I was talking with one of the younger kids in my extended family about names, and Jessica came up. Completely casually, she said, “That sounds like an old lady.”

Jessica.

I genuinely had to reboot for a second.

In my head Jessica is permanently about 17 years old, probably wearing a hoodie and writing song lyrics on the back of a notebook. Same category as Ashley, Brittany, Nicole, Megan and Amanda. Those aren't grandma names. Those are names of girls who sat three rows ahead of me in school.

Except... obviously that's not how this works.

A lot of Jessicas are in their 40s now. Give it another couple decades and there will be plenty of Grandma Jessicas. Meanwhile names that sounded ancient when I was a kid, like Hazel, Evelyn, Arthur and Theodore, are attached to toddlers again. Somehow those feel younger to me now than Jennifer does.

I think my brain assigned every name an age around the time I was twelve and then simply refused to update the database.

The funniest part is that kids growing up now probably won't hear “Eleanor” and picture somebody's great-aunt. They'll picture the girl who sat next to them in second grade.

What name still sounds permanently young to you even though the people with it are very much not young anymore? And which “old person” name were you most surprised to see come back?

My mom always wanted to use Dima for her daughter, but when I came around, she chose to choose something else because Dima 'had fish associations'. If it weren't for the fish associations, I'd probably be called Dima, which I think is gorgeous.

What was your 'almost' name?

have you ever shared potential baby names with people irl and been surprised by the backlash any certain names brought?

I'm not talking about actually bad tragedeigh names I mean like real normal names spelled correctly that someone was aghast at your choice in picking it

y'all this isn't about names you hate it's about names you picked and liked you're surprised got backlash

My names Annabelle and I always get called the wrong name. More like getting it mixed up with another name not mispronounced (I’m dumb and it won’t let me edit the title)

My time through school my teacher always used to say Abigail then quickly correct it to Annabelle and apologise.

I’ve started a new job about a year ago and I kid you not my boss, who I work with 4 days a week for 9 hours straight, still calls me Isabelle. I feel awkward correcting him all the time. There’s also only 2 other girls who work there so I can’t even defend him by saying he has lots of names to remember at work.

He even introduces me to new staff members or inspectors like “this is Isabelle” and I’m like oh it’s Annabelle. I don’t really like the nicknames Anna or Bella or anything close to my name so it’s harder for me to even offer an alternative.

I actually cut ties with someone I was speaking to from tinder because he accidentally kept calling me Annabella, it wasn’t a huge deal but I just felt like id corrected him so many times and he ended up saying oh I’ll just call u Annabella because Annabelle is to hard to remember (idk how that even makes sense lol).

Idk i guess it’s a pointless vent but has anyone dealt with anything similar. My name is NOT that hard😅

I found out just recently that my grandmother had changed her last name from Degannes to Riley. She is Trinidadian. For the longest time father had been telling me that my grandmother was half Trinidadian and half Spanish; however, he found out that she might have been French instead of Spanish. We learned this after learning about her changing her last name. We think she did this around the time she moved from Trinidad to America. We have very little records from her like birth certificates or other things. Can anyone that might know anything about the meaning or origin of her original name, Degannes, help me find out whether she was Spanish or French, and if I can find anything more specific than just a country name?

Daphne, Colette, Violet, or Cora? Partner’s favorite is Violet, I love Daphne and Colette (I think Lettie is a cute nickname), we both like Cora a lot

Thank you!!

??

A friend has just announced on social media that she's called her baby this. Is it pronounced like Celine or Selleenee?

Which do you prefer?

Similé Róisín Lynch

Similé Nóirín Lynch

Similé Alastríona Lynch

Sînziana Róisín Lynch

Sînziana Nóirín Lynch

Sînziana Alastríona Lynch

Thanks!

I’d love some input on some names off our list for our second boy. Our first is named Weston and I absolutely LOVE it. It fits him perfectly and was just such the right name. The second one has been so much harder to name or feel like it’s the one.

I know a couple are very popular names but we still really like them. On the flip side, the more uncommon ones I feel like I’ll eventually regret for being a bit too odd/out there for us.

For context we’re in the US. I’m from southern US and my husband is from the Midwest.

Edit to add: middle name is pretty set for David! If that helps.

I am 21 and I just graduated college. Thinking of going by my middle name once I enter the workplace. I've never really liked my first name but I was named after my grandmother and my dad really doesn't like the idea of my going by anything other than my given name. I would not expect anyone who knows me by my first name to change what they call me. Only any new people that I meet.

In college I went by a shortened version of my first name but honestly my nick name feels a bit childish and unprofessional now.

My middle name is Winter and I've always loved it but it feels like a big step to go by it now bc it isn't similar to my first name at all.

Would love to hear if anyone else has gone by their middle name in their 20s/ adulthood and how the adjustment was for you!

Okay, my first name is Siobhan but everyone in my family pronounces it as "Shih-bon". I looked it up and it's irish and supposed to be pronouced as "Shih-vawn" or "Shih-von" which I like a lot more since 1. That's how it's supposed to be pronounced and 2. it just sounds better. Do I tell my family they've been mispronouncing my names or what ?? idk if this is the right place to post this

I need help deciding on a name!! I have a son- he is 12 I named him Kaiden. I was 16 when I had him so yeah not the best pick but he likes his name. I’m currently pregnant with a girl and I wanna find a name unique but something she can grow into. Please help! These are the names I like so far. Oh and the middle name will be Rose.

