British survey of grandparents towards babies’ names

Earlier this year, the British mothers’ site Mumsnet and grandmother’s site Gransnet each took a survey of grandparents’ attitudes towards babies’ names.

Mumsnet‘s and Gransnet‘s results are now in. The two groups worked together on the surveys.

Generally speaking, 81% (Gransnet) to 85% (Mumsnet) of grandparents have no problem with their grandchildren’s names.

However, Gransnet says that, for the small majority that do:

44% of grandparents said that the disagreement was with their daughter, 22% with their son, 17% with their daughter-in-law and only 6% with their son-in-law. In order to avoid using the hated name, 17% said they avoid mentioning the child’s name when talking to other people about them, another 17% admit to using the child’s name begrudgingly and 6% said they avoid saying the name at all. 39%, however, have found that they’ve come to terms with the name now that they’ve got used to it.

Mumsnet says that grandmothers are more likely to object to names than grandfathers:

Forty-four percent of parents said the complaints came from their own mother and 42% said they came from their mother-in-law. Only 14% said their dad objected and the figure was the same for objections from father-in-laws.

That should be fathers-in-law.

Anyway, on September 13, The Telegraph had an article about the survey and included a list of popular baby names over the past 100 years, which makes for interesting reading.

I don’t know what the situation is in the US, but British names have changed over the past 20 years (emphases mine):

Among the reasons given for such grand parental distaste is that – like Muireann – the name is too hard to pronounce. This does not explain, however, why names loathed by grandparents include Charlotte, Jack, Sally and Finn, my own son’s name. (His grandparents love it, by the way. Or at least, they claim to.)

Other objections raised by grandparents include the name being too odd, too “made-up” or too old-fashioned; annoyance that their suggested name hadn’t been used; and annoyance that a family name hadn’t been used. For some, the name is just too ugly. Aurora, Elijah and Tabitha were cited among the offensive choices.

With regard to Tabitha, one wonders why people don’t use Dorcas instead.

Jack and Finn sound like nicknames. Yet, Jack is perfectly acceptable as a name on its own, apparently:

Derived from Jackin (earlier Jankin), a medieval diminutive of JOHN. It is often regarded as an independent name. During the Middle Ages it was very common, and it became a slang word meaning “man”. It was frequently used in fairy tales and nursery rhymes, such as ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘Little Jack Horner’, and ‘Jack Sprat’.

Anyone naming their baby daughter Sally should put the full name on the birth certificate. Sally is a diminutive of Sarah.

The boys’ names from 1944 through to 1984 included (among others) John, James, Matthew, Michael, Richard and Robert.

Girls’ names between 1944 and 1974 were straightforward: Ann, Barbara, Jean, Mary, Sarah and Susan, to name but a few.

These are the most popular names for boys and girls as of 2015. I omitted the few conventional ones:

Oliver, ​J​ack, Harry, George, Jacob, Charlie, Noah, William, Oscar​

Amelia, ​Olivia​, Emily​​, Isla​​, Ava​​, Ella​​, Isabella​​, Mia​, Poppy​​

Charlie? Charles, surely. Harry is short for Henry. Parents, please take note.

Poppy? Hmm.

What a parent thinks is cute is something the child will have to endure for a lifetime. Perhaps the solution is a more conventional middle name that can be used if necessary.