those of you who are choosing very unusual name for your babies, do you have unusual names yourself?

ds and dd have names that have been in the top 5/10 for the last ten years or so. My name isn't even on the list, and never has been as far as I am aware. We didn't purposely give them popular names, but were obviously 'on trend' I guess. I love my name, and enjoy being fairly unique, but it's also a nuisance.

I am fairly conservative when it comes to names, I like a bit of a pedigree, and dislike names that are really surnames, things/places or taken from very different cultures just because someone likes the sound of the word.

I have never met anyone with my first name, except my Mum who, bizarrely, gave me the same name as her! DD1 only met one other with same first name and DD2 never met another with the same first name. My Mum and her 4 brothers have 4 names each and many of them are very uncommon or unheard of. It defines us as a family to be a bit different. DH has a name common several decades ago that no-one uses now.

There were six girls with my name in my class all through primary school, which I hated. My son's name is unusual enough not to feature on the naming records fr the year he was born. (I think if there are three or fewer of a name, they don't list them...?)

I haven't met anyone else with my name, though I know some are out there. DS1 has a name that scrapes top 100! DS2's doesnt't trouble top 100, but they're both known names of reasonable antiquity.

DS's name was 851st last year
DD1's name was 258 last yer
DD2's name was down to 998 last year.
My ame raned 480 last year (surprised it is as common as that)
No one in the uk got DH's name last year. Not really a surprise as it is an Italian name rammed up to a Spanish name

When I was at school my name was very popular.

My daughters name is not common (yet!)

I have met one other person with my name. There wasn't another at school, wasn't another at College, has never been another at work and I have never met another through any of the DC's schools. If I were to type it I would "out" myself. The perception of my name is uber posh and I detest it - and the funny thing is, it isn't even pretentious or that peculiar really.

DH and I both had the kind of name where there will always more than one of you if you are ever in a modest group of people born in your generation in one place. I even had someone with the same first name and surname in school. We chose an unusual enough name for DD, there are approximately 50 girls in the UK registered each year with this name. It is a fairly common name in other countries. She is only 7 but so far she loves it. I hated mine by the same age so this appears to be progress at least.

My name is not unusual now, but is unusual for women of my age if that makes sense; it used to be reserves for posh people and old ladies and is now becoming increasingly popular meaning I regularly embarrass myself completely by assuming that someone is shouting my name in the supermarket, only to discover they are actually shouting at a small child I quite liked being the only person in my school with my name however, and DH hates his very ordinary name so our 2 DS's both have names outside of the top 100.

My children are young adults now. They both have names that have been amongst the most popular names in the UK for hundreds and hundreds of years, even now - my son's was in the top 25 in 1996, top 10 last year; my daughter's was comfortably inside the top 50 in both years. Both names are easy to spell and easy to pronounce. Neither of them had another of the same name in their primary school year. At secondary there were no others of my daughter's name in the same year and only one of my son's name. So no confusion either. When we chose the names we wanted names that we liked but it was also very important to us that they wouldn't date or cause others to burst into incredulous laughter on first hearing them, and that they wouldn't cause us and the children lots of hassle constantly having to spell the names or explain how to pronounce them or correct a confusion with very similar names.

My name isn't that common but everybody knows it. I was one of two in my year at school (born early 60s). It doesn't have great associations for a lot of people. It isn't Adolf but some people seem to think that the most famous recent namesake of mine was a not dissimilar figure (and if that doesn't give it away, I don't know what will). I'm not mad keen on the name but I've hardly ever had to spell it or explain how to pronounce it, and for that I'm very grateful.

None of my DD's have names in the top 100, but 2 of them are different spellings of names in the top 100.. my name with it's usual spelling would be in the top 50, but my spelling isn't.

married, Abigail isn't that uncommon, no, but I was the only one out of 120 girls in my year, so it was no Claire/Emma/Sarah/Liz, and I've never needed to use my surname initial on the end of it to identify me. I have given my child a much much less common name, even though mine was hardly popular when I was a child. My husband has a name that was very popular in the seventies, slightly less common than mine is now. We both wanted a less than mainstream name for our child/ren.

I have a fairly uncommon name but not unusual - Tara. I chose names of this kind for my kids, so not too out there but not tonnes and tonnes of them either.

Abigail isn't that uncommon, I had one in my class at school and what about "Abigail's Party" - now that gives it a twist.

bananamummy and many don't, for example:

Jane, Helen, Emma, Sarah, Louise, Alice, Lucy, Anna, Eliza, or even

John, William, Edward, Thomas, James, George, David

I'm sorry but having an unusual first name I never wanted our DC to have to go through that; I had a very unusual maiden too and have an equally unusual married name and there was no way our dc's first names were going to have an alternative spelling.

Actually, regarding the 'having to spell it', many very popular names have multiple spellings (more so than the underused classics imo)
Kathryn/Catherine/Katharine/Cathryn
Elisabeth/Elizabeth
Amelia/Emilia/Amelie/Emily
Molly/Mollie
etc.

I hated being one of 3-4 in class at school so we gave our kids less trendy names, both are outside the top 250 names and both are the only ones in their year at school.

Perhaps those of us who had common names are more likely to avoid giving our kids such names?

We sometimes forget why we name a person/thing - to identify it/him/her!

My name isn't in the top 100
my dc's name isn't in the top 500.
I didn't want to particularly go for anything outrageous, but I didn't want anything where she'd be one of 4 in the class.

I have an unusual name. My DC have popular names. Chose their names because we loved them, but to be fair, I would have picked something more out there for DD if it was solely my choice. The beautiful compromise name won out, where as DS was always going to have his very popular name.

My name was uncommon as a child, now it's much more popular (Abigail - waves at FunnysInLaJardin). Gave DS a very uncommon name. He never has to spell it though, whereas even with a name like Abigail, I do have to spell mine for people. Not a big deal at all though.

Must just be my neighbourhood then... It's all Lyras, Amelies and Mias round here... :)

Agree - I know lots of little Emmas!

My name is fairly unusual (I know two people with my name, including famous people) but my DC all have top 20 names.

There's several baby child Emmas near me!

Also, names that were popular/common in the 70s or 80s are hardly used now - I've never met a child called Claire, Emma, Susan etc... So these names will be rare when your child starts school.