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HelpRe: How has your taste in names changed over time?
in reply to a message by AnonymousNameNerd123
Oh, immensely.
When I first started as a little name nerd, thirty years ago, I liked names that people here might call "yooneek". I liked all the stuff we roll our eyes at now - boys names on girls (I thought James on a girl was really cool), wacky spellings, bizarre noun-names, weird virtue names, surname-names, places as names, hyper-feminine princess names... all that stuff. Of course, it was different then. Eventually those names became trendy and they no longer interested me, the charm wore off.
I also grew up a bit and experienced more of the world, and that made my taste mellow out. I saw the reality of how annoying it could be to go through life with a weird name, or a unique spelling. I also got into relationships and saw how choosing the names of potential children would actually work out. That honestly changed my ideas about names a lot; about what makes a "good name". I suddenly understood how nice it feels to see the beauty in a name that you never cared about before, because someone you love cares about it.
Coming here and seeing some people feel so passionately about classic names that I once found "boring" really helped me appreciate them. Also, coming here and seeing people's ravenous hate towards certain names brought out my protective instincts and led me to adopt many names that a younger version of myself would have been disgusted by.
When I first got into names, meanings were like 90% of what I cared about. I was obsessed with meanings. I'm not so concerned about that anymore.
I would say my taste is more nuanced now. I don't have the same zeal for names that are more like "wouldn't that be cool??" picks, the sort of thing that would delight a 13 year old. Some would say that my taste has become more conservative; but overall, I would actually say I became less of a name snob, and able to appreciate a wider variety of names.
When I first started as a little name nerd, thirty years ago, I liked names that people here might call "yooneek". I liked all the stuff we roll our eyes at now - boys names on girls (I thought James on a girl was really cool), wacky spellings, bizarre noun-names, weird virtue names, surname-names, places as names, hyper-feminine princess names... all that stuff. Of course, it was different then. Eventually those names became trendy and they no longer interested me, the charm wore off.
I also grew up a bit and experienced more of the world, and that made my taste mellow out. I saw the reality of how annoying it could be to go through life with a weird name, or a unique spelling. I also got into relationships and saw how choosing the names of potential children would actually work out. That honestly changed my ideas about names a lot; about what makes a "good name". I suddenly understood how nice it feels to see the beauty in a name that you never cared about before, because someone you love cares about it.
Coming here and seeing some people feel so passionately about classic names that I once found "boring" really helped me appreciate them. Also, coming here and seeing people's ravenous hate towards certain names brought out my protective instincts and led me to adopt many names that a younger version of myself would have been disgusted by.
When I first got into names, meanings were like 90% of what I cared about. I was obsessed with meanings. I'm not so concerned about that anymore.
I would say my taste is more nuanced now. I don't have the same zeal for names that are more like "wouldn't that be cool??" picks, the sort of thing that would delight a 13 year old. Some would say that my taste has become more conservative; but overall, I would actually say I became less of a name snob, and able to appreciate a wider variety of names.