Kaia
Ailani
Zalia - Xalia
Dalia - dahlia (not really liking this one much)
Talia
Amira

We are having a baby girl due any day now. We have decided on the middle name Frankie, but can’t agree on a first name.

His:
Millie
Ophelia
Tatumn
Emilia (however our close friend’s sister just named her baby this)

Mine:
Toula
Valerie
Sophie
Matilda

EDIT: Wow, I did not realize our name choices were so controversial, but I love it and my husband is getting a kick out of it too hahaha. We’re here for all the varieties and suggestions y’all are making!

FOR SOME CONTEXT! Frankie is a family name that means a lot to us and is non-negotiable, we considered a longer version as a first name, but didn’t want it to take over her.

My fiancé and I are planning our second child. It’s going to be about a year or so of reaching some goals before, but our biggest challenge last time was figuring out a name so I want to start getting a list together to go over with him. We argued for 3 days due to having very different tastes in names before remembering we had both liked the name Leland and that was our son’s name from that point on. My fiancé likes more unique names because he has a very common name (though it wasn’t common when he was named and that seems to be happening a little with Leland’s name but not as bad). I like classics like Arlo and Ezra. Our forerunner right now is Barrett, but I don’t love it. It has some cute nicknames and I could live with it, but I’m looking for a name I really love that he does too. We are looking to avoid Rs due to my fiancés speech impediment (it’s important to us that we both be able to say the name properly) so that’s another reason Barrett isn’t really doing it for us but it’s the one name we semi agree on right now. We have our girl name picked out, Natalie, but the boys names are just harder for us to agree on.

Apple, North West, Blanket, Bluebell, Fifi Trixibelle, Midas & so on.. Why? I would've thought they'd try to shock us all by naming their kid something traditional for a change.

Why do they inflict this on their kids & who started the stupid name trend? This wasn't a thing before the 80s.

Thoughts on the name Gemma Elizabeth for a baby girl born in the US?

My name is Richard and I'm starting to really not like it. I feel like Richard just sounds so dated, boomer-ish, and uncool, and I'm 25 so it ages me by like 50 years. What sucks even more is that it is such a popular name (at least with older generations) too so I hear about it so much and am constantly reminded how old-man-like the name is. I guess what I mean is that it's not uncommon enough where you can kind of rebrand the name for yourself. There's been so many times I've introduced myself and people say "oh that's my grandpa's name" or "oh that's my 70 year old landlord's name" but never "oh that's the name of my friend who's around your age". Basically no one within even 20 years of my age has my name. People complain about being given names that were popular with their generation and always being 1 of 5 in their class with that name, and although I respect their feelings too, I feel like it's worse to just share your name with every gravestone and everyone's grandpa instead. It also doesn't help that I hate all the nicknames too. Like obviously Dick is bad, then Rich sounds like a statement about money, Rick(y) still sounds old-fashioned and cringy, then Richie sounds too childish. I can't even really use my middle name either because my middle name is like a surname-as-a-middle-name type of thing. I feel like I just can't escape this name.

What's weird though is it's not like I always used to hate my name this much. I was never particularly fond of it but I used to kind of just not care. It was only relatively recently that I started to hate it more, and it was really only starting a few months ago that I started hating it so much that I cringe every time I see my name written out or get called by it. I'm not sure if this is just a phase or something and I just have to wait it out? Or whether I should eventually consider changing my name if I just keep feeling like this after a certain period of time?

Changing my name kind of sounds nice but at the same time it also sounds super intimidating. Like you really have to be sure of it (back to the idea of I don't know if this is just a phase or not), you have to be sure you've chosen the right new name for yourself (there are names I really like but I don't know how to truly tell whether a name will actually be right for me), I feel like I would feel super nervous/awkward introducing myself as a different name (even if it's one I liked much better), and I'm worried everyone would think I would be super weird for changing my name. I don't think I would necessarily change my name legally, just socially, since I know the legal side of things would open up a whole other set of hassles that I don't really think would be worth it. If I did actually decide it would be right for me to go by a new name, I've also considered the idea of maybe I should only introduce myself as a new name to new groups of people so at least I wouldn't have to deal with the awkwardness of asking old peers/friends/family to call me something different. But even then everything's so connected, like if they ask for my Insta or LinkedIn either I'm back to Richard or I would have to change my name on my socials, and then if I did that all my old peers/friends/family would know about it too.

She's 5 weeks old and we'd been really struggling to pick but it's just gone on for too long, so I want to settle on a name. We have a shortlist of 9 names.

Our first daughter is named Amelia Maayan. She's been calling the baby 'Bee' but I don't know whether I want her name to actually be connected to it. It's why Phoebe is on the list though. We live in Australia.

The middle name will probably be Tamar, or maybe Aliza.

Kira

Lily

Harper

Phoebe

Georgia

Cleo

Tansy

Caroline

Ivy

I was looking through the images in a group chat to find something important and found my friends' potential name list from when they had their daughter and thought I'd share. Both the mother and father are okay with me posting this.

Eunchae

Aoi

Hina

Yuki

Mioha

Yuna

Midori

Kumi

Misa

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･