Why do people pick popular names?

For me one was a family evergreen name and one I always wanted growing up. The second I thought would be a bit more unusual but turned out to be top ten for the year he was born. Neither has another in their class they done ok. For my girl for some reason it was more important to me they didn’t have a common name, so went for name that was a bit 70s ( currently not an in vogue decade for names) but that I loved.

Would rather have a popular classic name than on on trend name though that gives away the time they were born when older.

Some names have to be top 10. If children weren’t named them then they would just be replaced with another top 10 instead. It is the number of babies named that that shows the popularity not the specific rank.
personally popularity didn’t matter to me, I just went with a name we liked.

Some parents don't want their kids names to be a 'Tragedeigh'

I have an unusual name and really didn’t like being so different when ai was younger so my DC both have more common names. I could wonder why people try so hard to give their DC unusual names but the answer obviously is because everyone is different and have different approaches to things.

Would you not consider choosing something that resonates with you in a personal way? A name that isn't just going to make your child stand out from the herd?

My DCs all had an exercise in school - I can't remember what age they were - where they spoke about why they were given their name. They all said it was nice to be able to say they were named after X or Y relative (we chose family names).

I’m probably the opposite and judge parents who name their kids strange and unusual names with weird spellings and think poor kids stuck with that name, what on earth were the parents thinking.

I had my children abroad and wasn't aware they were so popular. My middle child has a name that I thought was quite retro yet classical. I honestly had no idea so many other people used it. I just thought it was the most beautiful name ever. Then I joined mumsnet and turns out its so popular and 'overused' and almost a cliché, even though I've never met one other child with the same name!

My DD has one of the current popular names. I liked the name and decided that I really don’t care if there are others with her name. I didn’t want to not choose a name just because it was popular.
I wanted a name that was strong, feminine, easy to pronounce and spell. A plus side is we can find her name on just about anything which she loves.

There no law that says people have to choose weird names

Having a unique name is not what makes a child a special individual, it’s their personality and their talents. I used to have a job whereby I knew thousands of kids names across a wide section of the U.K. and I saw some absolute shockers, it didn’t make me think wow those parents really chose a special name for their child I used to think poor child. When looking through class lists if I saw 2 Sophie’s or 2 Williams I wouldn’t think anything of it, but on a couple of occasions I saw two kids with the same unusual name in the same class and thought how annoyed the parents must have been to pick an unusual name only to find another child with the same name in their child’s class.

I’m at an age now where my peers from school, uni and work are well into having kids. I have to admit when I see another Evie, Isla, Jack or Oscar announced on social media I do think, “really?”. You don’t need to be massively into names and trends to know there’s a lot of them about and they’re pretty trendy atm.

I did read (possibly on MN) that parents having no.1 will likely just go with something they like, hence why you get a lot of Olivia’s or Ella’s or whatever. They’re nice, inoffensive names and are popular for a reason. Then those kids start nursery or preschool and the parents realise how common they are, and they are more mindful to factor in trends or popularity for subsequent babies.

I’m a bit of a hypocrite though- DD got a top 600-ish name, and DS got George. It’s only no.30 around here so not quite as common as in the rest of the UK, but boys names are well hard.

As strange as it may sound people have all sorts of reasons for picking names. It doesn’t have any impact on you in the slightest. I picked a classic but unusual name, a few years later it’s in the top names. Do I care? No! Call your kids what you like.

FWIW people do judge on names though, much you wish they didn’t. If you call your child Abcde (‘ab se day’) you will be quite rightly judged as a complete moron.

Dd's name was about 340th popular of her year of birth. A well known but little used name. 62 born in her year.
She ended up in the same class as one of them. You can't win sometimes.

Two of my sisters have very common names, whereas I have one sounding Middle Eastern! Growing up is was jealous of them as I wanted to be 'normal'.
Now I really love it and get compliments as it's very unique.
One of my sisters hates her name and the other has always loved hers.
My brother also got a very unique name but being a bloke I don't think he's ever thought or cared about it!
I don't know what my parents were thinking!

1 of mine has a popular name

• we liked it and it goes with the surname, would of chosen it regardless. She loved her name and it suits her.

Despite its popularity we don't actually personally know that many, 1 other in the school. Though we do obviously come across others in the park etc.

We went ‘classic’ and biblical with ours. We didn’t consider them ‘common’.

Coming from a working class background we thought that might be more future proof than projecting something naff like Bee-yonsay or other the other extreme something like Bartholomew which would look
instantly pretentious.

We did know kids with unusual names like Torin and Ffion - they were nice names, but the kids were just ordinary nice kids. It didn’t endow them with special powers.

We lived overseas when DS was born. In that country his name was top 5 for the last few years. We just loved the name. We knew we would move back to Europe in a couple years, so we still picked the name. In my home country the name is well known, but its not as popular. Still top 100 though. I think if we had stayed abroad we wouldnt have picked it, because top 5 is really just too much.. but then again it would be stupid to not pick a name for this reason only if you really love it 🤷🏻‍♀️
DC2 has a very uncommon name, never met anyone with the same one. It was just really about what we loved for each of them.

In our family we choose classic/ popular names that are international and can be easily pronounced and written in any language (like Anna, Michael, Elizabeth, Izabella, Helen, Alexander, Lucy, Victor, Victoria).

Neither I, nor my brother, nor my daughter have ever had anyone in their class with the same name 🤷‍♀️ I think nowadays people choose weird "original" names to be unique and it's actually rarer to have anyone with a normal classic name.

Because I specifically, actively do not want my children to stand out. I much preferred to blend in as a child and also I think it's nice to have the anonymity that comes with a common name. I would hate to be easily identified by just the mere casual mention of my first name. Same with privacy online. I would rather be one of 1,000s with same name so it's not even worth trying to search me.

@WandaWonder my name is very 80s and a well known name. My surname the same it's a well know surname. I still have to spell it out from time to time so that theory is rubbish.

This is exactly what we found! Our daughter’s name is quite unusual but our son’s name is very popular. DH and I only seemed to agree on common boys names for some reason (I did veto a few of his more unusual choices!)

A lot of the time people think they’re being unique, but so does everyone else, then the name skyrockets up the chart. Arlo for example, I noticed was picked by people aiming to be unique, but it is now 20 and rising. I think that’s the risk with picking a ‘unique’ name, it could become trendy then date terribly. Those picking classic names at least aren’t naming their child the ‘Barry’ of the future.

My daughter has a quite unique name but if I had a son I think I would go for something a bit more traditional. The faddy boys names at the moment really make me cringe. It's a fine line between unique and pretentious

This is so true!!

my DD is the only (to use an example, not her name) Olivia, but there are multiple Layla’s and Myla’s.

funny.

That only works if your child grows up in a very homogenous culture and never leaves. My parents thought they were giving me the safest of common names, and, for my home country, they did — but I’ve spent much of my adult life living in countries where my Jack/Emma-type name is both unheard of and unphonetic.