Does it bother you....

Bobbiepin, I'd rather not post my name on here because it's not very common.

Sonnyboo well, yes it is. That's my point. Nothing's certain

I'm in Ireland too, OP, and I've only come across one baby Chloe in the last few years. If you love it, go for it.

For example, OP, the number 10 name for girls in 2016 was Mia, which was chosen for 0.76% of all girls born that year (that's 1 in every 130 girls, roughly).

One out of 130 is not a huge number. That means 1 or 2 in each year at an average sized school.

And obviously 11-20 get rarer and rarer than that.

No. My oldest has a top 20 name, my youngest was number 21 when he was born. Eldest has one other child with the same name in his year but he goes by a variant so they don’t seem the same anyway. Youngest has no other children with the same name in his year, although you hear the name around quite often. They are not bothered and neither am I.

Top 5 would bother me personally. Top 5-10 I'd avoid too unless I REALLY loved it. Outside top 10 bothers me less. Statistically they're not exactly common names.

Not at all. DH and I loved a popular name when I was pregnant with DD. It was the only name we both loved so we went for it. It was top 20 at the time and almost 6 years later I still don't care, I think it's beautiful.

@sonnyboo what's your name?

My parents cared! And I'm glad that they took the time to find a great name that is known, easy to spell but pretty rarely used. I love it!

Is this desire for an unusual name a fairly modern phenomenon? I'm not sure my parents cared that they had 3 children with 3 popular names, it sort of validated their choices! And I'm sure my great grandma didn't think "I wonder if John is too popular down the pit"!

It would bother me, the name we've chosen for DD is in the 50s and that bothers me a little, although it did slip 17 places last year so I'm hoping it continues to go that way.

I did grow up with a unique name though, not meeting anyone else with the same name until I was in my 20s so that's probably given me a different perspective on it. I can't even find where it is on any of today's charts!

Weirdly it only bothers me for girls names. Boy top names tend to be very classic and date well imo. I love Jack or Ben for example. I only know one little Chloe btw.

I like Chloe and have only known of 1 child out of 100's called Chloe.

Correction - I thought it was lovely until it was everywhere.
Most of the Chloes I know have a brother called Jack.

I don't like the name Chloe. I know so many, all called Chlo'.
They are teenagers.

Yes, it would bother me. I specifically wanted a less common name and only considered names out of the top 50, preferably the top 100. But some people don't seem to care and quite happily go for top 5 names. I have a less common name and liked that it made me a bit different, I never had another one all through school or even work.

Only in that class, sonny - it might be unusual on a population level?

My name has recently entered top 20 having never been in it before. Lots of babies with the same name as me now! No guarantees that a really unique name won't be extremely popular in a few years. I say if you are in love with a name, go for it.

Our chosen name is in the top 10 and I'm not worried about it at all.

If you think about it there are so many names given that even if you get the most common, it's never like it's 50% of all babies named that, it's always something like 2% (and a name in the ranking 50-100 is more like 0.02%) and something rarer even less likely.

They might well meet others with their name but why is that a problem? You just end up with Big Dave and Little Dave or Sam Green and Sam White. It doesn't matter at all.

But then his name isn't unusual

There are no certainties. My eldest son has a very unusual name. Started school and THREE boys all with the same name in the same damn class!

Don't get hung up on this top ten name business.
Mine and my daighters names are in the top 5 yet I don't work with anyone with the same name. And there's only 1 other girl at school with my daughters name. YET it's the top 5!
But they are national statistics. Regionally clearly they aren't top 5!

My two D.C. have top twenty names .

They are named after family members.

I couldn’t give a rats arse if they’re popular as to us they are the only x and x in the world. As well as that we named them with sentimental reasons so being popular doesn’t come into it

Top 100 really doesn’t bother me, my DS and DD are somewhere in the middle of the top 100. Top 20 does bother me though and I would be hesitant, especially top 10. They’re just too overdone and I appreciate fashions change but certain names literally never leave the top ten.

My first child is an Emily which is solidly in the top 10, and we do come accross the odd Emily but it dosent worry me and it's not as often as you think! We named our second Albert thinking it would be unusual but actually we've come across quite a few since he was born, so it's not I.possible for there to be 2 in a class even with a more unusual name! As long as you love the name then go with it, I'm a great believer that children have names we need to find rather than we get to choose their names x