MIDDLE NAME ROSE: Is The Bloom Off?

March 9th, 2009 at 9:00 am

Growing up as an Elisabeth, I can’t tell you how many times people told me that was their middle name. As a child it was a way of bonding, but as I grew older I got really sick of it.

I do love Rose and at one point in time would have absolutely considered it as either a first or a middle. It’s still on the long list of middle possibilities, in the second middle spot. Doubtful I’d use it though.

I agree it sounds very fresh in the first name spot. I also know a Rosa and a Rosalie, I love those and the ones you mentioned above.

Grace is the other middle name of the moment.

Here are some fresher one syllable middles name possibilities: http://youcantcallitit.com/2008/06/25/the-middle-name-conundrum/

Check the comments section too.

March 9th, 2009 at 9:01 am

P.S. Love the title of this post!

March 9th, 2009 at 9:07 am

Rose is my first middle name (Dumas is the other, it’s my grandmothers maiden name) and there are so many of us that at one point during primary school my friends and I had a clique for people called Rose – and I’m not kidding, half the female population of my year was in it. I still love my name and I think the name Rose goes well with just about any other name. However, when the time comes for me to have children, I won’t be using Rose as a middle name, because it’s my middle name. But I’m considering Rosemary/Rosa as a first name.

March 9th, 2009 at 9:10 am

Elisabeth, how funny you say that! My sister’s name is Michelle and she hates it when people tell her “Oh, that’s my/my mom’s/my sister’s/my aunt’s/my dentist’s middle name!” Of course being a teenager at this point, she just rolls her eyes.

I think anyone with the first name Rose would hear the same thing in a few years. Something like Rosalie is probably better.

March 9th, 2009 at 9:58 am

I agree that Rose is way too overdone as a middle name, but I love it as a first name!! Although it’s funny how many people tell me that it’s too “old lady” to use as a first name and that I should use it in the middle spot. Ugh.

March 9th, 2009 at 10:15 am

Geographically, where I am located, you are still not hearing a lot of “Rose” for a middle name. Which is lucky for me

In my family, the first daughter is traditionally middle named Rose. I am Sarah Rose, there is a Katherine Rose and so on and so forth. My first daughter will be middle named Rose, just like me and my mother before me. Over popular or not, I love the tradition of it.

Currently, my top girl choices are: Carrie Rose, Brinley Rose, or Kendall Rose.

March 9th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

Rose runs rampant in my family as a first name, primarily, and as a middle.
I’ve always preferred it up front, so sweet and simple! But don’t mind it in the middle, really, I can think of a thousand worse things to put in the middle.

I prefer the ros- variants myself, whether or not they’re etymologically related to the flower. Rose itself is a family surname for me. Ah, the perils! My daughter got the Spanish ros- name in the middle, it was her great, great great Grandmother’s maiden name. Much more distinctive than “just” Rose.

March 9th, 2009 at 7:41 pm

Rose is my generation’s “Lynn” as far as commonality. I personally think it’s a lovely middle name. But I wonder if baby girls growing up nowadays will feel Rose is as plain as I consider “Lynn”?

March 9th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

We have a 10 year old daughter whose middle name is Rose. It is a family name and we chose it to honor a special family member.
I agree that it has become the Ann of the new milennium along with Grace.
So many babies born that I know lately have the middle name Grace. It’s sad because these once beautiful names are running the risk of being the overexposed Ann, Lynn, Marie’s of their day.

March 9th, 2009 at 11:39 pm

My first name is Rose. I’m sixteen, and to this day I’ve never met another Rose under the age of seventy. I’ve met lots of people with the middle name Rose, and recently I’ve definitely noticed the rise in its popularity. Personally, I love my name.

In school, I’ve always been the only Rose. I never had to be distinguished by a nickname or a last initial, like various Emilys and Sarahs. I’ve been lucky in that way.

Originally, Rose was going to be my middle name – sort of. My name was going to be Maggie-Rose, with the hyphen. But at the last minute my mom changed it, and am I ever glad she did.

I think that its a lovely name, classically pretty, but with its crazy popularity I know that, was it not my own name, I would have to pass it by in a quest for a middle name.

March 10th, 2009 at 8:36 am

It’s a shame it’s so popular, because it really is a great name. Since it’s a family name, I’m still considering it. I love Annarose right now, I would more likely use that.

I know an adorable little one year old whose first name is Rose, it’s so charming!

March 10th, 2009 at 9:15 am

Fully half of the baby girls on that list have a boy’s name as their first name. I think this is a major reason that Rose is so popular: give your girl a boy’s name and then pair it with the very feminine Rose and that will give people a heads up as to the real sex of the baby.

March 10th, 2009 at 11:18 am

I totally agree … Rose, Rosemary (esp. with nn Romy) are fresh as a first, but in the middle, just filler. But a beautiful name nonetheless. I’d love to have a little Rose (first name, please) as I picture an adorable little redhead. But instead, if we ever have a girl, she’ll likely be an Evangeline, nn Evie.

March 10th, 2009 at 11:40 am

It’s like I say for most common names: if it has meaning to you, go with it! If you just like the sound, I would find something else. My middle name is Elizabeth, and it’s super common in my generation. However, it’s my great aunt and my great grandmother’s middle name too, so I like having it.

March 10th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

And yet… Maxine Bahns of “The Mentalist” just named her baby girl Madison Rose.

March 10th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Poor maxine. Obviously needed nameberry

March 10th, 2009 at 3:05 pm

I knew that Rose was super common when I chose it for my daughter’s middle name 5 years ago. I still went with it because it offsets an unusual unisex first name: Phoenix. Plus I grow over 90 varieties of roses. Bottom Line for me: personal meaning trumps popularity.

