Chosen baby name: Rare? No, not any more!

I only know one Isla who is 3, but I am aware it is quite popular now. Who cares...it's popular for a reason huh!? My son is an Oliver and when I named him I had never come across an Oliver before....however, they seem to be everywhere now! I still really love the name so have no regrets.

Ah, we've just done this with Oscar.

DH and I chose it because a) we loved it and b) we thought it was a bit unusual.

Apparently at least half the boys in his nursery class will be called Oscar we now find! [oh pants emoticon]

Doesn't really matter though because we still love it (and him ).

My first I thought was unusual, not why I chose it though, and have since discovered that in all it's different forms is on the top 100 every year!

My second has a very unusual name although one that's well known enough that people don't question it - Mum took her to Ireland last week and was constantly asked "isn't that a boys name?" and had to explain to everyone the difference between the girls name and the boys name. My American friends never know how to say it.

I'm hoping to go for a name with a similar brief to number 2 but not sure how easy that's going to be.

I have one of the big 70s/80s name and always ended up with a number up to four being tagged on my name, even in a girls school in an area that meant the students were mainly Asian I was one of two in my form. I'd like to avoid a name that's too popular because I've been there but it's not a major factor.

Or any character in a popular soap.

Yes, definitely avoid any name of a currently big celeb or their offspring. Doomed to ubiquitousness every time.

Wonder what Myleene Klass will name her next baby. It seemed to make Ava very popular. If it's Orla I will cry!

Ah maybe. I've definitely known a few. Not many, admittedly, but some (my age and a little bit younger).

You'd just have to be careful which one you choose, Fibilou - like I say I think that may have been my parents' tactic and I loathed the name they chose!

If you want an unusual name for our childrens' generation you need to use something popular in ours - Claire, Susan, Victoria, Charlotte etc. You can bet your bottom dollar there won't be many in your nursery !

It always seems to happen like that, like a pp said your ears will 'prick up' when you hear 'your' name and people always react to my dd's name by saying 'oh I know someone who called their baby that' oh really? how...erm...interesting to me! I was well aware that it was just outside the top 30 when I chose it!

I'm surprised at that, herbietea, I thought it had been fairly consistent until its recent popularity?

I absolutely love the name Ella.

I´ve only known one.

She would have been in her 80s now, so unusual for that age?

sorry, meant to say Sis thought she was being 'retor' and cool.

I think it's quite a good cautionary tale to people not to get overly hung up on whether their baby's name is 'common' or not. You can't always predict the zeitgeist (although isla has been popular where I am for several years...).

I loved Grace and Ella. Had those as names since I was a girl, too! My sister had Ava as 'her' name, thinking she was being really There are three at DD's nursery.

Well the upside is that being more popular she is less likely to have to spell it every time.

Though saying that I have one of the most common names ever but because of the variations still have to spell it out.

That and Ella were two family names which I'd sort of held in reserve until about 5 years ago, seeker, when they became ubiquitous!

We called my dd what we thought was a beautiful, classic but unusual name 15 years ago on Tuesday. For the first year or so there were raised eyebrows, 'Oh, how lovely, I've not met one of them before"s "She'll be the only one in the class with that name"s and so on and so on.

The name? Grace!

Imogen had been my favourite girl's name for years and years. I gather that last year it reached 32 in the "charts". Having said that, we haven't yet met another at any of the groups she goes to.

Again, we'd both really liked Arthur for a long while (very fond of Arthurian legend etc) and now that appears to be getting more popular. Although that could be a good thing in some ways because lots of older family members were a bit iffy about it.

And having said all of that, my original given name which I changed by Deed Poll nearly ten years ago was a name which was VERY rare for someone of my age and which I hated. So I deliberately switched my middle name to be my first and took one of my Mum's names as a middle instead.

I didnt pick my childrens names because i wanted to be different but at the same time i did deliberately chose names that i thought weren't so popular because i was one of 7 Joannes in my year at school.
My eldest daughters name Paige has remained less popular but my second daughters Imogen has become popular and when she started nursery about 8 years ago now there was another 2 in her group ! My sons names Owen and Kyle have remained fairly unpopular (aparently a lot of people think Kyle is a chavvy name so that maybe why,but he's the only Kyle in his school .
We named our last daughter Summer in the hope there wouldn't be that many only to find she'll be starting school with another 2 Summers...so i guess sometimes its just one of those things. Our son who's due any day now (he's overdue) will have a very popular name, Benjamin James...but we're all out of name ideas now and for us agreeing on one was an achievement in itself !

We picked names we liked. Other children having the same name doesn't even figure. In my youngest son's class there is another child in his class of 27 with the same name and there are also 3 boys with another same name.

I don't know anyone else with the same name as my daughter or anyone else with my name. At my secondary school I was the only one with my name out of 1600 pupils.

Even if it´s rare at the time it might not stay that way.

My teenagers have rare name for their ages, but according to MNers, the names are now no "common that they are chavvy".

Neither are in the top 100, though.

Agree with cece, that is exactly why you shouldn't choose a name to be unique.

Isla is a lovely name though.

I have always known lots of Islas! I would never have considered it rare. I'm not a Scot and I don't like in Scotland.

I gave my DS a name I thought was very common, because of family history and because I loved it. I havn't met any others, despite it being top 20.