I’m personally in love with many unusual names like [name_f]Nefertiti[/name_f], [name_f]Delyth[/name_f], Gwenllian, Illyria, and when I came here, there was lot of love for names on more unusual side. Now, I feel like my choices are too outrageous, especially when I got comments like “Your middle name options really throw me off…”.
I think many people here think names will cause bullying, but never in my life I encountered name bullying. I was bullying, but not because I was different nor my name, but because bullies thought me as easy target. I honestly can’t see why would any bully care about name somebody has.
In my experience and experience of other people I knew, people with unusual names often encounter few remarks on that subject, but no bullying, and small children often wouldn’t blink at names of their other peers. It’s grown-up who think name shaming is a thing. It’s not.
I don’t think name teasing comes from out-there names. Names that are common, but rhyme or sound alike with something are more likely in my experience. And I wouldn’t call it bullying either. It’s teasing and it’s harmless. Of course bullying exists, but the reason for that is a general lack of respect for other human beings and not their middle name.
Also, I like your middle name options. As far as “Out there” goes, I’m much more a fan of unknown, re-discovered names than made-up or weirdly wordy.
I agree that how unusual your name is has nothing to do with whether or not you’ll be bullied about it.
You do have some very uncommon names in your signature, but that’s not a bad thing. I actually think it’s great to have a very interesting middle name, especially if you have a well-known or popular first name. For example, [name_f]Alice[/name_f] and [name_m]Jack[/name_m] from your signature, both common names, work great with their unique middle names.
I think people are just baffled when they encounter new names they haven’t heard of and have never tried imagining on a child. Or maybe unique names are just not their style. [name_m]Don[/name_m]'t let their preferences change yours.
In my experience (and my thoughts on this subject have changed based on what I’ve seen from volunteering and such) kids are more likely to make fun of names they think are old fashioned than other unusual names, and even that is beginning to change somewhat as vintage names become more popular.
Honestly? It’s easier for me to imagine kids saying “Your middle name is [name_f]Nefertiti[/name_f]? Wow, that’s pretty! My middle name is boring” than it is to imagine them being vicious about it. The kids who tease a child for their name usually want to tease whoever they’re making fun of anyway and think they’ve found a reason. If it really crosses the line into bullying it will definitely have to be taken care of, but there IS a difference between bullying and kids being obnoxious (not that obnoxious behavior should be encouraged, of course.) The potential that someone may direct an occasional jab towards your child about their name shouldn’t outweigh the positive emotions you feel towards said name.
In general, I think having an unusual name is beginning to be a source of pride for many (particularly in the middle spot) although I’m sure that’s based largely on where you live.
I could be wrong, but based on what I’ve observed and heard from others I believe that name shaming is not worth giving up the name you love. The real name shamers are usually adults, and that’s when you have to evaluate whether or not you love the name enough to hear a supposed friend go on about “tacky virtue names” or whatever.
I was just joking to my mom about how my own unusual name influences my naming taste, especially in that I don’t have the “fear” of using unusual names that many people express. Also, I find classic “normal” names boring. I completely agree that some names are still too difficult and unusual for me to use, and there is still a line of some names that are a bad idea due to negative associations or being inappropriate ([name_f]Melena[/name_f], [name_f]Candida[/name_f], [name_u]Messiah[/name_u]…) But I think I’m more open to unusual names than most people.
I also completely agree that whether a person is bothered by name teasing is largely due to their reaction and personality. I didn’t get bullied as kid about much of anything because if people did try to tease me, I was like, “whatevs” and it’s no fun to bully someone who doesn’t give a reaction.
When people ask me about my name I tell them I was kinda named after a church and if they bring up the Amityville Horror I laugh and tell them I was born after the movie came out and that it doesn’t bother me if people think of that because at least it helps them know how to pronounce it and remember it. I actually have a patient who greets me as “Amityville!”. So it’s largely about how one handles the situation.
I often see this topic veer into how employers will discriminate against hiring people with unusual names. I look at prescribers (ya know, people with good, solid careers) names all day and there are many unusual names. Also, I wouldn’t want to work for an employer who would discriminate against me for having an unusual name anyway. The small amount of research on this doesn’t account for the fact that unusual names are becoming more and more normalized every year (particularly in the US)
I saw someone comment in an article recently that unusual names are awesome if the kid is awesome. So try to raise an awesome, confident, social, motivated kid. Unusual names won’t be a problem if that’s successful. But a fall-back common middle name or nickname is still a good back-up plan, imo
EDIT I especially don’t think an unusual name in the middle spot paired with a common first name is problematic. I don’t think middle names come up that often, and if they do, again teasibility is largely dependent on the child’s reaction.
