You have to be careful, talking about names. They're such personal things. So if I offend you, in this post, I'm sorry. This is all just my private opinion, and you should treat it as such. I'm sure many people think my choice of children's names is boring and traditional. As I say, it's all just personal choice.
The trend in children's names round here, in kids aged up to about 8, is to give them as a first name what has previously been a surname. (A couple of commenters on my last post have noticed the same thing.) Of course it's not a brand new phenomenon, but it seems very out of control at the moment.
I first noticed three years ago, when I was looking round a preschool for my daughter. It struck me as odd that some of the pegs had labels with the child's first name on them, and some with the child's surname. It seemed inconsistent. Duuuh... They were all first names.
Without even stopping to think, I can tell you I know an Emerson, Aniston, Saylor, Baylor, Taylor, Tyler, Kinsley, Peyton, Peighton, Hampton (known as Hamps), Mackenzie, Shakespeare. And that's just the girls. Among the boys, there is Garrett, Gannon, Cannon, Colton, Colson, Carson, Haydon, Braydon, Brandon, Brenden, Jackson, Archer, and I could go on. (I made Shakespeare up, by the way, but it wouldn't surprise me.)
I've been in situations where two children in the room share a name, one as a first name and one as a surname. In fact (and I'm not making this up, honestly), I once had a marvellous trio. There was Thomas Clark, Clark Taylor, and Taylor Bryant in a group. I was so desperate for a Bryant Thomas to come by, and make a perfect square, but it didn't happen.
My personal favourite, though, is a little girl called Brityn. I often help out with her Sunday School class, and I always love it if they do a craft activity. It gives me the opportunity to look at her piece of work and say enthusiastically "Wow, good job. That's so great, Brityn." But I say it inwardly without the comma. And an upper case G. I'm sorry. I can't help myself. I know it's naughty, but it doesn't do any harm. Allow me my little private expat joke.
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I get the 'surname' thing since so many women seem to use their maiden name. When I worked for a large UK banking group it was very common to come across men in particular with last names as first names.
ReplyDeleteI know someone here who's little girl is called Paisley. Makes me chuckle when I think of her namesake back in Northern Ireland politics :D
The creative spelling here slays me though - talk about making life difficult for kids and slapping them with a liftime of correcting how people spell their name? I came across an Aeryn here - I kid you not!
sorry for the mispelling! Apparently proofreading comments is not my strength!
ReplyDeleteI just cringe at the airy-fairy weirdo names nowadays. And I want to be a teacher, so I'd better get over it! I like good, strong traditional names, personally - David, Sarah, William, Stephen, Rebecca etc. But there is a part of me that would love to name a daughter something unusual (I have a penchant for French names like Ophelia, Odette, Arlette) but I would feel like such a ponce!
ReplyDeleteChuckling at Great Brityn.....guess it's either a corruption of Britney or maybe the parents are Anglophiles? Of course, there are plenty of people these days named after places eg Brooklyn Beckham, Paris Hilton, and America Ferrera (who plays Ugly Betty). I always wondered what people would have thought about a child named Wandsworth or Hackney though.
ReplyDeleteThough the *great, Brityn * was really funny, I don't like the trend in first names that are *second* names, that are now all the rage and slowly creeping to England, too.
ReplyDeleteIf a child was to be named a surname then I think it is quite fitting for it to be a middle name and have a traditional name for the first one. Call me old fashioned if you like!
Nuts in May
Oh I did smile at great, brityn. It is moments like this that get me through the day.
ReplyDeleteI am so disappointed that you made Shakespeare up that I am now considering it as a name for my next born regardless of sex! ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou had me going with the Shakespeare name...
ReplyDeleteNot quite the same thing, but I used to work with a man whose 3 daughters were called Hayley, Kayleigh and Kylie. I kid you not.
I was just about to leave that EXACT comment Very Bored! ie "I am So disappointed you made Shakespeare up"
ReplyDeleteI htoguht those girls' names were boys, the Aniston, TaYler, Mackenzie.
My bro & sis-in-law are about to adopt a little boy. They have go to the 'profiles' stage . The child's name is the ONE thing that is absolutely sacrosanct. You don't change it. My sis-in-law is not remotely bothered whatever it is. My bro thought he wasn't. I mean, how bad/weird can a name be? Until he saw some of the names involved. the worst two he says have been a Tyrees (suggests indecisive parents. Shall we go with Tyler or Rees?) and the other was Draven. (sounds a bit too like a James Bond villain)
p.s loved the Great Brityn joke. Did anyone else around you get it? Does anyone ever get suspicious or faintly worried as to why you giggle through your Sunday School lesson, particularly when talking to Little Brityn?
ReplyDeleteParadise: no, I'm very discreet. I look studiously at her craft work while I'm saying it, and follow it up quickly with a comment about the craft, such as "I really like the way you've used sparkly glue round the edges" to divert attention.
