Who is still naming their babies Oliver and Olivia?

My daughter is a Mia which is meant to be ridiculously popular, there was one other in her school year group. It suits her, is easy to spell, goes with our surname. Olivia is a nice name that's sounds good for a professional woman ( our MP is an Olivia) or a toddler.

I have an Oliver - I love the name. He often gets called by his surname- Cliff.
I also have a ben and an Annabel. I have never understood why there are not more Annabels.

It always makes me laugh that the newspapers are always saying the name Gary is becoming extinct 😂.

Yes, that is weird. We don’t need to produce a few Garies in each generation, so that they can give birth to more Garies. If the last Gary died, we could revive the name in 10, 20 or 200 years’ time.

I know only one under 16 Zoe and I have 2 dds so hear many names! Sounded so refreshing after all the Lily/Evie/Grace/Isabel’s!

Isn’t it funny how names have little micro-pockets of popularity? Zoe is not a common name at all but we know six aged under ten, all living near us - by far the most of any one name. It’s a lovely name.

It’s not a direct choice between Olivia/Evie or Moonunit Trixibelle. There are lots of “normal” classic names that aren’t overused.

Exactly!

Those defending top 10 names always imply that the only alternative is Moönunit Tricxibellä!!!

Oh and Grace. If you’re about to have a baby avoid any of these!

It’s not a direct choice between Olivia/Evie or Moonunit Trixibelle. There are lots of “normal” classic names that aren’t overused. Off top of head
Honor
Tess
Mary
Miranda
Susannah
Zoe

All lovely recognised names barely used yet legions of Eve/Amelia/Lily/Isabel/Olivia variants.

Probably Buoy or Gyrl. Maybe Gyrlly-Mae. I’ll stick with the dull classics…

Well, I disagree. To me a timeless name is one that was never popular but is still well known.

Plenty of popular names can be timeless too. My daughter's name was number one for girls in almost every decade (dropped down in the 30s, 40s, and 50s but then returned in the 60s and remained top since then) over the last 120 years (since they started recording popularity) in my country (and popular all over the world for centuries) - that's a timeless name.

And Louise was always the most popular middle name!

It's funny how names come and go. When I was in school majority of boys were called.
Luke
Josh
Kenny
Steven
Ryan
Daniel
Connor
Henry
Jordan/Jay
Charlie
Tommy
Mathew
Liam
Sam
Jake

Girls were always
Rebecca
Emma
Chloe
Chantelle
Rosie
Georgia
Holly
Lucy
Amy
Jessica
Leanne
Sarah
Shannon
Carly
Gemma
Kayleigh
Sophie
Chelsea
Rachel
Courtney

Now I don't know a single person who's used one of these names since we all started having children.
It always makes me laugh that the newspapers are always saying the name Gary is becoming extinct 😂.

Yes, the parents of Sophie and Alex just had different criteria

Oh god, I quoted a completely different post and it was in the preview, don’t understand what happened! I’ll find my original quote!

Off the top of my head, I haven’t looked at any popularity guides, but I guess if you named your child Peter or John in the last 10 years they wouldn’t have been in the top 50-100 but they are still easily spelled and understood classical names, just fell out of fashion.

Not right to immediately assume that a rare name needs to be sounding out there

My parents did give me a pretty but bog standard overused name of my generation and I did shrug over the years about their lack of creativity/imagination 😁

Yes!

Well, I disagree. To me a timeless name is one that was never popular but is still well known.

I know Antonias and Cecilias who are toddlers, young adults as well as over 50s.

Thankfully we all have different tastes and ideas of names we love. I personally much prefer names that are well outside the top 100.

3 Ollies/Olivers in my DC class (year 3) but our (small, just over 100 pupils) school has even more Harrys. I know a few Livs on their mid-20s
There’s 20 years between my eldest and my youngest child so I’m familiar with a big range of what was popular over the years, and I’d say Jack, Joshua, Harry and George were in every single of my DCs class, for girls Millie/Chloe/Katie/Mollie/Meg(an)…though in the youngest DC school there are some Olivias but more Floras and Florences - also pretty.

With my eldest DC we gave a name that was rare that year but then it exploded in the next few 😁. I don’t regret it because it suits her so much and was my favourite since my childhood, however I don’t think I would intentionally go for a super popular name(and always made sure it wasn’t at least in the top 50)

My parents did give me a pretty but bog standard overused name of my generation and I did shrug over the years about their lack of creativity/imagination 😁

But again, that’s not what “timeless” means in the sense of names. As others have said, a timeless name is something like James or Lucy, where you wouldn’t be surprised if they were 18 or 80.

Never having had a mainstream peak of popularity is not the same as being timeless. I’d definitely assume a Cecilia, Antonia or Marianne was older.

@WomanStanleyWoman2 Names that were never 'fashionable' can't fall out of fashion and sound dated. I consider such names timeless. For example
Cecilia
Marianne
Antonia

There are lots of beautiful names that have never been in the top 10.

Is much rather be names something more timeless, names that were never in the top 10, ever.

That doesn’t make them timeless.

Exactly!

Based on my name alone, you’d probably think I’m about 15 - 20 years younger than I am, because it suddenly got popular due to a celebrity example, having been rare when I was born. But I don’t think anyone who’s seen my name on an email has collapsed in shock when I’ve appeared in person. Or maybe they’re just thinking “Christ, she looks rough for 25” 😆

With regard to names dating, I think it's hard to predict which names will be tarnished with age.

Unfortunately Karen, Sharon and Tracy got hit hard

I know lovely people with all of these names and I don't just mean that they're good people. They behave in a classy way and are not flag-bearers of the tarnished image of the name in any way.

However, Suzanne, Louise, Rachel, they're all of the same era and they have got away unscathed. Yes, dated but names date.

I agree that a lot of people don't care how popular a name is.

But also a lot of people don't understand how it works. A friend of mine has an Amelia born in 2004 and she told me she wanted something unusual. I said............ ''oh''.

Olivia is a lovely name. So many names are used these days that a name can be number one and yet you only know a couple of them

Here it’s the Eve derivative names. May as well have called them “girl”. Every friendship group has several Evie’s. And people still using it!