Why do people pick popular names?

Do you have a popular name or an uncommon name OP? Many people with uncommon names wish for more common ones. Internet privacy, spelling and pronunciation issues, even just not being able to get a keyring with your name on when everyone else can. There’s a balance to be struck between being one of 5 Olivers in the class and having a try-hard name.

Because for lots of people picking a name for their baby is just a simple process of having a few chats about the names they like, and not giving any head space as to whether a name is too popular, or not ‘classic’ enough, or not middle class enough, or all the other things that people here often worry about.

I think people just pick names they like. Also depends on area how common they are. My daughter's name is top 30 (though another variation is slightly higher but apparently still not top 10) and since she's been born I've seen loads of girls with that name. My daughter is 18 months old.

My nieces name is a consistent top 3 and I've only met one other child with her name.

Out of the top 10 boys name I know loads of Noah's, Leo's and Harry's but I have yet to meet a baby Oliver or George both of which are in the top 5. The most popular boys name round here seems to be theo

Popularity wasn't an aspect of why we chose my children's names.

One is very popular (but always liked on here) and one is not at all popular (lovely but rare).

Both names mean something to us, one relates to the time of year, one relates to heritage and was my husband's favourite name.

How odd that you should think everyone is obsessed by popularity!

I really like the name Fleur. Always have done.
I am not calling my son that because it’s too gendered.

I really like the name Karl but it was the name of my boyfriend previous to my husband.

I really like the names Dominic, Gabriel, Laurence and Christopher. But didn’t like the shorter Ed version, the religious overtone, already used by family and done to death respectively.

I can’t believe I’m the only person who have some thought to their babies names besides “ liking them”?

I feel very sorry for the Alexas. Rarely has a name dropped so sharply off the cliff - only 15 were named in 2021.

What names did you use? I chose names I liked and I wasn’t in the UK or on mumsnet at the time. It turns out that Dd has a popular name here but she still likes it. I used to work in a school and in one class there were 2 boys with the same very unusual name. My nephew was named what was (20 years ago) a quite unusual name but it’s now the most popular name. I have a friend who called her dd Alexa. Her dd has recently changed her name. You can never tell what will happen.

Not really for you to declare the things that aren’t allowed to have a lasting negative psychological effect. I’ve got a common name, I have no lasting negative psychological effects, so perhaps I should tell you that your experience is wrong? (Which obviously I’m not going to do because I’m human enough to realise we’re all different, we all have different responses to different scenarios, and everyone’s feelings are valid, including “little Jade’s”.)

Because it had a lasting negative psychological effect that really can’t be compared to being cross that little Jade can’t find a necklace that says ‘Jade’?

It may not have been nothing to them either. We’re all different. Why are your feelings about your more commonly used name more valid than those of someone who wanted to see more of their own name? It’s not a competition. All I was saying was that parents will base some of their choices on their own experience about their own names, it’s hardly surprising. You might think other people’s reasons are stupid/mad, whatever.

I don’t think that recognising the drawbacks of having a very common name is the same as ‘I want my child to be easily able to find plastic tat with her name on’, though. I’m one of the people who had six girls with my name in my class throughout primary (one also with the same surname), and it wasn’t nothing, psychologically, to not feel like an individual, but one of a generic subset, and to learn not to respond to your own name because it was usually one of the other five being called.

It tells you something that, despite it being more than 25 years ago, I still remember the foreign street I was on and what I was wearing when I first realised I had spontaneously responded to someone calling my name in public.

Because they like them?

I understand picking classic popular names but it's when they choose trendy popular names that I'm stumped

“I find it utterly mad that people would consider, when giving their child a name they will bear for life, whether that name is readily available on some plastic tat.”

it wasn’t among the criteria I used either, but then I also wasn’t ruling out on the basis of “it’s in the top ten”. People will often have biases according to what they experienced with their own name. Someone who was always disappointed as a child that they couldn’t find their name on “some plastic tat” may well find that that sways them towards names used more frequently, ditto someone who was always having to spell their name for others. Someone who hated being one of 5 with the same name in their class may be swayed the other way. None is more mad than the other.

I didn't consider it, and as I said I love my son's name so I'd just get something personalised if I wanted. And it isn't just plastic tat that is personalised. I find it utterly mad that people give so much of a shit about what everyone else calls their kids when they are choosing their names too, takes all sorts I suppose 🤣

I find it utterly mad that people would consider, when giving their child a name they will bear for life, whether that name is readily available on some plastic tat.

With the parents who feel bad that their children don’t have pens with their child’s name on, I really struggle with this too. We went to Longleat and they had a machine to personalise notebooks, magnets, etc. I got so excited that I got several things for each DD!

I also don’t think they update the names on there very often. My name is still on there and is definitely not what people are calling their babies these days.

