My fiance and I have been discussing names that we would never or could never name our children. We actually found a handful of styles of names that we won’t be naming our children:
Last names first (ie [name]Carter[/name], [name]Porter[/name] or [name]Emerson[/name]) because our last name will be/is an Irish surname that is frequently used as a first name in [name]America[/name]. We wouldn’t want people to look at our children’s names and not be able to tell which one is first and which is last.
Irish names: My fiance wants American style names and if we ever did Irish names he would never misspell them so most people wouldn’t be able to pronounce them (me included )
British style names: My fiance won’t even discuss ‘british’ style names (he really means names that sound like British royal names) and that cuts out [name]Frederick[/name]/[name]Freddy[/name] for me
Unisex names: I really really dislike unisex names. My name is [name]Whitney[/name] (and my parent’s back up name was [name]Courtney[/name]) and I like both names, only I like them for boys. I have met two [name]Whitney[/name]'s and a handful of Courtneys that were males and I love the names on them. I like girls names on girls and boys names on boys.
Celebrity names: obviously we can’t predict who will be the next big thing but we will be avoiding [name]Scarlett[/name], [name]Angelina[/name], [name]Keanu[/name], [name]Shiloh[/name] etc etc etc.
What name styles or genres are you avoiding in your baby naming quest? Is this unusual? I think it will make it easier when we finally settle down to name a child because then we can avoid names that we know will never make the cut.
I have the same kind of off limits categories. They all make sense! Though you would be surprised about the awareness of Irish naming and pronunciation. Where I live at least !
My off limits categories:
Anything beginning with an F or Ph because our last name begins with F.
Italian American names - and by this I mean future guidos and guidettes. I don’t want my toddler gelling his hair, working on his tan, or bugging me for more clean onesies.
Names that are inaccessible to the general population - i love many unusual names, but I have some strong geek genes on my side and my handsome husband carries some recessive ugly genes. I can’t saddle my child with a name that would make his life harder if he got a bad mix of those genes.
For us, we don’t want anything too inaccessable to most people. [name]Siobhan[/name] is a gorgeous name but I can’t imagine how many people would butcher it where I live.
Also, nothing on the top SSA’s top 1000 list for the past decade. lol It’s not as hard as I thought it would be, but I love [name]Cassandra[/name], so that might be an exception. But I cringe at the thought of naming by baby [name]Bella[/name] or [name]Sophia[/name]. Extreme popularity ruins a name for me.
Also, no granny names. [name]Hazel[/name], [name]Matilda[/name], [name]Harriet[/name], [name]Ruby[/name]…meh.
Our last name ends in an “iss” noise so we’ve nixed anything the ends in “s”… SIGH! You never know who you are going to grow up and marry and all of a sudden some of my favorite names are vetoed! Not hard for me with girls names (the only one I can think of is [name]Terese[/name]) but boys?? I’m sad! No more imagining little [name]Silas[/name], [name]Lucius[/name], [name]Gus[/name], [name]Rufus[/name], [name]Tobias[/name], [name]Rhys[/name], [name]Atlas[/name], Dmitrius…
At least I’m with a SO that has a similar naming style. He isn’t against word or nature names (Nature names are my [name]FAVORITE[/name]) but my sister has the problem that her last name is an adverb so she and her husband nixed anything that would make their kid’s name sound like a sentance. I think this is pretty smart because I went to school with a girl who’s name was [name]Felicia[/name] Buurn. Her middle name? [name]May[/name]. [name]Felicia[/name] [name]May[/name] is BEAUTIFUL!, but she hid her midddle name for the longest time because of the sentance her name made.
It is so funny you used [name]Siobhan[/name] as an example. Where I grew up in MA there were THREE Siobhans within a few years of each other. After the first “huh?” you knew how to pronounce the name and thought it was really cool! Esp. since Banarama was popular around that time and there was a singer in the trio with the name [name]Siobhan[/name]. And [name]Sade[/name] (pr. [name]Shar[/name] -day) was popular then. And [name]Sinead[/name] O’[name]Connor[/name].
I guess my point is that some names seem so strange but after one look, it seems normal.
Off limits for me are and names that end in “a”, “s” or “sh” since last name starts with “Sh”. That also took names like [name]Charlotte[/name] out of the mix. The “a” is b/c the last name ends in “r” and my MA family would butcher one or the other of the names!
I do not like random “y” in a name but I did create my third child’s middle name from a combo of my parents’ names. It was my way to honor both with my last child.
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