mother and I love it for that meaning.
That rant being over with now, try hard not to let it bother you when other people don’t like the names that you love and have meaning to you. You know the meaning, and it’s special, and your daughter will love her name no matter what other people think because she will know how much you love it and how special her name is.
Nope. I have a pretty thick skin, and if I were to get upset about people disliking a name I love, if I saw that the name was one mentioned in an OP, I would skip the thread. No sense getting upset when I can totally prevent it. I think it’s important to be objective and try to realize cultural differences vs style preferences vs a name that compromises a child’s integrity, too. Most of the time, it’s just a matter of opinion, and I’m rather confident in my knowledge of names and in my style, so what others have to say rarely upsets me. Ignorance in names makes me angry but not matters of opinion… if that makes sense?
I also tend to feel reassured when someone whose taste I dislike hates a name I love, haha. It makes me feel better about my naming abilities. It’s one of those,
I wouldn’t say I take it personally. It makes me ‘hrrrumph’ but otherwise I understand that people have different opinions and its important to hear what kinds of reactions names get. As long as they aren’t being rude, I don’t have any problem with someone saying they aren’t a fan of something I like.
Everyone is entitle to their opinion, and I am afraid that I’ve probably hurt other people’s feelings just by saying I don’t like a name, but that being said, yes, it does hurt a little bit to hear people say they don’t like names that I like or am planning on using. I think it especially hurts when I see people put down my own name, [name]Stephanie[/name], which I have noticed more than I would like to. I know that it was never so fashionable as it was when I was born in the 80’s, when it was in the Top 10, but it is derived from an ancient name and the [name]Stephanie[/name] form taken from the French has been on the charts in the U.S. since the charts began. I think it is a lovely name, and it’s not my fault that it is becoming “dated.” Can anything hurt as much as someone insulting your very identity, especially since you had no power in choosing it?
I realized that when people insult my own name or a name I love, it kindof inspires me to use it to make people see it differently. Just like a PP said, seeing a cute baby with the name always helps. We have that power. 2 years ago, one of my close friends wanted to name her baby Lila. I personally couldnt stand it especially with her last name. Now it is quite stylish and seeing that little girl’s cute face I couldnt picture her with any other name and I’m sure her mom is glad that she went with the name that she loved.
That being said, advice can helpful and for the most part, that is all it is meant to be when it is given.
It doesn’t really bother me. I see my own name, [name]Sophie[/name], crop up in the ‘it’s too popular’ list all the time, and in some ways it is. Though I don’t care, I mean, it’s got to be popular for a reason, right? There’s got to be some good qualities in all popular names which attracts people to them, and even though I loathe the nn [name]Bella[/name], there’s thousands of people out there who love it, and I’d never tell someone not to use it if they really loved it or it had meaning for them. Most if not all of my favourite names are top 100 (though I’m in the UK so our list is slightly different) and I know I’ll probably be told they’re too popular/boring (I tend to like classic) but I don’t care because that’s my style. It’s a free world, we can love or hate what we want. I know [name]Augustus[/name] tends to be popular on here but I think it’s ugly as, but then again I know some people would say [name]George[/name] is dull and overused. It’s just a difference in style really.
It depends on what they’re saying…When people say “oh, it’s too popular” it doesn’t bother me…or I don’t like the spelling or whatever, that’s OK. There are names that just aren’t people’s taste, like I don’t like boy names that can be shortened like [name]Daniel[/name] to [name]Danny[/name] or [name]Nicholas[/name] to [name]Nicky[/name]. Those kind of comments don’t upset me.
What really upsets me is when I hear (about my own DD’s name in particular) I hate it, it’s a boy name. It hurts, and everyone who knows her [name]IRL[/name] says to me, you know, she just looks like an [name]Emerson[/name].
Nope, it doesn’t bother me. Everyone has different tastes, and that’s okay.
I think it’s important to remember, too, that people are very free with their opinions online and are often far more negative than they would be [name]IRL[/name]. I don’t take it to heart; I don’t think anyone should.
Not really. I once posted [name]Athenais[/name] on a site and was bombarded with comments about how it was unattractive, hard to pronounce, and pretentious. [name]Do[/name] I care? No. I guess it gave me an idea of how people would react to it in real life and I decided I dont care, I love the name and plan on using it.
I also think that if you ask for opinions and for criticism you need to be prepared for the fact that not everyone will love your names and some people might even loathe them. I’ve come to realize I am probably a little blunt on this site and I think that’s because I post on other sites where it’s perfectly acceptable to say you dislike a name and that using it would be detrimental to a child. That would never fly on nameberry or American boards in general for whatever reason and I totally understand that (plus it’s not my style to go that far) but I will give my opinion if you ask for opinions.
I wouldnt let these comments keep you from using [name]Nova[/name] but maybe you need to consider whether or not you could handle strong negative reactions to it in real life and how your child might feel about her name.
Yes! I feel like I shouldn’t because names are just names and everyone has different styles, and that I should only care that I love the name, as long as it’s not a horrid name or anything.
Still, it feels like an arrow straight to my heart when someone says they don’t like [name]Isabelle[/name] or [name]Caleb[/name] for whatever reason–I can’t imagine naming my first child anything else and they’re just perfect, imo. I could care less about [name]Isabelle[/name]'s popularity (or similarity to [name]Isabella[/name]/[name]Bella[/name] Swan, whatever), and I don’t know why people would dislike [name]Caleb[/name] (usually silly reasons like “it sounds like someone saying [name]Callum[/name] with the flu”–which I don’t understand at all), but still, I love them so much and I want others to love them, too, haha. To a lesser degree, I am kind of sad when others don’t love the combos I’ve picked out as much as me but I know it’s just personal taste so I’m not too fussed about it.