General Chat

My Friend is having a baby girl in october and is trying to find an anusual name can you help?

Hi Carole, I hope Susie replies to this as she has some lovely names for her grandchildren...........

Why an "unusual" name, for goodness sake!? Make it too unusual and in years to come she will not thank her parent(s); may even resent her parent(s), when other kids with "normal" names tease her, and play havoc, with her unusual name. That's my opinion for what it's worth, Brian (grandad of 4 with non-unusual names).

hi carol sue is right lol my grandchildren have lovely unusual names..are you ready!! lol a'ishah saleemah krystal shania-jaide jordan-jaide(girl) and my daughter is called limara i hope this gives your friend some ideas:):) susie

Why not have a look on the "Unusual Christian Names" thread?

Hi this site has unusual and unique baby names from around the world http://www.babynameworld.*com/unique.asp Christine

LAKESHIA TONISHA MACEY BRYONY FRANCESCA TEGAN RHIANNON MADELAINE CHANTELL A FEW SANDRA

I do not want to offend anyone but I agree with Brian. My christian name is Lindzay, note the spelling. Not even the teachers at school could get it right or pronounce it correctly. I got teased something awful. I would never hurt my parents by changing my name. The day my baby sister turned twenty one she had her name, Nora-Lee Anne legally changed to just Lee. When her daughter was born she named her Storm. I could not believe it. My poor niece! My boys are called Daniel and David, common everyday names. Spelt the same in both Portuguese and English but pronounced differently. Each unto his own! Lindy:-))))

You will never get everyone to agree on this one! My Grandchildren are called by 'old fashioned' names - Christopher, Jeremy,Gregory (shortened of course by friends to Chris, 'J' and Greg, James (called Jamie) and Sophie. My great nieces are called Leila, Emma and Leah. You need to be careful as to what they can be shortened or lengthened to. why are you finding names for your friend's baby? or does she just want ideas? Ann Glos

I remember reading a few years ago that if you named your child with an unusual name, they stood out more at school and tended to do better??? I don't know the reasoning behind this. I had one friend who named her daughter La Toya and she was teased mercilessly for it. I named all my kids with pretty ordinary names, but what does annoy me is people shortening them. Son Darren often gets Daz, Nicola gets Nic or Nikki, daughter Kirsteen people always think its Kirsty or Kirsten and now my youngest Lewis, I hear his friends at nursery call him Lou or Lewy. Christine(Chris)Grrrr

My mother wanted names that suited us and chose Abigail, and Saul and Gideon for my twin brothers. They suit us perfectly but my brothers' nicknames for one another are Sid and Basil. Mum gets very put out because if she had given them those names they would have used something else so you can't win. It is so difficult to give babies names. We struggled with both of ours and only named them after a week but I have to say getting to know them a bit first was a good idea as they both absolutely fit their names!! Abigail

Unusual names don't have to be a problem, provided they can be pronounced! I've only ever met 2 other people with my name (pronounced Ayleen). All my life I've been called either Eileen or Elaine and having to correct people all the time is extremely frustrating so I really have grown to dislike my name! Aileenx

I chose both of my children's names, Christopher and Elizabeth, so they at least had a choice of how they referred to themselves later - I've now got a Chris and a Libby. The variations are endless and they had many to choose from. But (there is always a but) the leader of the local YHA where Chris used to go as a young teen couldn't remember his name and called him 'Sid' and it stuck! His mates refer to him as Sid and Chris signs himself Sid if he contacts them - you can't win! Libby was also 'Sidette' for the same reason but fortunately for her it didn't stick lol

My children and grandchildren have fairly'normal' names (I think) but most names will get shortened or lengthened. Matthew (Matt or Mattie-Poos!) Kathryn (Katie or Kate, although Irish Grandmother-in-Law calls her Kitty!) Gemma Louise (Gemmy-Lou, Gems or Gem) & James (Jimbo or Jay). Grandchildren are Rebecca (Beck, Becky, Bex) Emma (called Ems or Emmy- Lou even though her name isn't Louise!) Abigail (Abbie or Abbs) & Owen (O). My brother's name is Iain (can't shorten that!) Kilpatrick, but he's always known as Killy! No matter what name you give a beautiful baby, it will almost always be changed by someone! I have been trying to think of any of my friends or relations who are always known by their birth name. I can't think of any apart from my Grandad who was christened Harry and always was Harry to everyone! Sue (Susan Ann) P.S. Just remembered a friend of my daughter is Christopher but always known as Crusty - poor boy!

Sue I'm laughing when you said Iain can't be shortened. You've no idea how many Ian or Iain's I know that are known as Yan. Aileen you'll have to move up to Scotland, lots of Aileens up here. Christine

OK, here we go... I'm afraid I fall into the "normal" name category. I hate it when people make up their own spellings of names (sorry, I think Jaide falls into that, IT'S SPELT JADE lol). I'm quite the traditionalist lol Saying that, some of the above are nice, and my neice has just called her baby girl Taylor, which is usual but nice.

My family used the name Medora a lot in the 19th century - it comes from a poem by Lord Byron called The Corsair - unusual, but pretty and not a 'made up' modern name. For what its worth I agree that children with weird names suffer at school - you know how cruel kids are. Unusual is fine, but you have to be careful not to go too far and name the child something that she will be teased or bullied over. Most of the children in my kids' classes with unusual names are either Asian or West Indian - and some of the West Indian children have VERY traditional 'English' names! I can't think of any who have a really shockingly weird name thank goodness! The most unusual I suppose are Cherry-Rose and Lucy-Anne. There are 3 girls called Paris in my son's year - most of the unusual names become fashionable, then they are not so unusual! Maz. XX

My name is Chloe (duh), and when I was born this was not a popular name. My parents got it from the bible for crying out loud!! No one could EVER spell it. I still have some people who can't spell it. My nana called me 'it' for the first year of my life in protest because she hated my name so much. I have had all types of spelling, Klowe, Cloe (a way of spelling it admittedly), the most common one is Chole.... doesn't even look like Chloe!!! Same with my surname, everyone spells it wrong, they assume it's 'Perrin' but it's not!! LOL. My aunt even put umlauts over the E or O.... I've told her countless times there's no need for it!! Having had that moan, I still want to name my child something different. If it's a boy I like Levi, Benjamin (normal), and Oliver (normal). If I have a girl I like Briseis, Lily-Grace (normal - but named after my two grandmothers), Eowyn, loads more but I forget most of the time!!! Chloe

I called my children by names that I thought could not be shortened. Jane and Mark. I call them Janie and Markie???? The grandchildren 1) Joel became Jo. 2) Jessica became Jess 3) Samuel - Sam 4) Jennifer - Jen 4) Sally is still Sally. Great granchild Caitlin to me became "ginger" ( for obvious reasons), but she has renamed herself Harry Potter and I am Ron. Point is how much love you can put into a name is what counts.

My kids are Ian (which is rarely used, he gets Idge, Jonah or Joe - as our surname is Jones), Aimee (who is usually called Aims) and Luke (who I had to force myself to stop calling Lou-Lou when he went to nursery!!). I love the name Lucy and have made my eldest promise to call his first girl that! I also loved the name Bailey for a boy when I was having Luke, but my "better" half, was dead set against it. I don't usually listen to him, so I don't know why I did this time - must have been my hormones! Carol