As you can see from my signature, I love names that fall in the “classic unusual” and “classic eccentric” categories. However, I distinctly remember that when I was around four or five years old, my favorite names were [name]Emily[/name], [name]Monica[/name], and [name]Melissa[/name]! (I apparently didn’t care about boys names back then).
By middle school, when I really got interested in names, my taste started to tend toward the types of names I like now. But clearly, when I was in preschool/kindergarten, my taste was quite different!
[name]Do[/name] you remember any names you liked as a child, or even in the more recent past, that are totally different than the types of names you like now?
I actually didn’t get interested into names until quite recently, but as you can see from my user lists, my first names and middle names are completely different style-wise. Compare my girls list in my signature to my combo list Calla Combos With Unusual/Rare Middles. …Am I Hopelessly Hipster?
Balloonsforellie, I love many of the names in your lists! Maybe I’m missing something, but how do I differentiate between your choices for first and middle?
I’ve loved names for as long as I can remember, and my first loves were '80s and '90s names that were common among my friends. [name]Jamie[/name] was my deepest love, a name I got from my doll who came pre-named, and remains one of my top 3 contenders for a future daughter. I still do love names from that era, so I can’t say my style has changed much (though it has VASTLY broadened to include nickname names and literary names, etc.), but several of my first loves have passed. Names that I no longer love anymore include [name]Michelle[/name] (because I met a pretty bad one) and [name]Alyssa[/name] (<< I thought this was the epitome of beauty but now consider it bland). Still, if I met babies today with most of the names on my childhood name list, I’d think their parents had pretty fantastic taste. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), it seems that nobody shares my love for the nostalgic '90s names!
I had super awful taste when I first became interested in names - Masculine names for girls, Misspelled, Overly Gothy…just bad.
Then I went from there to the other side of the spectrum and my taste became what I consider extremely pretentious and over the top - but they were not bad, just over the top. (Ezebel [name]Rhiannon[/name] [name]Willow[/name], [name]Ginevra[/name] [name]Eponine[/name] Rosabel…that kind of thing)
But NOW, I think I have toned down my style, I still love a lot of over the top, very obscure names but generally not all put into one combo - pairing things like [name]Tullia[/name] [name]Penelope[/name] [name]Joy[/name] together instead of combining [name]Tullia[/name] with 2 other super obscure, super frilly choices.
I used to [name]LOVE[/name] [name]Emma[/name], [name]Emily[/name], and [name]Elizabeth[/name]. I named a lot of characters [name]Pamela[/name], for some reason. When I first discovered the name nerd community I fell hard for offbeat mythological names, the weirder the better. Give my kid a name in the top 1000? Perish the thought! While I still enjoy offbeat names, my tastes are back to what they were before my wacky phase: slightly dusty but distinguished antiques with strong connections to history and literature. I do still love me some nature names, though…
Hmmm…
My taste in boys have really stayed the same I like short, slightly quirky well known names like [name]Levi[/name], [name]Jonah[/name], [name]Henry[/name] & [name]Elwood[/name]. The middle names are normally family names or have a meaning to me. As for girls I like frilly femimine classics that sound cultured like [name]Jane[/name], [name]Rosalie[/name], [name]Scarlett[/name] and [name]Amira[/name].
However I used to like [name]Mackenzie[/name], [name]Dakota[/name] and [name]Skye[/name] which are not my taste now at all, [name]Mackenzie[/name] in my eyes now is a masculine name and a surname. A name I only like as a surname. [name]Dakota[/name] is [name]Dakota[/name] [name]Sioux[/name] an Native American tribe and shouldn’t be used as a name by people who aren’t of Native Amerian descent just the name [name]Cohen[/name] shouldn’t be used if your not Jewish. [name]Skye[/name] is so dated so yes my tastes have changed considerably over the years, I now hate all three names I used to love !!
I don’t really know what my naming style is… Could someone tell me by looking at my signature or something? lol But when I was younger, (8 or 9) I LOVED “J” names. For a girl, I liked [name]Jamie[/name] and [name]Janessa[/name]. For a boy I liked [name]Jason[/name]. Now, I apparently like “L” names. [name]Lydia[/name], [name]Lily[/name], [name]Larissa[/name], and [name]Liam[/name], [name]Louis[/name] (pronounced like [name]Louie[/name], not [name]Lewis[/name]), and [name]Leo[/name].
As a little girl, I loved [name]Abigail[/name] and [name]James[/name]. I’m still head over heels in love with [name]James[/name], but my love for [name]Abigail[/name] has faded a bit (although I’m still nostalgically fond of her).
like balloonsforellie my interest in names is (relatively) new, but i remember this one conversation i had with my mom when i was maybe a pre-teen:
I’m not sure why i brought it up, probably because there’s someone in my life i love and respect named [name]Eva[/name]. I said to my mom, I like [name]Evelyn[/name] as a name.
She promptly made a sour face. “EW! that’s so old lady.”
Now i’d never use it because it’s so popular!
Ugh, my style was so awful when I was first into names! My top 5 for girls was [name]Ashlyn[/name], [name]Bailey[/name], [name]Emmerson[/name], [name]Sarah[/name], and [name]Honor[/name]. I still like [name]Aislinn[/name], and I think [name]Sarah[/name]'s lovely, but [name]Bailey[/name] and [name]Emmerson[/name] are awful, and [name]Honor[/name] is okay, but [name]Honora[/name]/[name]Annora[/name] is much more my style now.
