19 hours ago
I've got five sons named after characters on TV – it's only adults who are negative
'Before I had children, I didn't realise what a fraught business baby-naming was. I assumed you just picked a name you both liked for your child, and that was that.
But after having five sons, I've come to realise people really care what others name their children – and they're not afraid to tell you if they don't like it.
Lots of people raise an eyebrow when I reel off my sons' names: Jaxon, Noah, Cole, Bodhi and Leif-Ocean. They're often even more surprised when I reveal we named them all after characters from our favourite film and TV shows.
We've been told one of them sounds like a criminal, and another one's name is too popular – we just can't win.
Everyone had an opinion
When I met my husband, Daniel, back in 2005, we didn't know if we wanted to have children. We spent our 20s working hard, him for fisheries, often away at sea, and me in local TV and radio. We spent our free time travelling the world and relaxing with friends in our hometown of Paignton, Devon.
But once we reached our 30s, we both suddenly felt incredibly broody and knew we wanted to have children. We got married in 2013, and a year later, were expecting our first baby.
Neither of us came prepared with any names that we desperately wanted to call our offspring, but as soon as we announced our pregnancy, we were inundated with people's opinions and suggestions.
People went to no effort to hide their feelings about our name list – one friend screwed up her face as though there were a bad smell in the room when I mentioned the name Oscar.
We had cries of, 'You can't use that name, I used to work with someone called that and they were awful!'
Or, 'Amelia is terribly popular, there will be too many around.'
Named and shamed
I was shocked that people would offer such direct opinions.
I know they'd never have told me if they hadn't liked, say, my wedding dress – but they thought it was fine to dictate their preferences for something so personal to us. The older generation, in particular, seemed to have very strong feelings about what were, and were not, acceptable options.
My father-in-law not-so-subtly reminded us a few times that his name, Nigel, is on the 'danger list' as becoming extinct – though I think he'd have been thrilled if we'd used it, but we just couldn't picture it for a tiny baby.
As soon as someone told us they hated a name, we really felt as though we had to take it off our list.
We decided to keep our son's name to ourselves until he arrived. We realised that it's a lot more difficult to be rude about a name when it's accompanied by a tiny baby (but not impossible).
Small screen inspiration
Both Daniel and I are film buffs, and we spent a lot of our downtime watching movies and TV shows together. Near the end of my pregnancy, we were watching the TV series Sons of Anarchy.
A drama series about a gun-wielding motorbike gang might not be the obvious place to go to for baby name inspiration, but we both loved the name of the main character, Jax.
It felt a little wild, independent, and different, even though it probably wasn't what people were expecting.
Our immediate family were so pleased to meet him, and had so much love, that none of them questioned his name at all.
However, some friends weren't impressed. One messaged me to say: 'Why have you called him Jax? He sounds like a criminal!'.
I'm usually quite thick-skinned, but that upset me just after I'd given birth. Ultimately though, I realised her opinion didn't matter.
When I fell pregnant again, a year later, we immediately started looking for another name. We both found girls' names harder to pick, and luckily, we've never had to come up with one.
While watching another film, The Notebook, we came across the name Noah. It was so peaceful, sweet and gentle, and when our second son was born, he immediately had that feel about him.
We had far fewer raised eyebrows this time; Noah was the most popular name given to boys in England and Wales the previous year.
Hollywood star's birth name
When our third son arrived in 2016, we realised our niche was to picking names from a TV series – it felt like it had a bit more meaning than just choosing one from a baby name book.
Cole was named after Joshua Jackson's character in the series The Affair and, in 2019 we had Bodhi, named after a character in the movie Point Break.
When I had our final son, in 2022, we watched Signs with Joaquin Phoenix. After a quick Google, I found out Joaquin was originally named Leaf or Leif, if you use the traditional Nordic spelling.
We live five minutes away from the beach and, during my pregnancy, I loved walking by the sea, so we used the name Leif coupled with Ocean. He was the only child born with the name Leif-Ocean in 2022.
Even though people were used to us picking unusual names by now, we did notice lots of friends doing a double take this time around; the older boys' teachers definitely raised an eyebrow when they told them their brother's name, and we got used to people asking us to repeat it, before adding: 'Where did you get that from?'
However, we did make sure he had a more 'mainstream' middle name, Caleb, in case he wants to use that one day.
A head start in life?
I post about our name choices a lot online, on my Instagram account @beachlifemuma, and I get a lot of negative comments on there. People say we've been cruel to our children, or that we've set them up to be bullied.
I can honestly say none of my boys have ever been teased or bullied by other children because of their names; it's only ever adults who pull a face or make a comment.
One mum who mentioned how 'unusual' my boys' names were had a toddler named Graham, which I don't think I'd have ever picked for a baby, so each to their own.
I was 42 when I had Leif, and I think being an older parent has given me confidence in our name choices.
Lots of people are lovely and really compliment the boys' names too.
People sometimes ask if Noah ever wishes his name was more unusual, but I don't think any of them really have any concept of that. We don't know any other Noahs, so to him, it's just as unique as Leif-Ocean.
Children's names seem to be much more unique these days, and children are generally very accepting of each other. They don't know if a name has a particular connotation unless an adult tells them it does, they just judge their peers on whether they like them or not.
I know there are many things children can get picked on for at school, but I really don't think their name is one of them. Lots of their school friends have unusual names too.
When Daniel and I were at school, we both knew lots of people with the same name as us. We didn't hate it, but we do like that our boys' names stand out a bit more.
Some people have suggested to us that their names might hold them back in life, or stop them getting a job when they're older.
I honestly don't think my boys are going to end up unemployed because they haven't got a name in the top 100 names. If anything, I'd like to think their unusual names might actually help them stand out a bit – because ultimately, it's their personality that counts, and they have bags of that.
As told to Heather Main
