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Your sister might not think that you grow to love a name because it's attached to somebody you love, but she does believe, rightly, that nobody is going to tell the mother of her grandkids that she doesn't like their names. lol

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But yeah, if I don't like a name, I don't like it and even knowing a person of that name isn't going to change it. My daughter has a good friend named Rixtoria, who I like a lot. Obviously she's the only Rixtoria I've ever met or are likely to meet, and I think she's a wonderful little girl. But I think the name is awful.

My opinion of a name can change if a person I like bears it. When I heard that my niece was going to be Sally, I asked my brother why they chose that name. I hated it, and I thought they could do a lot better. After she was born, I started to like it and now I can't imagine her being named anything else. The other names they considered for her before she was born- Lucy, Dorothy, Eleanor- don't suit her the way Sally does. And I grew to appreciate the bright, sunny nature of Sally itself. So, yeah, my opinion can change if I like/love someone with a name I hate. I think it's all about putting a face to a name and not having the name floating all by itself.

This message was edited 4/15/2014, 8:45 AM

I can separate my feelings about a name from my feelings about the person. But I would not ever think to tell the person what my feelings on their name if it's negative.

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Case in point, when my sister was pregnant she announced she was naming her baby Alora Corrin (pn like Corinne, but I couldn't convince her to change the spelling). My mom and I didn't hide the fact that we didn't like the name at all. She got Alora (well, Elora, but she didn't like that spelling or pronunciation) from a movie.

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My niece is now 5. I love her but I still don't care for her name.

I'm with you. I have no problem setting my feelings about a name apart from my feelings about the person. I actually don't like my 3 girls names at all. Sass' name in particular is one of my least favourite names ever, and Boof's real name is very middle aged lady, not cute little toddler. But I still love them to bits. Same for my friends girls Chilli and Rocky. Love those little cuties to bits, can't STAND the names Chilli and Rocky :/ and they are 6 and 4 now- still not used to it.

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ETA: If I don't feel strongly one way or the other about a name, meeting someone who I like can push it in the like direction for the name too (and vice versa). If the only reason i dislike a name is because of a bad association, meeting someone who I like can change the name for me ie Oliver, which I really disliked because Iw ent to primary school with a mean Oliver, so I disliked the name solely because of him- I'd never hard it before. Then my friend named her baby Oliver and I started to love it. But if I really dislike a name because it's not a good name or its really not my style, meeting a nice one doesn't change that for me.

This message was edited 4/15/2014, 5:18 AM

Loving a person who has a name that I dislike will not make me dislike the name any less. My experience with this is with the names of my older sister's two children, Heather and Jaime, pronounced JAY-mee, just like Jamie. Heather is a name that I just don't like. I don't mind Jamie, spelled that way, as a nickname for a little boy whose real name is James, but I really don't like it as a full name and particularly not spelled that way.

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I love both my niece and my nephew but that hasn't made me like their names any more.

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I guess my mother was like your sister-in-law imagines your mother to be. My mother always said she liked the name Heather, yet I always felt that it wasn't a name she would have liked at all if it hadn't been her granddaughter's name. And then when I was pregnant with my daughter, and told my mother that if it was a girl I planned to name her Victoria, my mother had a negative reaction. Namely, she stuck her tongue out. I laughed and said, "If it's a girl and I name her Victoria, you'll say you like it." She said, "Yes, I will, because then it will be your baby's name and that will make me like it."

Excluding the grandkids' names in this conversation could mean that she doesn't want to hurt any of their feelings by having Grandma say "Oh, I love Jacob, Aiden, Harley, Robert, but not Horatio. I still don't know why you chose that name." and little Horatio running off crying because Grandma hates his name. (Of course these are just example names, I don't know what the kids in your extended family are named.)

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A person with the name (especially a little kid) could positively influence a name for me. If I know a lot of 'handfuls' at work with a certain name (Lucas and Sean right now), I would start to think "No more, please, no more!" but still not hate the name.

If the person who has a name is not a very nice person then I try my hardest to remove their name from them in order to sort of "preserve" the name in my opinion. However if someone I love has a name that I don't really like or maybe have never thought of before, I'll let myself love the name because it's hard for me not to. For example, my niece is Amelia, I never really thought about it before it is popular and I see Amelias quite often, but when I niece was born I was like, "oh yeah, Amelia, it's quite nice" and now she's two and a half and I really like her name.

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I'm the same as you. The person is not their name. So therefore it doesn't matter if I like them or not; I'll still dislike their name if I disliked it before.

I've definitely grown to like names by associating them with people I like. But sometimes it just means the names go from "eeew" to "neutral".

Generally the person doesn't change my opinion on the name much. I know a little Ryker, Jefferson, Madeline, Ashlyn, and I dislike the names severely. Yet I love the wee ones!! So, I guess even loving them doesn't change my opinion much.

I just recently had this experience - I'm mentoring a little Brynnleigh in singing, and she's the sweetest girl. I found myself wincing every time I call her name, but luckily she calls me "Cat" sometimes, so I feel okay calling her "Bee". But no, my dislike of the name sticks.

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It has taught me a valuable lesson in judging people by their names though.

If you first hate/dislike a name and then meet a person by that name whom you grow to love, does your opinion of the name change?

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Not ... really. I'm like you, I mostly respond to a name the same regardless of who bears it. For most of the names I was exposed to as a child, I almost don't have a reaction to them. They're just names. Jennifer, Michael - okay.

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If I meet someone with a name I hate, what happens is, I stop reacting as negatively to the name. I still don't like it. Like Felicity. I hate that name. But, I don't react to it when I meet a girl named it. It's just her name. Sebastian is another one.

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There have been a few names I disliked, but decided they were nice after meeting a person named them. Not that I liked the person so much, but just that the name seemed more real and normal. Like - Summer and Madison. Hated them, until they were the names of real people to me.

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And there have been a few names I thought were OK, and decided I disliked them when I heard them used for a person. Landon and Annabel are two I can think of right off the top of my head.

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If I like a name, and then also like a bearer, I like the name more. Same thing if I dislike them both - makes me hate the name more. Aaron and Kimberly.