ReplyDeleteBrityn does have a younger sister, and I was so hoping she'd be called Little Brityn, but of course she's not. Oddly, she's called something very ordinary, like Sarah or Emily (can't quite remember what exactly).
Draven might turn out to be quite craven. Or driven.
I feel terrible I chose deliberatley different names for my two boys but classy of course no surname jobbies for me oh no just totally obscure and foreighn for one and so wierd that everyone gets it wrong for the other - but hey I am just carryong on the family tradition my name drives me NUTS hardly anyone says it properly!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe trend came too late for me, alas. I really wanted to call one of my children Duffy, which was my mother's maiden name. And Duffy would conveniently have worked for either a boy or girl!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the Great Britain bit! You're bold!
HAMPS? Is that one real? Poor kid. One of the retired law partners I work for is named Chapman... He's 72 so I think the surname for first name thing has been around a long time.
ReplyDeleteI will say that I agree about the weird spelling. I think its the worst. One of my friends named her daughter Zoee. No, that's not a typo she put the extra "e" on purpuse. She insits that she saw the spelling in a book. That she didn't just make that up, but COME ON!!! That's just gross.
Oh, and another friend of mine wanted to name her daughter Londyn (London) I told her if she did that everyone would just think she was an idiot who had no idea how to spell London. Which reminds me, I also know a Memphis, a Brooklyn and a Dallas. What's with naming kids after cities?
Just after Brooklyn Beckham came along I was minding my own business in a dodgy shopping centre near Manchester (on a work assignment, not choice) when I heard a screech from a mother in (stereotypically) WAG-wannabe gear shouting: "come on Bolton - over here Bolton!"
ReplyDeletePoor child.
Heh heh heh. Love the name thing. We know a Matt White, which always makes me smile. And I also know a little girl called Angel who must be destined to be the naughtiest child on the block. Great, Brityn - wonder where that one came from?
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who named her two boys Gunner and Ryder. They sound like macho cop-names or superheroes or something. Strange.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't think any name is 'bad' and I try to mind my own beeswax about what others want to name their kids. As long as it isn't Holocaust or Anal Sex, I don't think many kids are going to be 'scarred' by an extra couple of vowels in their names, or the fact it is also a surname.
Too many of us were scarred by the experience of growing up in America with one of the "top five most popular names from our birth year" that people feel the need to branch out. I'm fine with it. I like creativity.
ReplyDeleteNB the real people don't arrive until tomorrow, so I'm getting ahead while I can :-)
Don't even get me started on this. The funniest thing to me isn't just the names, it's what people often call their twins. I've met twin boys called Tyler and Taylor (which are also girls' names here), mixed twins called Stephen and Stephanie, and twin girls called Joanne and Johanna. No lie.
ReplyDeleteMy good friend gave her daugher her mother's maiden surname as a first name, "Lindley",I think that is really nice, though share your bemusement with some other choices. I think you are right about the trend. Mind you there was a kid in my class growing up called James James (Same first name and last name!).
ReplyDeleteGarrett, Mackenzie and Brandon seem like fairly ordinary names to me nowadays - I know more than one of each. My first name was so popular when I was born that there were 4 out of 13 of us in my A-level English Lit. class with the same first name!
ReplyDeleteDS came home with a Valentine from 'Kalle' today. Pronounced 'kale' (like the vegetable!) apparently. I still had no idea if it was a boy or a girl. It's a boy.
Many years ago, my mother taught a girl called 'Mary Merry'. She was always known as 'Mary, Mary' (quite contrary!)
We have friends called Ruth and Dick Liss. Ruth married into the name, but I'm sure 'Dick' was an abbreviation for Richard when his parents named him!
We chose a fairly ordinary name for DS - ordinary in the UK anyway, but no one here has ever heard of it and we constantly have to correct pronunciation and spelling.
Don't get me started! As a teacher I've come across them all, including a "Merlin"! I, like you, go for boring and traditional; although having five Kate, Katy, Catherines in one class together with five Hannahs was a bit of a challenge! So was the class with Laura, Lorna, Lauren. Lara and Lana!
ReplyDeleteI love your private joke 'great, Brityn'! The spelling would drive me nuts though. Not that I am a spelling bee champ but because I would forever feel anxious I was getting her name wrong.
ReplyDeleteI have a handful of friends who are having babies and in discussing names with them they often say 'none of those silly American style names' and I smile and laugh knowing they think Im one of them, but also wondering what they mean by silly American names. Now I am enlightened!!
we slightly obsess about that american-last-name-as-first thing. in that it's really odd. i don't mean to offend either. but it is.
ReplyDeleteI read this out to my English hubby and he had a good laugh. It confirmed what he had been saying all along, that American's love the surname first name. He's been gloating about it all week. Cheers for that ;)
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