General Chat

Almost a fifth of parents in the UK regret the name they chose for their child, a survey has suggested.
An online poll of more than 1,000 parents carried out by Mumsnet found that 18% of parents regretted the name they chose for their offspring, but only 2% actually changed their child's name.
The main reason for any regret was how regularly the name was used by others (25%), the data suggested.
Other sources of regret included spelling or pronunciation issues (11%).
The Mumsnet survey has been released in anticipation of annual statistics from the Office of National Statistics on the most popular baby names of the year in England and Wales.

So do these parents who chose popular and classic names wish they chosen something outlandish? I bet the child wouldn't have thanked them as adults.

I love my childrens' and grandkids' names. Mine classic (for the most part) and grandkids fully Welsh.

Do you have any regrets?

Sue

I have no regrets as to the names chosen for my children. My Daughter does hate her middle name though. It is Elspeth. I love it.
There are some very strange names given to children these days.Just 3 I know of recently are,Thursday ,Huxley ,Ottilie .

Ottilie is an old name - jazz singer famous in the 50s Ottilie Patterson.

The only complaint is from my son who runs out of letter boxes when he fills in his full name lolol

Many years ago my next-door neighbour had a friend who was a keen Clint Eastwood fan and called her child Clint.

Nothing wrong with that.........but their surname was Clump!! :-( :-( :-(

I don't exactly regret the name we gave our daughter but it was very much a compromise. I hated all the names OH suggested and he didn't like the names I wanted so we ended up with something that was OKish for both of us. Can't imagine her as anything else now.

lolol @ Andysmum :-)

MY MIL who is aged and has dementia kept calling our grandson Elvis and not Elis.

Our youngest granddaughter was named Heti by the 2 year old whilst she was still a small bump. No idea where that came from but that became her name once she was born.

Just think of what she could have called it

:-0

My daughter name =RAC

that is why she did not get car cover from the AA as she tell me

My daughter name =RAC

that is why she did not get car cover from the AA as she tell me

I remember my cousin deciding that Lucie would be the right name for her little girl because, amongst other things, it was unlikely to be abbreviated.

Now she is on FaceBook and I have seen her friends make it a little longer.


I have seen them call her Loo Seat.

My two sons were given pretty ordinary names - David and Colin - and my only regret is that I didn't give either of them a middle name.

When my grandson was born my son let his wife choose his name and she went with Lewis - without realising that it was my hubby's middle name. Then when I started researching our family history I found that there was a Lewis in every generation of hubby's ancestors since at least as far back as 1800, apart from my sons generation. A big regret on my part.

Kath. x :-(

My sister, brother and I all have traditional first names so nothing wrong with them. However neither my sister or I were kean on our middle names as kids Agnes and Frances. My initials are RAG and my sisters EFG. My dad trying to be funny. I am however glad that my mum didn't go with his choice of first name for me as he wanted to call me Florence.

We chose our son's (classic) name so it couldn't be shortened. His frend's call him by his surname.

Our daughters have longer names. If they turned out to be girlie-girls, the full name would be appropriate whereas the accepted abbreviation is more gender neutral. We paid careful attention to their middle name just in case the 3 initials made a word.

Unusual names could possibly cause a few problems for children when they become adults. Unfortunately, some are stereotypical!

No regrets whatsoever.

All our immediate family have two traditional names, one of which is usually a family ancestor or close ancestral relative.

e.g.

Peter, David, Paul, Nicholas, Andrew, Elizabeth, Luke, Edward, Richard, John, Frank, James, Anne.

I was baptised Patricia Ann - then a close neighbour had a baby girl whom she called Patricia Ann - my mother was right ticked off and I was then called Ann for which I am grateful as I don't like Patricia - I just wish I could ditch the Patricia but seems that's not possible

There was a nurse at our local hospital where I worked whose name was Michael Hunt - I'll leave that there :-D

I am really not keen on the name Cynthia. It seems as though my mother was rather keen on the name Lynette, until she heard a man say that his daughter's name was 'Cynthia'.....so I ended up as Cyn rather than Lyn :-(


She was a little more careful choosing my middle name. I was originally going to be given the name of Olive after my grandmother but, thankfully, my mum realised that my initials would be C.O.W. It was hastily changed. :-D

No regrets over my kids names.

First names are our choice, and then we decided to give them middle names after our parents.

They don't use them, but we wanted them to have them out of respect to our respective Mum and Dad.

I don't regret the names we gave our 3 daughters, but if they were being born now, we would probably chose different names for the 2nd and 3rd.
We only had one boy's name..... Michael

In 1993 we had decided on the name for No3 many months beforehand
If it was another girl, were determined to call her Harriet.

2 minutes after she was born, OH and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Out of nowhere, we both said.. Caroline
We hadn't even considered it yet we both said it?
She calls herself Carrie but she reminds us often that it's better than Harriet

Now friends I LIKE Jamie Oliver but his childrens' names are: Poppy Honey Rose, Daisy Boo Pamela, Petal Blossom Rainbow, Buddy Bear Maurice and River Rocket.

Fine whilst they are young but not when adults (just my opinion) lolol