The curse of the unusual name…

vega personalised elephant

When I was a kiddo, I loved buying things with my name on – pencils, pens, bookmarks… you name it. Kids seem to love anything personalised. That was something that I apparently forgot until after I’d begun naming my kiddos with less than common names. With Vega we really struggled to come up with names that we both agreed on, after endless hours scouring baby name lists and using this fab Baby Name Genius app we finally settled on Vega.

When Lola was first born, her name was still a little unusual, although in the past few years it’s suddenly become hugely popular {at Camp Bestival you could hear someone calling ‘Lola’ every five minutes}, but for the other three, their names are not so popular and you certainly don’t find them printed on pens and pencils in every gift shop. This is something that the girls often complain about – last year for her birthday, Kiki got sent a pen and notepad from my brother and his wife that had her name on and she was so excited!!

I’ve already had a few funny looks when people have asked what the baby is called and I’ve replied ‘Vega’ – obviously it’s not a common name to hear around these parts ;) Faced with a lifetime of repeating his name amid much confusion, and not being able to buy a pen with itk on, when Getting Personal offered to send him this gorgeous Oak Elephant toy I figured it’d make up for it slightly!

vega

It is actually one of the nicest baby toys I’ve come across, I have to admit I’m a sucker for wooden baby toys – they beat plastic ones in my opinion any day. I can’t wait till Vega is big enough to play with it, solid enough to withstand baby play, and personalised with his name, this is definitely one toy that we’ll be hanging on to long past him being to big to want to play with it. It would make a fantastic baby gift – a welcome change from the endless clothes that people always seem to buy and something that a little one can treasure forever.

Did you name your child something unusual? Have you had any funny comments from people about your choice of name?

12 Comments

  1. Lauren

    February 4, 2015 at 12:30

    I feel this! Mine and my husband’s name are common here; Lauren and Matthew.
    But our eldest is Lennon and our baby due any day is Rowan. They aren’t the most uncommon but they sure aren’t as popular as our names.
    Which is part of the reason we named them those names; going to school with five other Laurens in my grade and my husband going to school with eight other Matthews in his grade… I feel like it’ll be good for them to have less-than-common names. (Without being too out there, like… Closetdoor or something. That was silly, but the only thing I could think of. It’s early here. Hahahahaha.

  2. Eleanor (The Bristol Parent)

    February 4, 2015 at 13:44

    I love all your kids’ names, they are so vivacious! Name choosing is a fun part of parenthood, but it sure comes with some big responsibilities, or at least, it feels as if it does at the time!

  3. abigail

    February 4, 2015 at 20:57

    What a sweet toy! It’s definitely one to be treasured! I had a similar problem when I was growing up, as even though my name isn’t that uncommon, the spelling of it is – so I was always a bit disappointed!

  4. Bryony

    February 4, 2015 at 21:35

    That is just gorgeous! I totally feel your kiddo’s pain – Bryony isn’t hugely unusual but if I did ever find anything with my name on it, it was spelt ‘Briony’. Gutting! If Vega is anything like me though she’ll love it as she gets older because she won’t just be referred to as ‘First Name Last Initial’ (for example my sister was Sophie T, her best friend was Sophie W and her mortal enemy was Sophie B ;)) xx

  5. Kahler

    February 4, 2015 at 21:57

    Your kids names are very cool :) I know exactly how they feel I could never find anything with my name on it, my parents were young metal heads and my dad had a guitar with a kahler tremolo system on it and that’s where I got my name from lol. My kids have fairly common names I think Eamon and Molly but people still get Eamon wrong :P

  6. Lottie

    February 5, 2015 at 13:30

    I named my little girl Kora, after the African instrument (she’s a week and a half younger than Vega!) and being in North Wales it has attracted some attention! Lots of people assumed we had just changed the spelling of Cora and thought we were Downton fans…

  7. Fritha

    February 6, 2015 at 14:11

    haha this made me laugh, I too was a child who would never find her name on printed merchandise! One of my siblings could (she is called Fionnuala Quinn which is quite common in Ireland) so I was always a bit envious about that! I loved the ‘what names do you like game’ when I was pregnant, that app looks like so much fun, I’m interested in names just in general I think! LOVE all your kiddos names. What does Vega mean? x

  8. Joanna

    February 6, 2015 at 14:43

    My name although fairly standard, Joanna, was actually difficult to get personalised as everything was Joanne – and to us named Joanna that is NOT the same name as people would often think!
    My little boy is called Miika (pronounced Mee-ka) and my baby bump will either be Topi if it’s a boy, or Arrietty if it’s a girl. The only problem we have with Miika is the amount of people who refuse to accept the pronunciation. 8/10 times people will immediately after learning his name call him My-ka. That drives me mad. People who ask how it’s said when seeing it written down is certainly no problem, but why immediately ignore what I said! Gah!

  9. Laura

    February 8, 2015 at 00:04

    We have had the same issue with our next one – we cannot seem to find a name we both agree on – I have always been set on Zephyr but the other half won’t have it. I love this elephant by the way – it’s too cute

    Laura x

  10. Emma

    February 11, 2015 at 09:38

    My children are called Joni and Wilbur. When Joni was born some people suggested she could use her middle name if she didn’t like her first name (rude!) but that doesn’t work out so well as her middle name is Loveday :-) Then, when I was pregnant with Wilbs my mother in law handed me a list (of 80s names … simon, adam etc) that they thought we’re ‘suitable for the Cantrell family name’ !!!!!!!!!! Ha! When we called him Wilbur their reaction was ‘you’re going to have to explain that one to us!’ so rude!

    Love your children’s names, they’re brilliant.

  11. Sam

    February 11, 2015 at 11:57

    My daughters name is Afradawn named as Africa was my favourite place and the dawn there the most beautiful time. Put together Afradawn. My son is Nirvana names after the Buddhist word for enlightenment.
    Both my two have spent years answering the same questions. Sorry what was your name? Wow, where did your mum get that?
    They both LOVE the fact their names are different. My mum and I have got music bags with their names on, swim bags and other personal wooden door names etc. nowadays things can be made easily so an unusual name is not a problem. Xx

  12. Bedtime Stories - The Girl Who Lost Her Name - Enchanted Pixie

    February 25, 2015 at 08:01

    […] on from me talking about unusual names the other day, we received a copy of ‘The little girl who lost her […]

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.