It’s the English name I recently chose because people kept having difficulty pronouncing my Chinese name after I arrived in England last year. I really like it, but I’d be interested to hear how it comes across to others, especially Anglophones.
I think it’s a really good choice of name 👍
It’s rare in England (from my experience) but we recognise all American names from TV and literature so, being slightly American, I think it comes across as a cool one while not seeming unusual.
It definitely seems unusual in the US. I’ve never met a Cliff and was actually myself kind of guessing that it might be more common in the UK.
I approve.
It’s fine, but it’s mandatory that you start playing the bass
Sounds a bit old-timey. I refuse to believe that there are people younger than 60 years old with that name.
Ouch. I mean, you’re not wrong… But still.
What’s old is new again. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some recent baby names that I would place more in the turn of the 20th century. Reusing older, creating totally new, or taking known names and spelling them oddly. They’ll all have critics.
Names like Agatha and Edith and Florence are coming around again in kids, because they were popular around the 1920s and so the generation who had them are mostly now all dead.
Which means the names are once more free from expectations and ‘available’.
If you name a child something that had a huge burst in popularity only sixty or seventy years ago however, the holders of the name are generally still alive and almost all old, so it still has a strong connotation of being an “old-person name”
So yeah. Old names become new and fashionable again if you wait. But the trick is to wait long enough.
Please precede it with “Heath!”
Or append it with hanger
Cliff hangar. Hanging from a cliff, and that’s why he’s called Cliff hangar!
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Like the postman from cheers.
Its a fine name.
Right away I think of Cliff Clavin from Cheers.
Great name
It’s a bit old fashioned and I’ll admit, I do associate it with a big red dog from some children’s books. That said, I like it and I think it’s really cool when folks’ English names are uncommon
Cliff Clavin approves.
Is anyone saying it’s a great name actually in the UK? Because in the UK people will think it’s a rather odd and old-fashioned name (and not in a retro way).
I’m an American and that’s what I think of it as well. And when I first hear it, I think of a physical cliff, not a person.
I used to work with a guy named Cliff. He was a really swell fellow. Sounds like a good name to me.
USA perspective: I have a relative with that name (short for Clifford) who died in the ‘60s. Good name. Not common any more but ready for a fashionable comeback.
Meh, I’m on the edge with that one.
My grandfather (2nd generation polish immigrant) used to hate having to correct people on how to speak and pronounce our family name and decided to change it to something more “Americanized”. It took me a while to understand why until I spent 40 years having to correct people on the spelling and pronunciation of the Americanized version.
Then, two of my kids turned out to be genderqueer and they both chose new first names for themselves. It was them that I realized that choosing your own name is a powerful thing and you should be proud of forming your own identity. So, ignore everyone who questions choosing your own name. It is a good thing!
As for Cliff, I like it! It sounds good and it’s a name you hear a lot. Stick with it if you also like it!