I still like a couple of trendy names like [name]Macy[/name] and [name]Hadley[/name], but I wouldn’t use them, because they don’t really fit with [name]Isabelle[/name], [name]Arianne[/name], [name]Olivia[/name], [name]Violet[/name], [name]Charlotte[/name], etc.
I can’t remember the very first names I was in love with, but I do recall loving [name]Elizabeth[/name] for a long time, which is still considerable now, I had a major love affair with [name]Evangeline[/name] also, which I still love, but wouldn’t like use due to the religious overtones, [name]Calypso[/name] is still a major love, but not very usable imo. I had a tom-boyish name phase, loving names like [name]Alexis[/name], [name]Quinn[/name] and [name]Tegan[/name] for awhile, not my style anymore clearly! I can’t honestly think of any though that make me think “What was I thinking?!” or just completely stand out from what I normally like. I think my taste has definitely grown and evolved now though.
While the names have channged my taste has stayed the same, more at less. I am started to like more quirky names now, but I still like the classic names as well. There was I stage I went through were I liked overly frilly girly names, ([name]Ariana[/name], [name]Arabella[/name], [name]Lilliana[/name], [name]Isadora[/name]) which I can’t stand anymore.
I still honestly like the nicknames I liked when I was tiny (and named my dolls after): I still love [name]Jenny[/name], [name]Susie[/name]/[name]Suzy[/name] - I had one doll named [name]Susie[/name] and another named [name]Suzy[/name], it was my first real encounter with “same name different spelling” and [name]Sally[/name] and [name]Kitty[/name] still, though the long forms have changed.
What I don’t love are the names I thought were terrifically stylish and cool as an older kid/teenager. [name]Jenny[/name]/[name]Susie[/name]/[name]Kitty[/name]/[name]Polly[/name] etc. ARE very cutesy, but today I much prefer those, which I liked when I was very little, to [name]Chelsea[/name], [name]Madison[/name], [name]Alyssa[/name] and [name]Hunter[/name], [name]Harrison[/name], [name]Tyler[/name] etc. I thought were sooo much cooler when I was 10-15.
I don’t have a list as such at the moment, but my naming style is very similar to yours with some added quirks.
As a little girl, I loved [name]Cindy[/name], [name]Kathleen[/name] and [name]Amelia[/name], no boys names come to mine.
When I first started using nameberry, my boys list was:
[name]Alasdair[/name] [name]Cayden[/name]
[name]Archer[/name] [name]Laurent[/name]
[name]Ashton[/name] [name]Cole[/name]
[name]Chase[/name] [name]Anthony[/name]
[name]Dermott[/name] [name]Pierce[/name]
[name]Dexter[/name] [name]Lincoln[/name] [name]Tate[/name]
[name]Emmett[/name] [name]Flynn[/name]
[name]Evander[/name]
[name]Finnegan[/name] [name]Elias[/name]
[name]Harrison[/name] [name]Isaac[/name]
[name]Hunter[/name] [name]Nathaniel[/name]
[name]Ignatius[/name] [name]Jude[/name]
[name]Jagger[/name] [name]William[/name]
[name]Jasper[/name] [name]Owen[/name]
[name]Jett[/name] [name]Phoenix[/name]/[name]Jett[/name] [name]Ryder[/name]
[name]Killian[/name] [name]Elijah[/name]
[name]Mason[/name] [name]Alexander[/name]
[name]Noah[/name]
Oaker
[name]Oliver[/name]
[name]Roman[/name] [name]James[/name]
[name]Rowan[/name] [name]Augustus[/name]
[name]Saxon[/name]
[name]Sebastian[/name] [name]Ellis[/name]
[name]Silas[/name]
[name]Xavier[/name] [name]Kurt[/name] [name]Hendrix[/name]
[name]Zeppelin[/name]
Oh gosh, I remember making my first name list about 9 years ago when I was 13ish, and in retrospect it was terrible! Influenced by pop culture, I loved [name]Ethan[/name] and [name]Harrison[/name], and surnamey names for girls (Stokely, [name]Peyton[/name], [name]Quinn[/name], [name]Hadley[/name]). I would never dream of using any of those now! I then started using naming forums and my taste improved, though I was a tad pretentious with a penchant for overly long and clunky names like [name]Bartholomew[/name], [name]Peregrine[/name], [name]Dorothea[/name] and [name]Leonora[/name]. I think my taste has been how similar to how it is now for around 6 years.
When I was really little I wanted to name a boy [name]Presley[/name] [name]Montgomery[/name]. It was the name of an ancestor on my grandmother’s side and I thought it was amazingly unique.
In my teen years I was always so envious of girls named [name]Taylor[/name] and [name]Jordan[/name]…they seemed so adventurous.
Now, even though I still have my love of vintage names, [name]Presley[/name] is off the list. [name]Montgomery[/name] however will hopefully be making an appearance in the middle spot of a future daughter. [name]Taylor[/name] and [name]Jordan[/name] have gone the way of [name]Presley[/name] but I still don’t hate the gender benders.
I LOVED [name]Yasmine[/name] and [name]Zoe[/name] as a double barrel [name]Zoe[/name]-[name]Yasmine[/name] for boys I loved [name]Seth[/name] and Murdoch. I have loved [name]Eamon[/name] since I was 10 (2008)