The 11 Baby Names That Parents Are Avoiding For Awkward Reasons

One side effect of social media that we didn’t really anticipate was its effect on baby names.

Would you call your child Jan now? Of course you wouldn’t, because everyone would be saying “Sure Jan” to her all the time. It would be cruel. And lots of parents agree.

According to research by the parenting website ChannelMum, 55% of parents don’t want their child’s name to be linked with a viral internet trend or hashtag – and all of these names are on the chopping block.

Alexa

This has fallen out of style because of Amazon’s virtual assistant of the same name. We’re annoyed just thinking about all the ‘Hey Alexa?’ jokes this poor hypothetical child would be subjected to.

Felicia

Would you really want to saddle your child with ‘BYE FELCIA’?

Katie

Two words: Katie Hopkins. Shudder.

Kate

Pop culture’s obsession with the British royals has made lots of parents think twice about this one.

Scarlett

Apparently, parents now prefer other shade names like Violet or Ruby.

Lauren

You’d think Lauren would be pretty harmless, but it’s the name of ‘too many reality TV stars’. Right so?

Stan

‘Stan’ is now internet parlance for ‘obsessive fan’, thanks to the Eminem song of the same name. You couldn’t call a baby that!

Harvey

No one wants to be associated with Harvey Weinstein these days. And to be honest, the idea of having ‘Go Harvey Norman’ as your personal theme song is pretty chilling too.

Christian

Just one of the many things ruined by Christian Grey (sorry Jamie you are lovely and it’s not your fault).

Ryan

Too similar to the low-cost airline Ryanair.

Ollie

Ollie is the name of a US ‘gourmet dog food’ brand that people have been challenging each other to eat on YouTube. No thanks.

Just call them John or Ann. Those names are not exactly exotic (though we would argue that adding an ‘e’ to Ann spices it up a bit), but they’ll have no problems.

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