British Expat Forum

Kevin and Tracey, Bruce and Sheila; here in Catalunya the popular names are Jordi and Montse. What are they where you are?

Think it's an Aussie trend to make names up. I've heard so many lately, and of course I can't remember them off hand. Jayden, Jay, Cara, Cosmo and Zeb are a few, but there are many worse than those.

The older names like Sarah, Emily, Emma and Rebecca are pretty popular too.

SSue 8)

Yep - they make them up here too!!


According to Vital Stats in Saskatchewan, the most popular names for 2002 were - Ethan, Noah, Austin, Matthew and for girls Madison, Emily, Hannah, Emma.

I like those names - I loathe the made up ones like - Teana (pronounced Tay-anna - with an acute accent on the first e!) Jacayden - brother to Teana!

My girlfriend used to have a home daycare and on the wall was a sign AJA - I asked her what that meant and she said - its a boy's name! I said I feel sorry for him - when he gets to be 40 years old he will feel like an idiot! I believed it is pronounced "ahh-jahh".

I guy I worked with who is now a judge, has grandchildren (not sure of the sex of them) called Scout and Cayman!

Africans were often given Europen names by missionaries, and the habit seems to have stuck. Common boys' names here are Goodwill, Doubt (!), Freedom ( this is a translation of the guy's Ndebele name) - in Zambia, I knew one called Benson (after B&H cigarettes). Girls often have names like Precious and Beauty, but Dorcus is quite common. They always spell it that way, but I assume it is a mis-spelling of the Spanish/Portuguese name Dorcas.

Western Canada is the same as the east it looks like. Ethan and Madison were very common names for 2002 apparently.

I think the worst thing about living in Western Canada is all the cowboys and hence all the cowboy names.....oh my they are bad. Here are a few to keep you smiling:

Randy
Chuck
Buck
Chad
Darlene
Sheldon
Wyatt
Wade
Travis
Cody
Levi
Shay
Tex
Dallas

And I can tell you I have met at least a couple of people with these kinda names. Now some of them aren't that bad but some are, well, mind-boggling. And I could go on!!

And I'll bet he's the redest redneck about. 8)

Ooooo yeah. In tight, tight Wranglers, check shirt and 10 gallon hat. I kid you not!!
I met a bloke the other day called "Claire".

I remember Albertans thinking that it was odd for me to be called Clare. "Sure that's not a boy's name?" (Long before Not-Lorna! 8) )

We were amused when we first came here, as Aussie names usually ended in lene. Raelene, Marlene, Noelene, Darlene, Carlene, Sharlene to name a few. Crage (yes it is spelt this way) Tyler, Tayler have become popular recently.

SSue

Just some random thoughts about names:

We have a friend called Lynn (he looks a bit like Lee Marvin) and we always call him Mr Lynn.

A few years ago, everyone we knew who had a baby called it Ryan.

My own name (Kay) was originally a boy's name in Scandinavia - Kai. Then it suddenly appeared in Britain as a girl's name.

In Scotland, it's quite usual for a girl to have a surname as a middle name but in England (as far as I've heard) girls have another first name for the middle. Strangely for me, my middle name is a surname which suddenly became popular as a first name a few years back.

You've seen most of the popular Canadian names by now. When my daughter was expecting her first (which turned out to be twins) all i said was to NOT give them what i called 'soap opera names'. She chose Daniel and David, maybe not very popular, but they won't be embarrassed by them when they are 40 years old, either.

I am getting soooo tired of all the Britannys (with a myriad of spellings, too!) and Jessica's.

I saw a name tag at a store last week with the name 'Maggan'...i wasn't sure if it was Meghan (or a spelling thereof) or some other form of Margaret. It sounded too much like maggot to me....yuck!

My own name is an old name, but at least i don't run into it every day.