March 10th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

It’s way too common as a middle name. You even forgot several celebrities:

Chloe Rose (Olivia Newton John)
Lily-Rose Melody (Johnny Depp)
Sunday Rose (Nicole Kidman)
Wylie Quinn Annarose (Richard Dean Anderson)
Vivienne Rose (Rosie O’Donnell)
Sarah Rose (Marlee Matlin)
Sonora Rose (Alice Cooper)
Stephanie Rose (Bon Jovi)
Olivia Rose (Kirk Cameron)
Olivia Rose (Joe Namath)
Olivia Rose (Al Pacino)

the list goes on and on.

Personally I think it’s fine to use as a first name or as a middle name (when you give your child an unusual first name) but otherwise it’s just plain boring and unimaginative. I think it would be fine to have an Octavia Rose or a Samara Rose, but I’m sick of seeing Emma, Emily, Olivia, Sarah, Hannah, Ashley, Ava, Ella and Madison paired with Rose.

If you want to know which middle name really annoys me: Grace. It is so common in the middle, especially paired with Hannah. I’ve met at least 20 girls named Hannah Grace this year. It’s also common as a first name.

Others that I find way too common at the moment are May and Mae. Pearl, Hope, Kate and Faith are also seen more often.

Hannah Grace, Emma Rose and Olivia May are the Jennifer Ann, Jessica Marie and Stephanie Lynn of tomorrow. Boring.

March 11th, 2009 at 11:42 am

Tirzah, I think Phoenix Rose is nicely balanced. If you’re going to choose something unexpected and gender-neutral like Phoenix in the first spot, then Rose’s status as a common choice works to your advantage.

And I love what you said – personal meaning DOES trump popularity, every time.

I also had a beloved grandmother Rose. If we should ever have a second daughter, our first choice name is Rosemary, nn Romy, in her honor. Because Elisabeth is right – we need more girls with the FIRST name Rose!

March 11th, 2009 at 8:57 pm

Rose has such romantic associations it will always be a top family name to be passed down. My aunt’s first name is Rose after her grandmother. That said, it is so overused that it has become a very unoriginal choice. The same seems to have happened with the name Grace: the meaning and associations with Grace are nice and it goes with practically any fn but it lacks creativity and thus, some lovely names have become “filler” or “boring” simply because they are so overused. And they ARE boring now! The strategy of balancing masculine first names with the mn Rose, is ridiculous to me — just give a girl a girl’s name to begin with — and save the masculine influence for the middle spot! Rose Emerson is every bit, if not more, charming than Emerson Rose!

March 16th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

I am 22, so there aren’t a whole lot of people my age with Rose as a middle name. This is the first time I’ve “met” another Sarah Rose though! When I was little I always wanted people to call me by my first and middle name instead of distinguishing me from other Sarahs with a last inital. My parents always like telling the story of how I would insist, “My name is not Sarah, its Sarah Rose!”

March 21st, 2009 at 10:15 pm

I agree Rose is very filler and there are many other flower names that would be refreshing

Daisy, Marigold, Clover, Poppy, Tulip & Xanthe

June 18th, 2009 at 1:18 am

Although Rose is nowadays becoming more popular for a middle name, I agree with Sarah Rose’s post above. I am about to turn 21, and haven’t met hardly anyone with my middle name. Marie and Elizabeth are most popular among my generation for sure. I personally really like Rose because it’s short, yet pretty at the same time. I was given the middle name Rose to honor my great Aunt, so it’s special in that regard too.

July 29th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

my name is Rosemarie and im twentu years old. I must say i love my name, growing up everyone always called me rose. I like that is short and that someone is always assuming that is my fav. flower. Having the name of rose always gets me all types of compliments.

August 20th, 2009 at 10:29 pm

I’m so frusturated! I have always loved Rose and would like it as a first name (pregnant now) but cannot find any middle names that I care for.
What do you all think of Matea Rose?
I wish I could just use Rose, but CANNOT find anything I like as a middle…Help!

August 22nd, 2009 at 9:44 am

Tiffany – I’m the same, we love Rose – as a first name – but we are stuck for a middle name too! Any suggestions out there? I love the abbreviation of Rosie as well, so cute when they’re young. Good luck finding the middle name!!

September 3rd, 2009 at 8:47 pm

My 4 year old daughter is named Rose. When I tell people her name, I often hear “Oh, that’s my daughter’s middle name.” We know a Ruby Rose, Abigail Rose, Natalie Rose & Maria Rose. We’ve met other middle-name-Roses too. We did meet one other ‘first name Rose’, who is a year or two older than my daughter.

We also had trouble finding a middle name – because Rose is such a common middle name, it was hard to find one that didn’t make the name sound ‘backwards’. In the end, I just picked a name that I thought sounded pretty and had 3 syllables in it. (We didn’t pick Rose’s first name until after she was born, so were still trying to come up with a middle name in the hospital.) I do wish we’d come up with something more unusual or meaningful / family related – as we later went on to chose a family name as her little brother’s middle name.

September 7th, 2009 at 1:41 am

My 11 month old daughter is named Rose and we get the “that’s my daughters, friends, neices middle” all of the time! I love the name, very sweet and feminine, and it just fits her perfectly! Like the above posters mentioned we had a very hard time coming up with a middle name that we liked and that didn’t sound like it was forming a whole new name..ie Rose Marie, Rose Anne ect ect. In the end we went with a family name for the middle. Tiffany and SD just keep trying any name you can think of and look to friends for suggestions….one of these days something might just click! A few of the middles we considered but didn’t use were Evelyn, Elisabeth and Elyse.