Baby girl names - thoughts please

Not keen on Evelyn I know one and she's not very nice I think its old fashioned 2 that's my opinion though my own name was very popular at school 2!!
I really like names
Penelope.
Florence.
Dont think there would be 2 many of these.
Other names would be
Lexi.
Mollie.

It’s really not.
Olivia, Amelia, Ava, Oliver, Alex, Ronnie

These are names that appear at least twice in my son’s class.

Agree with above PP. Secretly cutting yourself a key and letting yourself into someone else’s house is insane. Once baby arrives this kind of overstepping is only going to get worse. Your husband sounds like he needs to grow a pair and get some boundaries put in place where she is concerned, never mind keeping the peace - what about your peace? Sounds like a hellish MIL and I feel for you if your DH is going to continue allow that kind of behaviour from her.

Im sorry op but you have a far bigger problem here, the woman secretly cut a key to your home, let herself in and vetoed your baby name choices and your DH dosnt like to argue with her! You are in for a world of mil from hell trouble and a non supportive husband here. Maybe you need to start a thread on how you manage this going forward.

As to your actual op, there will always be a chance of multiple children with the same names, my DDs go to a small primary max 15/year, some year groups as small as 6 children and there have always been children with multiple names in the class. You can also have non popular names that aren’t complicated to spell or pronounce. All 3 of my DDs were the only ones in there primary school with their names. The older 2 are in high school now and there are 2 children with their first names in other year groups. No other child with my youngests name yet. I didn’t over complicate things, one has cultural connections but not so out there as there is another child in the highschool with the same name and given their surname I suspect have the same cultural connections as us. The other 2 are very simple names one had meaning to us and the other just a name DH and I both loved, think along the lines or Sarah Jane, Elsie, Edith.. simple names just not overly common or popular, although Elsie is definitely coming popular as I know of 3 baby Elsie’s atm. We never let anyone else have a day in our names and told people to mind their own if they commented.

Is hazelnut offensive in some way🤣?
Peanut, pickle, pumpkin, peach. All very common.
'There's my little Hazelnut' is really sweet in my opinion!

I disagree that Blossom is nice, well maybe for a horse, cow or pet rabbit. Not for a child.

Hazelnut is a very cute nickname. Why shouldn't a little girl have a nickname?

That’s dreadful calling a little girl nicknames like that.

Ah! There's usually a reason. Thanks.

Sex Education ran between 2019 and 2023, and Maeve was the name of the Emma Mackey character, which explains the big jump! 😆

There are lots of Evelyns, Elizas and Maeves around here. Hazel isn’t unknown either (isn’t it the name of one of Julia Roberts’ children, so has reappeared a little in recent years?) Maeve suddenly jumped in popularity here after it was the name of one of the main characters in Netflix’s Sex Education.

One solution if you want something a bit less usual is a less “current” name like Elizabeth, which you can shorten to Eliza if you want, but which gives your DD the option to have as a longer version, or even a different diminutive depending on whether there are many Elizas amongst her classmates. (FWIW I know quite a few little Elizas around the 5-y-old mark.)

I wouldn’t let my MIL dictate names. Keep it to yourselves until baby is born.
of these names Beatrice is nice but becoming more popular. I’ve never heard of Elowen but I think would become one of the many Ellie’s out there. Naomi is probably the least popular currently but does have different pronounciations. Blossom, Lydia and Primrose are nice and probably not too many around these days. I like Daphne, it’s pretty and not too unusual but likely not too many around of similar age.

I love Lydia and Primrose

@Lizziespring my 6th form tutor had a similar idea and all the kids in my class (only 6 or7) had the same birthday! It was a very large for the time 6th form college. We were all very different!

One of the name your MiL dismissed is the name dd2 has chosed for her baby girl due in 5 weeks! And I thought it was unusual!

I posted links to Darkgreener in a pp. Maeve was used 84 times in 2018 (#507), and 1265 times in 2024 (#26). That's a steep rise.

It's a typical example of a name that seems underused but will be overused in an age group.

I like them all except for Hazel. None are particularly uncommon - I would say Maeve is less common than Evelyn & Eliza, where I am at least.

Evelyn is popular in the North East. Some pronounce it differently too, there’s Eve-Lyn but also some pronounce it Ever-Lyn. There’s a few in my daughter’s school. Maeve is very popular suddenly. There was two Eliza’s in her nursery class of just 20 children.
Hazel is old fashioned in my opinion, sounds like a middle aged woman. I know two both in their fifties, never heard of another since.

@Mauvehoodie , it is. Arlo is very popular though, but they're all likely to be younger than 20.

I know a few parents of a Noah who chose it because it was different.

My daughter has a Hazel friend. Didn't think it was that unusual.

My daughter has a very common classic name (Elizabeth) so you would think there would be many, but have never met anyone in her schools or friend circle by the same name. Loads of Olivias and Avas though.

I think it's one of those weird things where names come in pockets. I went to a baby group where there were 10 of us and 4 of the babies were called Arlo. Statistically almost impossible but it happened!

@Alexandrine , It would have to be an absolutely massive school year intake for that to happen these days

I don't think it would. A few sets of parents thinking a name sounds fresh and a bit different, and you end up with several Arlos or Bonnies.
If you don't mix with young parents, you might not know that Arlo and Bonnie are both very popular now.

Maeve is very trendy and will date (in England) - it has shot up the charts in the last 5 years. It certainly has. Maeve

I've worked with some Evelyns and they're Evie. Evelyn
Evie peaked in 2009, but there will be Evies registered as Eve, Eva, Evelyn etc

Hazel is becoming popular. (75 in the list)

Oh I agree, SIMILAR names absolutely (Lily, Milly, Tilly, Lyra, Lila, Layla, Theo, Leo, Arlo, Archie, Alfie, Albie etc etc) but 5 of the SAME name? It would have to be an absolutely massive school year intake for that to happen these days- personally I’ve been in a lot of schools and I haven’t seen that happen in at least 20 years now. Tends to be double of a name per school year at most, maybe 3 if at a bigger single sex school.