I always feel that the desire for “unique” names is a bit trailer trash culture - see Kath and Kim, and Eppon-Knee ! (Or however they spelt it).

But then it’s probably a class thing. There is a handful of names in my family that have been passed down for at least 5 centuries. I have forbears with my exact name in most generations; I really like it.

I agree with this.

I work with children and some of the names the parents saddle their children with is utterly awful and quite frankly ridiculous.

Each to their own but there is nothing wrong with a popular, decent name. Not at all.

Same here, though my Ds name isn't uber unique I can never find his name on personalised stuff in shops, has to be ordered specifically and it does make you feel a twinge. I love my son's name though

It's often the 'tey a bit harders' that you get in multiples.

My son has a classic biblical name normally in the top 10 but he's never had another in his school let alone his class. But at one point we had three Sonnys!

With girls it was Ava. We have two Ava's and two Eva's. Both were deemed unusual about a decade ago when these kids were named.

I've met four baby Willows in the last month but no Olivia's.

The point is that many people seek to avoid the top ten of the years before but those names then reduce in popularity and the 'unusual' names below them them proliferate.

I didn't really look at the popularity lists to decide if the names were popular or not, I don't care.

Do I like it, does it go with our surname, is it easy to pronounce, those are things that we considered.

Boy names are especially hard IME because there is less variety - the popular names are so overused, but the less popular ones are mostly just weird and don't sound like proper names. I think it's much easier to find a pretty girls' name which is not top ten but not something weird and made up either.

You tend to see trends in names because people will independently come across a name and each think "Oh that sounds nice - and unusual". But not realise that several other people have had the same thought. About ten years ago, I'd never come across the name Arlo. Now it's top 20. That's not necessarily because people are studying the name lists and picking from there, it's more likely because they have met a baby or toddler called Arlo and thought that's unusual, what a lovely name, and it's stuck with them and when they had a baby a couple of years later, it's made it onto their list.

You tend not to see many names which were a trend in your own generation (because people associate that with boring or ordinary = yet another dave etc) and not many names that were associated with the grandparents' generation, because to the parents, those are grown-up names, have no association with "cuteness" and look weird on a baby, like Kevin, Linda, Barry.

But great-grandparents' generation is fair game, mainly because most adults having children have already, perhaps recently, lost grandparents and those names are seen fondly, but they are already out of use enough that they are starting to seem a novelty again. For our generation I would say this is the Alfie, Elizabeth, May, Stanley, Agnes etc.

Weirdly I was really attached to the name Idris, DH vetoed it for being too unusual and I've just looked this up and it is a current name trend. It's gone from the the 5/6oos in the late 90s/early 2000s, certainly I'd never met one IRL, to now being in the top 200. Something must have inspired not just me, but also hundreds of other parents. I have fond memories of this name from childhood associated with a toy dragon that I had, which I think my mum named after a cartoon that was on TV at the time (Ivor the Engine) - I don't remember the cartoon, but other people my age would likely have had the same exposure. And then with Idris Elba being successful, that lends a kind of respect to the name, showing that it isn't just a cute character, it's also a serious adult name. I liked the association with Wales as well as my grandma was Welsh, but that's not something that would change generationally.

Tobias is another example of a name that I really liked and haven't met a lot of - this is also beginning to climb.

Something else to bear in mind is that the popular names today are still not as popular as they were in the past. If you look at Jack for example which was at number 1 in 1996, there were 10,779 Jacks born in that year, which represented about 3.2% of all boys. But the number 1 boys' name in 2021 was Noah and there were only 4,525 born (1.4% of boys). If you try to find the name that is about as popular in 1996 as Noah is today, it was Adam, which was 16th most popular. Sure, it is a very "normal" name (some might say boring) but I don't think I've known that many Adams. Maybe two? Whereas I can think of at least five Jacks that I've been at school with, friends' boyfriends, brothers etc.

In 1996, the top 10 boys' names represented 24% of all boys born that year, and the top 20 was 38%. Over half of boys had a name which was one of the top 33 names.

In 2021, the top 10 boys' names only represent 11% of all boys born that year. You don't even get to 24% until you get to rank 31 - I got bored and didn't keep going to find the 50% tipping point.

Girls' names are more varied, in 2021 and 1996, but the change to more name variation continues as well -
in 2021, 9% of girls had a name in the top ten, 15% top 20.
19% top ten in 1996, 31% top 20. The tipping point of 50% is top 60 names.

Because they don't want their child to be the one in the gift shop who can never find a pen with their name printed on it.

<bitter experience>

Same reason so many people buy the latest fashions, have their hair cut in the most up to date style, decorate their homes in 'this seasons colours' etc

Just because a name is popular doesn't mean they'll always be one of lots at school. My name was the most popular the year I was born. I went to a massive school and there were 2 of us in our year. I've come across many more at work where we're all different ages and it wasn't consistently popular for all those years