I guess I don’t understand the “Annette Curtain” thing.
How about the name Alan Scott Slack? No monogrammed towels in that house!
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Something you’d put in your window (a net curtain). I guess that’s British.
I suppose an American equivalent would be “Armand Hammer”
I think parents to be should not tell people their selected names before the baby is born. When I was pregnant and asked my answer was Rumpelstiltskin. It is too easy to be judgmental before the name is actually associated with a wonderful newborn.
I also never comment on the name of a baby, the parents chose it and they like it and that frankly is all that matters. The appropriate thing to say when told the baby’s name is best wishes to “insert name here”.
My mother in law had a good friends whose husband’s name was Adolph - he had been born and named in the 20’s way before WWII.
Violet, Daisy, Rose, are great names. I loved Keeping Up Appearances and loved how the sisters said “our Rose” or “our Daisy.” The name Hyacinth probably won’t make a comeback though. Although you never know!
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My Scottish mother in law always referred to her family members that way “our Mary” etc.
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Reminds me of the British drag performer, Kitty Scott-Claus. 
The only correct response is a complimentary/pleasant one. New parents are not asking for your honest opinion when they reveal a name.
We decided on our son’s name in the delivery room. The woman he recently married has the name we selected had he been a girl, so we were primed to like her.
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Other categories of names that may not go over too well:
- Names that resemble insulting words in a common language.
- Names that are associated with someone or something undesirable (e.g. “Adolf”).
Perhaps they are considering the small possibility that a kid may later be found to be transgender, intersex, or otherwise not conforming to the usual division of sex and gender, so a non-gender-specific name would eliminate one potential issue encountered if that were the case.
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All three of my grandchildren have unisex names. 2 girls and 1 boy. This was a deliberate choice by the parents so the children wouldn’t feel pressured to be gender-conforming.
Wasn’t crazy about one of the names for almost a year, but it’s grown on me.
Younger D is a OB/GYN so she hears tons of baby names. Plus she lives in state where unusual spellings (the use of “Y” to replace just about any vowel in a name) and unusual and Old Testament names are extremely common. It’s a cultural thing. Every now and then she texts me some of the more exotic ones she sees. Teryian. Nephi/Nefi. Dallyan. Freestone, Kyzlee. One family had a Game of Thrones theme going on and named all 4 of their children after GoT characters, but with very different, almost unrecognizably different, spellings from what were used in the books/TV series. All the names had at least one Y in them. One name had 3 Ys.
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Youngest GK has a simple name: 5 letters first name, 4 letters last name. However, her middle name is double hyphenated. 
thank goodness it is just her middle name!!
I’m always polite to the parents but reserve the right to discuss it later 
Naming a child isn’t something that should be taken lightly, IMO, and thought should be given to how the name would sound when the child is an adult, a teacher, attorney, CEO or President of the U.S. even. While there are a lot of names that sound “cute” for a baby - they may not translate into something that will be taken seriously as an adult.
To each their own, but I’m not a fan of creative spellings of regular names. My daughter is Emily, not Emyleigh or Emmalee. I’m not out to burden my kids with having to spell their names for people their entire lives.
I’m in the South and come across a lot of people with family last names as first names. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
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My niece has two middle names, one is just the letter “E” (after a grandparent). My daughter’s boyfriend has no middle name because the parents couldn’t agree on what it should be.
My great-nephew has an unusual name (to my ear) but they generally shorten it to a more common name. When I heard it I said “that’s a great Supreme Court justice name” - and it is, just the right amount of gravitas.
I have a name that is not unusual, but perhaps old-fashioned and I was literally the only one I ever knew growing up. Now that name is coming back into fashion, especially as a middle name.
I desperately wanted to name our first Vivian or Vanessa (I love those names) but was vetoed. We went through the baby book, and her name begins with A - that’s how far we got lol.
Speaking of the Sound of Music upthread, I always like the name Liesl. Then I thought of the playground and “Liesl the Weasel” and was like, nope lol.
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My boss at the time my daughter was born, on hearing her middle name: “When she’s in high school, she’ll tell her boyfriend what her middle name is, then, when they break up, he’ll tell everyone and they’ll give her a hard time about it.”
I’m not even sure they would pick a unisex name. Daughter in law was just saying that in addition to classic names, she also likes some of the unisex names (in response to my saying I was not crazy about unisex names). Most of their friends seem to be picking fairly classic names. It will be interesting to see what they choose to do if they have a child.
Hahaha, this is fun.
I told a friend what our D would be named if she was a girl. She immediately said “I don’t like it.” I laughed and said “well, that’s what it’s going to be,” and it was. But I didn’t mind her saying that.
Now, my D’s name is one of very old fashioned ones that has made a small comeback, but she is a good 15-20 years older than most of the other girls out there with her name. She loves her name.
My son had a playmate back in the day (20 years ago) with a VERY crazy name. For this post, I will call him Zap.
We moms first met in the local playground when our sons began playing together. I told her my son’s name and she told me her son was called Zap. Then she said “all the moms at Monkey Music look at me like I’m crazy when I say his name.” I couldn’t say “You named him Zap, are you surprised?” (I’m sorry to say I thought it though.)
Anyway, my son and Zap became good buddies and played often. Every time we went somewhere together people would stare whenever Zap’s name was called. If I took the boys out on my own, I’d have to resist the urge to say “I didn’t name him.”
We moved away and I think of Zap from time to time. So for this post, I used a few key words and googled him. He is doing well for himself and seems to have an unusual career that he is apparently very good at. There is even a video interview of him with a famous magazine publisher. Kind of crazy to see him for the first time since 2004, all grown up. I’m sure no one looks askance at him these days.
So, yes, maybe think what you like, but find something at least neutral to say. If you don’t like the name, and can’t lie, maybe just say “Cool name, how did you decide on it?” This is what I said to Zap’s mom.
Personally, I have never been a fan of names that have to be spelled out in order to understand them. But, I’m not doing the naming, so not my choice.
I do think parents should 100% consider that their kid will grow up one day and have to work in the real world. I’m glad things seem to have worked out for Zap, but some will grow up and might come to greatly dislike the name they were given. Duncan Jones (Zowie Bowie) comes to mind.
We thought about playground teasing and how the name would sound as an adult. We also have a common-word last name that made for some hilarious combinations, so we definitely avoided all of those. In the end, we chose a couple of classic Colonial names that would sit well on the bench and, as I posted upthread, picked one in the delivery room.
Fun Fact #1: The short version of our son’s first name + our last name makes it almost impossible to Google him.
Fun Fact #2: My maiden initials were CEO. Maybe I should have kept those.
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@Lindagaf , And Duncan Jones named his daughter Zowie!
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Did he? Wow.