Weird and wonderful names of the decade

Weird and wonderful names of the decade

Shy, unity and bean are just some of the unusual names parents have given to their children over the past 10 years, Bounty.com can reveal.

After trawling through the millions of recorded names given to newborns since 2000, we’ve awarded the most weird and wonderful of all a place in our ‘Most unusual names of the decade’ list, which includes names which have only been given to between one and 15 babies during the past 10 years.

Zowie, Puppy and Ice appear in the top 20, as do Rooney, Bowie and Cobain – given to a few children whose parents were influenced by the celebrity footballer and musicians.

There are ahandful of children walking around with hippy-style names such as Stone, Gift, Heaven and Echo, while the fashion world may have inspired the names Denim, Diesel and Armani.

We asked3,000 parents to find out how many had tried to give their baby an unusual name.  A third said they had chosen an unusual name, but more than one in 10 regretted their decision to veer from the norm.

Reactions from friends and family when told the newborn’s name included surprise (17%), questions about how to spell it (27%) and requests to repeat the name again to check they had heard properly.   85% of mums and dads say folk react more kindly to their child’s name now they have grown into it and developed a personality to match – but one in 10 admitted their child doesn’t like their name, and 14% have asked to change it already!

Don’t want your child to share a name with anyone?  Stay ahead of the crowd and get classroom standout by searching up-to-the-minute listings at bounty.com/baby-names.

TOP 20 MOST UNUSUAL NAMES

  1. Shy
  2. Unity
  3. Bean
  4. Zowie
  5. Puppy
  6. Ice
  7. Victory
  8. Porsche
  9. D’Andre
  10. Denim
  11. Diesel
  12. Armani
  13. Rooney
  14. Bowie
  15. Cobain
  16. Stone
  17. Gift
  18. Echo
  19. Heaven
  20. Maroon
 
 

Ask our community

If you are still stuck for inspiration on what to call your little one, or want to test out your suggestions on a stranger, why not visit our baby names forum within our community and talk to some of the thousands of our Bounty mums?