Honestly, I think [name_m]Dick[/name_m] is a cute name. It has its own history, and I don’t use that word or hear it much. I guess it’s a matter of the words people around you use.
I also love [name_m]Archie[/name_m], and [name_m]Archibald[/name_m] is a great way to get there. I love old noble names that people have heard of.
I had to come around to [name_f]Matilda[/name_f], but I think it’s sweet and has a lot of personality.
My gripes:
[name_m]Atticus[/name_m] - already passe, and not phonetically pleasant to begin with
[name_f]Emmeline[/name_f] - hate the leen sound, and history or not, it sounds like a way to dress up [name_f]Emma[/name_f] — which I think has more casual dignity — and I suspect that’s part of how/why it’s popularly used anyway
[name_m]Silas[/name_m] - I don’t understand what people hear or see in these letters, that’s all I can say
[name_u]Ainsley[/name_u] - even worse, “ain” and “sl” combine to make a word that sounds physically painful to my ear
[name_u]Mackenzie[/name_u] - this was maybe cute/clever for the first few people who thought of it a decade ago, but it’s ridiculous to take an arbitrary surname you like the sound of now it’s this ubiquitous, and there are so many more novel yet familiar-sounding surname choices waiting to be discovered, if you really think that’s a way to choose a name
[name_f]Viola[/name_f] - this just sounds anatomical to me
[name_f]Paige[/name_f] - sounds unpleasant, and makes me think of office talk, like if “memo” or “toner” were spelled funny
[name_u]Parker[/name_u] - maybe this only sounds silly in places where a parka is something you wear
[name_u]Evelyn[/name_u] - this is one of those names that just sounds like an arbitrary bunch of vague pretty sounds, with nothing grounding it in a distinctive phonetic image (like [name_f]Helen[/name_f], or [name_f]Genevieve[/name_f], names that feel substantial)
[name_m]Jasper[/name_m] - this sounds unpleasant to me, and has bad associations from the kinds of parents who use it where I live, and therefore what Jaspers are like
[name_f]Khloe[/name_f] - I’ve seen this on local popularity charts and it just screams “I don’t understand languages or know of anything older than what was on TV last week”
[name_u]Jayden[/name_u]/[name_u]Kayden[/name_u]/[name_u]Brayden[/name_u]/[name_f]Kaylee[/name_f]/[name_u]Baylee[/name_u]/[name_f]Kayla[/name_f]/[name_u]Taylor[/name_u]/etc. - OK great you’ve found a pleasant sound, now how about a real name with some meaning and substance that incorporates it? ([name_m]Caleb[/name_m], [name_m]David[/name_m], [name_m]Jason[/name_m], [name_m]Damon[/name_m], [name_f]Adelaide[/name_f], [name_f]Abigail[/name_f], [name_f]Michaela[/name_f], [name_f]Freya[/name_f], [name_f]Sinead[/name_f]… just not [name_u]Mason[/name_u] or [name_m]Greyson[/name_m] please)
[name_f]Seraphina[/name_f] - an overly princessy way to call her “angel”
There are some historic name trends that irk me, like how [name_f]Leila[/name_f] was 19th century English speakers taking a pretty name from Arabic literature, which feels to me like if Anglos took [name_f]Aliyah[/name_f] now. Kind of tacky to treat foreign cultures as a grab bag of pretty phonemes.
I think the reasons I dislike names are a lot more likely to offend than the names themselves (haha). But it is just a matter of taste. Everyone hears names differently.
