Duplicate names in nursery class

Shouldn't this encourage us all to use less popular names!? At least by avoiding already popular top 100 names you can reduce the risk of duplicates!

There were 3 Olivia’s in my dd’s reception class

They were referred to as Olivia(first initial of last name)

So e.g

Olivia A
Olivia B
Olivia C

(Not real last initials)

My son signs his name “Name X”, he is so used to being called by thenintisl lf his surname...

There were 2 other girls with the same first name as me in my year at primary school, and I think about 5 others in my year at secondary school (plus some others in the years above/below). It's not a name that has many options for shortening, so to this day the people who knew me at school call me by a shortening of my surname. I have always quite liked my name, especially as I didn't get to use it much til I was about 18...

My mum swore she'd thought she was giving me a really original name too, said she'd never met one before!

There's two girls and two boys with the same name in DS2's class. Four boys with the same name is DS1's class. They just use name + initial of surname and it works fine. Lucky they have different initials I suppose.

I was one of four girls with my name in my primary class, three of us lived on the same street and played together. We did the same apart from two who got different shortened versions of our name, as they had very similar surnames too. I didn't even think much about it, never caused much confusion.

My son has another boy with his same name at nursery. They both have hyphenated surnames too, so the staff refer to them amongst themselves as surnames initials! To the babies, though, they just use their names

I think going by name + middle name is nicest. For both the Emma's.

Eg: Emma Jane and Emma Ann

2 Za[c]ks in my sons class.Hes known as Zak with the K.There are 2 Logans as well and they are known by Logan Surname by who ever is talking to them.

ds had 5 Olivers in a year group with only 20 boys! So they were all known by their full names (apart from one who became Ollie quite quickly) - funny thing was that one little boy would only respond to his full name for a couple of years after that - so even his parents had to call him "Oliver Smith"!!

We had 3 Harrys in a group, two of which shared the same surname. It can be a bit of a pain!

The only issue we had with it was in primary school where dd1 could not get to understand that when she was writing her name for family members it did not need to be "AnnaB" and just Anna.. We spoke to teachers about it suggesting they add the B as a pencil drawn in for them to difference for when they did things like this. However they could not understand the issue would go " but she knows its her surname" Yes but her grandparents do NOT need to know it is her surname they just need to know " Anna" However it did sort itself out as she got older

We had 4 boys of the same name in class last year. 2 of them had the same surname too.
So it was John Smith, John Doe and Big John Lewis and Little John Lewis.
Everybody was confused at first but it worked out in the end.
Obviously not the real names

There were so many Olivia’s at my ds’ Nursery that all the children referred to each other by their full names. It was adorable and not confusing at all.

signed his mother's Day card as Oscar Surname!

This is a good point too. Mine does this all the time.

On of my children had 3 Taylors in their class. They were Tay, Taylor and Taylor.L pretty much dictated by their popularity, with Tay being the most popular and Taylor.L being the least. A lot of people actually thought Taylor.L's name was Taylor-Elle.

There are loads of Noah’s at my DDs Nursery. Any duplicate names across the nursery are first known as name surname.

Makes me laugh when DD says she's played with Amelie, Max, Albert And Noah Jones. Always with the full name

In my son's class there are three Gracies. One known as Gracie Surname, one as Gracie Middle Name, and the other reverted to Grace. There are so 2 Callums, both known as Callum Initial. My friend's son is one of two Oscars in his class, both known as Oscar Surname, and are so used to it that one of them signed his mother's Day card as Oscar Surname!

I work in a nursery. We have Maya and Mia in the same room. In the nursery as a whole we have Amelie, Amalia and Amelia. It's just quite annoying for the staff clarifying who you mean. We don't distinguish with surname as they are a bit different but I guess you could ask nursery what they do and make a suggestion for what you'd like them to call her.

There were five of us in my class with the same name. We all had diminutives and used those throughout our school careers and into adulthood life. It was never an issue.

Has anyone encountered this before

Only every year group from time immemorial - about 50% of my ds's mates are called Will and Dan, then another 40% fit in to Tom, Sam, Jake and Jack.

There weren't many names around that year. Looking round my office the other day (not a big office, but roughly similar age group), there were 4 x Debbie and 3 x Karen. Between our team, I think we counted that 1/3 of our partners were called Steve.

Ampngst my [arents friendship group, there were an overwhelming number of the women called Margaret and an overwhelming number of men called Alan.

In Nursery 5 years ago, you couldn't move for Isabellas (various spellings).

Names are Definitely a fashion thing. It just works out (depending on who is doing the 're-naming' - staff / teachers tend to be kinder than mates as dc get older ). If there aren't obvious 'shortenings' that can be used then they tend to use their surnames too, or sometimes initial... 'Sophie B or Sophie K' type thing.

People adjust as do kids, they’ll be fine. I say this as one of four Sophie’s in my school year. I was often known as Sophie W but no one actually called me it, more just on work and registers etc

Unfortunately they will need to add a modifier to their name eg surname, initials or other adjective. It's a pain for teachers too. Could she use her middle name?

Unfortunately this is something you are going to have to get use to OP. From what I have across is this.

At primary / nursery DD had two Molly's in her class. One was Molly G, other was Molly B.

My DD had four Lily's in her year at secondary, they just called Lily + surname.

But yes, if you've three Michaels and they choose to go by Mike/Mikey/Michael, then you'd just do that. If two of them like being called Michael then they'd be Michael Donovan and Michael Williams, or whatever the surname is.

It's usually first name surname in schools I've worked in. Full first name and surname when calling them in class, just first name when speaking individually, first name and surname/ first name and initial of surname on work. It's not some sort of official guidance but most staff seemed to just do that automatically.