The name I like is top 3?

Yes but isn't that because a lot of Muslim families will put Mohammed on the birth certificate but use the child's middle name for everyday use? You wouldn't necessarily know if a child was registered as Mohammed if they go by Jack or Ibrahim or something.

You will get conflicting advice on this, but just to add some balance to this, I discounted my favourite name in the whole world for my baby because it was consistently very high in the top 100 list. I was worried it was too popular. So we went with another name. At 3 months old we ended up changing it, to my favourite 'popular' name because it didn't fit or feel right. Ironically I heard lots of other children called the name we originally named our baby while out and about, and that name was very far down the top 100! So I don't think you can ever really predict it. My point is, just go with the name you love. FWIW I don't know a single Freya and also have a 3 year old and nobody in their group of friends/nursery has that name. Plus Freya is lovely ☺️ go with your gut.

My DD has a v popular name. We knew it was popular when we chose it but we just loved it! It's fine - she likes it.

I would bear in mind that there are local trends. For example Matilda is popular but has never been over 1 in 200 babies. Nonetheless every class in my kids’ (middle class, southern England, mainly white) school has at least one of them.

On the other hand I think Mohammed and variants is well over 1% of boys, and there is only one in the whole school.

so do you think you live in a Freya-ish area??

You obviously chose another very popular name for dd1 if you met 3 others with the same name within 3 months!

I didn’t use my favourite name for dd1 because it was so popular. By the time she was 3 months old I had met 3 other babies with the same name as the one I had chosen. So dd2 has my favourite name. And both their names suit them so it’s all turned out well. If you like the name Freya then use it.

Top 10 names are nowhere near as popular as the top 10 names when we were kids. It depends on the name. Generally, it's probably true but some names can be wildly popular in one year. I don't think that will happen with Freya because it's already been popular for ages.

Top 10 names are nowhere near as popular as the top 10 names when we were kids. People choose from a much wider pool of names, with so many striving to be different. Remember, not every child will want to stand out with a weird and wonderful name.

Where I teach, there are several children who have a statistically popular name who are the only one in the whole school, and there are other popular names we have none of at all. Days of multiple children in a class all with the same name are all but gone. When duplications do happen, it can be something really random and unexpected anyway (which seems to annoy the parents even more). At least with a popular name you know there's a chance it may be duplicated and you're prepared. If it is, it really isn't the end of the world. Many children actually like meeting other people with the same name.

You can't really compare Freya to Chloe, because the spike in popularity for Chloe was so sharp. I think parents chose Chloe believing it to be unusual, without realising that thousands of other parents had thought the same.

If you love the name, use it, because most people end up being Firstname Surname anyway. If your surname is very common, pick a more unusual first name, or don't use a go-to middle name. (There's a famous actor with a common full name, and there are about 12,000 people with the same name. He uses a different surname).

Names ARE meant to identify us. If you have a common first name, at least make sure that you have a more memorable (uncommon) surname.

I don't know if it's of any comfort/help but I'm in Scotland and there's one Freya in my son's nursery class (age 1-2), I haven't met any others around his age.

My son's name is in the top 15 and we've met three others so far, it disappoints me but I still love his name and couldn't imagine him being anything else.

I do know a lot of Freya / Freyja's but maybe that's just my area - all Freya's, Isla's and Matildas's here.

@Walkietalkie7 , you can't tell whether or not there will be others in the same class. The chances of there being 2 Claras or 2 Laylas in the same class aren't that low. In my class, there were two girls with the same name (just in the top 75 that year).

I have a Freya…she’s the only one in her whole primary school. I know of one other who goes to a club with my youngest. Lovely name.

My son has a very popular name and there were literally no other boys in his school with the same name until yr 3. He personally doesn’t know another boy with same name.

My eldest Son's name had been the number one name in the UK for ten years when he was born (almost 20 years ago). My younger two children both had top five names. It's never been an issue.

My dd's name was number 41 in the charts when I was pregnant. The next year it shot up to the top ten, and it's been hanging around the top 5 ever since (she is now 20). If I'd have known, I would have picked another name. But you know, it has never been a problem for her. She has always been the only one in her class of that name, and its popularity has never bothered her. So go for the name you love. And remember that if a name can shoot up from 41 to 10 in one year, it can drop right back down again.

If you really like it then use it - Freya is a lovely name

It might annoy her as a child - I found my popular name very very dull (my mum had no idea it was popular when she chose it), but as an adult I don't care, and helpfully it has stayed quite popular so it isn't an instant age signifier.

No of girls born in Scotland in 2024: 22,329

Are you in Scoland, @Walkietalkie7 . It's a popular name in England and Wales (Freya) and has been for decades.
NRS Baby Names shows it to have been in the top 30 in Scotland for nearly 20 years, and top 5 since 2020, so there will be plenty of them around.
Babies First Names 2024 - National Records of Scotland (NRS) shows name popularity by region.

Are there any other names you like?

It's fine except if (like me) you also have a very common surname.

Agree with a pp, if you like a name, popularity shouldn’t be a reason not to use it