I have an unusual first name and most of my siblings have unusual names too. I like unique names but having had to correct pronunciation and spelling on my name my whole life I tend to evaluate names on that basis too. So in naming our kids we decided to go with uncommon/unusual first name and more popular/recognized mn so they can go by their mn if they really end up hating their fn. I think changing the spelling of a name just so it “looks unique” is kind of silly and confuses people but if you want to use a truly unique name, go for it. Worst case you end up correcting people a lot until they figure out what the name is. I don’t think kids judge others on their names. ([name_m]Case[/name_m] in point, my 5yo son wants to name our next baby Cycloneshot or Lollipop and my little sister who was 4 at the time wanted to name our next sister Liplash (supposed to be Whiplash but she couldn’t say that).)
I only just realised quite how rare the names I have were. [name_m]Even[/name_m] the one I thought was fairly common is/ was in the 1000s for girls and 2000s for boys in his country of birth. A few of the Greek names I have given, with consideration given to being a standard, easy spelling/ pronunciation in English, are so rare in spelling they do not have a rating at all. This also surprised me. Same rarity for the other names. One nickname has 3 babies born a year with that name in England and Wales (and probably not Irish background as the name is used in a few languages), no record in Ireland. One middle (word) name only used for girls (and child is male). So I guess I like very (very) rare names. One of my children’s names I think we need to sort the spelling for (a bad anglicisation of Irish name) but other than that I do not foresee a problem for them.
That all said I do like easy pronunciation in English (and elsewhere if possible), even if, in the case of the name that we should amend, the pronunciation isn’t obvious immediately (we will probably put it back to its Irish roots, after getting some advice, rather than anglicize it more appropriately).
I would love to see more discussion and exposure of rarer names from all over the world here. I have been surprised how ‘safe’ the majority of the name choices are despite the great variety available.
I think it ends up depending on the person who has the name. I personally would loathe having an unusual/hard to pronounce/rare name. I am very much a blend in and try-not-to-stand-out-as-much-as-humanly-possible kind of person. In fact, I hated my last name growing up. It was a very unique and Eastern European name that no one could pronounce. I would get extreme anxiety when a new teacher would call roll knowing I’d have to assist with the pronunciation or when I’d have to tell the Pharmacist my last name and knew it’d be a “spell it for me again” over and over again situation. I always dreamed of being [name_u]Shannen[/name_u] [name_m]Smith[/name_m] or [name_u]Shannen[/name_u] [name_m]Jones[/name_m] and I’d be home free. So if my parents had decided to name me [name_f]Nefertiti[/name_f] I would have been horrified.
I had a friend named Sapir in high school and everyone called her Sapper. She would complain frequently about how she wishes her parents had named her [name_u]Ashley[/name_u] or [name_f]Brittany[/name_f]. She is my FB friend and as an adult she has chosen to be called [name_f]Pia[/name_f] because she was so sick of being Sapper. On the flip side, I knew a girl named [name_f]Ulrika[/name_f] who never mentioned anything about her name being different and was extremely popular. Different folks, different strokes.
I have never seen name bullying, though. The worst I think I ever heard was a girl in middle school named [name_f]Mary[/name_f] who was dubbed Virgin [name_f]Mary[/name_f] because she was very well behaved and quiet. I do remember it being sort of a “thing” in middle school where people wouldn’t share their middle names because it was “embarrassing” which made everyone then beg for you to tell them and it was always very lame, haha.
“Pleaaase tell me, I won’t laugh I promise!!”
“Okay…it’s [name_f]Louise[/name_f].”
I think your mn choices are great except for Blanchefleur maybe because I don’t like the name itself and Sunniva, Sybil and Ottilie are really usable with mythology related names that will surely interest people. I read a tumblr post about people with God/Goddess names kinda looking and acting otherworldly themselves and I think that’s not a bad thing. For me even an unusual name like Redwing has personal connection since it is our national bird and Wilusa is there because of the Wilusa tour bus I kept seeing everyone when I was walking to library.
Looking back to when I was a kid, there were some pretty unusual names in my class. But I didn’t know they were unusual because they were just names. Apart from the obvious names which may appear a few times in a class, I don’t really think children think about whether names are unusual or common or not.
Adults are worse in the sense that we’re more judgemental and opinionated - however most adults wouldn’t actively bully a child, for any reason. We might meet a person with a name that we absolutely hate, but I honestly can’t think of anyone that would bully someone for that reason alone.
If someone is a bully (not just children,) then they will find anything to bully someone about. Whether that be what they look like, how they talk, how they dress or what they’re called, a bully will pick up on whatever they can find. Maybe some names are more prone to teasing, perhaps if they rhyme with something or whatever - but chances are if they didn’t have that name, it’d be something else.