Ok, not Winifred. What about these?

Anonymous
RE:old lady names. The posters who like these names are the ones who named their dd Eleanor and actually think it’s a pretty name. (Yet they all go by Ellie). There is a desire by some to pick the next on trend name. Old lady names were thought to be it 10 years ago. They are not it anymore. And furthermore it’s sad you’d give your baby a name because you think it is ahead of the trend.

Old lady names still sound like old lady names. They are old lady names because they fell out of favor many years ago for whatever reason. Most because they sound terrible and are a mouthful.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:RE:old lady names. The posters who like these names are the ones who named their dd Eleanor and actually think it’s a pretty name. (Yet they all go by Ellie). There is a desire by some to pick the next on trend name. Old lady names were thought to be it 10 years ago. They are not it anymore. And furthermore it’s sad you’d give your baby a name because you think it is ahead of the trend.

Old lady names still sound like old lady names. They are old lady names because they fell out of favor many years ago for whatever reason. Most because they sound terrible and are a mouthful.


Projecting much? One of the intentions is to DODGE the trends.

-not OP
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:RE:old lady names. The posters who like these names are the ones who named their dd Eleanor and actually think it’s a pretty name. (Yet they all go by Ellie). There is a desire by some to pick the next on trend name. Old lady names were thought to be it 10 years ago. They are not it anymore. And furthermore it’s sad you’d give your baby a name because you think it is ahead of the trend.

Old lady names still sound like old lady names. They are old lady names because they fell out of favor many years ago for whatever reason. Most because they sound terrible and are a mouthful.


This is nonsensical. You acknowledge that people pick these names because they actually like them, but then say people are just doing it because they want an "on trend" name. This isn't how people name children. No one is purposely looking to game out naming trends (or they are, they are a weird outlier and spend too much time on DCUM).

About a year before my child was born (and before I was even pregnant), I saw a tiny, independent movie with a character who had a name I liked (one of these old lady names, actually, though somehow not one that has been mentioned on this thread). I did not even like the character that much, just the name. I said to my husband, "Oh, I like that name, and I like the nickname the character had." And he immediately really liked it, too. There was zero gaming of anything in the conversation. We were talking about a hypothetical child at the time. Then I got pregnant, and we found out we were having a girl. And we said, "Oh, remember that name? We both really liked it." We did think about other names for a bit and both made suggestions to each other, but we kept coming back to that name. In the end, our child was born, and when we saw her, we thought, "Oh, that's her name. That's who she looks like." It's almost like she named herself. We weren't trying to follow a trend or get people to think we were a certain kind of parent. We just stumbled into a name and it stuck and never looked back.

Now, you could argue that the reason there was a character in a movie with this name is because such names are becoming more popular. That's almost definitely the case. Because that's how name trends work. A name just kind of works its way into the zeitgeist and then before you are even sure why, a lot of people are naming their kids that. Occasionally, you can trace it to something specific (like people naming their kid Ruth after RBG). But very often, it just kind of happens on its own. People get used to hearing a name that they used to associate with very old people, and as it becomes familiar it loses its old association. That's how these names become popular.
Anonymous
I like PP's suggestion of Francesca. In the same genre of older, fussier names: Marilla (thinking of Anne of Green Gables), Camilla, Hazel (my great Grandmother's name), Augusta, Hildegarde, Tabitha, Lillian.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Ok, despite triggering my natural contrariness, you have all convinced to come down firmly against Winifred. My goodness.

But we do like that genre of name. I plugged it into Nameberry to see what else we might be overlooking, and these are the “similar names” that appealed to me. Thoughts, suggestions?

Edith
Harriet
Theodora
Minerva
Henrietta


Winifred is bad because of the -fred part. What about Wilhelmina? I like Henrietta.
Anonymous
Not Hildegarde
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I like Edith (Edie), Harriet (Hattie) and then Adelaide and Mathilda (Tilly) have been mentioned here and they have been my top 2 girl names for a long time. Like a lot of others, I'm not a fan of Minerva


I know 4 dogs named Tilly and 2 named Mathilda. Please, no.
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