Parents warned to stop calling their children Lily or Jack

where are all the Jack's? I've never met one.

Come to the Ribble Valley, you will be spoilt for choice!

DS2 aged 5 has a Lily, a Leela, and a Leila in his class

Where are all the Jacks? I've never met one, ever. I know a few Lilys but would love to meet a Jack

I have a Lilian/Lily, called after her very working class grandmother, so I do challenge the idea that Jack/Lily are particularly working class, but it is slightly strange how they have become so popular and stayed that way for quite so long.

My dd is 13, so not in the current batch, but we have still met a few. She uses Lilian at school which is much more unusual. ds has a name that became super popular a couple of years after he was born (I think it's also been top ten for ten years), but where we live now it's so unusual that it's frequently misspelled.

I wanted Rafferty. DH said if I wanted to use a cat's name we could adopt one. Raphael and Stanley were also ones I liked, but DH said mutant turtles and flat children were poor role models. Eric and Gabriel were ruled out, too. DH was like this at every suggestion: But his was worse than any of mine!

Best names are underused classics. I adore Mary and john they would stand out from all the lily jacks

I'm a lily - and growing up I knew NONE so who knows in 30 years it could be Juno and Rupert that there are loads of... Worrying too much about the popularity of a childs ne is pointless - trends change anyway

Will do.

golddigger google it sometime. It's a bit silly but always topical and funny.

Nope! Never heard of it before.

Our puppy is called Lily . I hope at seven months we aren't too late to change her name, I don't want to call for her in the park and be trampled by a horde of little girls

golddigger you do know that the Daily Mash is a current affairs spoof!

I love the mash and have feeds on my FB. Really funny.

All the Raphaels and Raffertyz went UK the same baby group. The parents were very disappointed that their originality um wasn't.

You must live in a similar area to me - I know loads of Raphaels and a couple of Raffertys. There are loads of regional differences - my DSis (rural area) thought it so quaint and unusual there was a Stanley at DS's party. It's a fairly common name in north London.

Also, if we all chose more varied names then no name would ever end up being used by 8000 girls/boys in one year alone!

This did make me laugh. I have a very common name for my generation and in the antenatal clinic the other day- which seems to have a first names only policy- they called it out and six of us stood up!

"You don't have control over the names others pick, and it's hard to predict a name rising from low 50s in the popularity charts to top 10 in a short few years."

No, but when a name like Jack/Harry or Lily/Evie is ALREADY very fashionable and in the top10 you could avoid it in favour of a less trendy name.

It's Ben and Olivia that are v popular around here. Although there are 2 Lily's and 2 jacks in dd's class.

I don't know any Lilies and only one Jack. I do know 2 Raffertys, 3 Raphaels, 6 Isabella/Isabel's and thousands of Sophie's.

All the Raphaels and Raffertyz went UK the same baby group. The parents were very disappointed that their originality um wasn't.

I posted this on FB convinced I had no FB friends with a Lily or a Jack.

Turns out I was wrong - luckily they have a sense of humour.

I know a lot of Jacks but not many Lilies - Isabellas however...

Gorgeous names - I blame Johnny Depp for popularising them

Nope

When DD1 we chose a name we agreed on - not too common but not 'out there' - and got lots of comments about how unusual and lovely it was. Fast forward to nursery and school and we soon discovered there were a few variants of the name in her year, and several more in the years below.

You don't have control over the names others pick, and it's hard to predict a name rising from low 50s in the popularity charts to top 10 in a short few years.

It isn't Lily by the way (or Jack!) but my comment is directed at the people pleading for the underused names to be chosen to improve variety....

We have lily's living on both sides of us....there are now 6....6!!!!! In ds class at nursery. (0-3 room)

8 girls I went to school with had babies this year.....there are two jacks, 3 lily or lily maes. Then an angel, navaeh and loki.

All the same around here. I like the names but so so overused. Article is hilarious. :)

That is one of the daftest articles I have seen.

You do get that it was a joke don't you...?

[wry smile emoticon] Both my DDs have two other children with the same name in their year group. And we thought we were sooooo original .

Not Lily though