Are really popular names really that bad?

DD1 has a popular name - when I was preganant I knew no one of this name, I thought I was being very original but once she was born they all seemed to appear.

But still like the name.

Both dds have unusual middle names

ALl names that are popular end up being naff int eh end apart from Royal type names.
Kevin Darren etc - still trendy in America for eg and not at all chavvy.

And remember that popularity is very fluid - 13 years ago when we called our dd Grace, it was incredibly unusual - and in her secondary school of 1400 girls (can you just imagine that!) there is only one other (bizarrely, also red headed and in her form!)

My dh has the no1 name for his year, and whilst at school he didn't meet many others, at university there were nine or ten of them. The result was that they all got nicknames - ie bigx, littlex, madx, fatx etc etc. In my class at at school there were two Hannahs (not actually a very popular name at the time) one of them was rather small, so she became LittleHannah. She hated it, being self conscious about being small.

I have a very unusual name and I love it (it has a very common shortening should I ever have wanted to blend in) but sometimes it is a bit irritating to have to spell it out all the time.

Our children have names which are middling in the popularity steaks, although dd's short name (mostly used) has one of those always popular and then very popular phases. ds's name was unusual when we chose it and then suddenly the short version became very popular. Although they are great names and suit them, I do occasionally wish we had gone for something more unusual (if dd had been ds2 she would have been Ezra).

I have a Jack, it's been popular for years now, but we still only meet one or two . My name is really unusual and I actually felt odd with it (as a child) and didn't meet one person with the same name til I was 16

We had Claires and Lynnes galore when I was at school.

There's a Clive in DS1's year (year 2)

It's interesting, Frog,that the boys names from the 40's & 50's aren't yet popular again. Clive, anyone?
(My father's name btw. We thought about it, but couldn't bring ourselves to do it, so settled on his middle name wich was last popular about 2000 years ago. FIL is called Kevin. That wasn't happening either.)
If we ever have twin boys though...

I liked having an unusual name as a child. Bizzarely, I felt slightly affronted when I met another.
For that reason I named my children "unusual" names. (Still actual names though!)
My name's really common now, but was unusual 20 years ago.

whoops this

popsycal is [[http://www.babyplanners.co.uk/funstuff.php this] the site you mean with the graphs? It's very good

MiniMarmite - you are sooooo an Alex.

Sorry, one of them pops up!

Agree with fillyjonk that some children seem to enjoy knowing others with the same name. DD's name isn't massively common in real life, but there are quite a few in children's telly. DD is always thrilled when one of the pop up.

Well its a personal thing - if you pick a traditional popular name the majority will like it, although some will probably think you are abit unoriginal. If you pick an original name theres a chance the majority of people wont much like it, but a few will really love it - if that all makes sense

My own name is definitely popular. Was once in a tutorial of 6 and 4 of us were called my name so have gone slightly more left field with dds.

Go for it - names go in and out of fashion so much that you can never predict whether your children will be the only one, or one of 10 in a class!

When I first found out I was pregnany I was adamant that we would call DS a more unusual name because when I first started school there were 5 MiniMarmites in a class of 24 children (about half of which were boys anyway of course - so nearly 50% of girls with the same name )and I hated that.

However, as the pregnancy went on and discussions continued there was really only one name that we both liked and it happened to be popular...very popular...but we couldn't imagine DS being called anything else, so we went with it.

He does have an unusual middle name (a family name) which helps the situation somewhat.

So many people comment on what a lovely name he has...so maybe it is popular because it is a good, classic name!

Whatever you call them they want to be called something else at some point anyway!

{some names have been changed to protect identities }

oh I have another thought

have always felt that having a common name allows kids to carve out their personality a bit better. Else they are just the kid with the name.

ps popsy is namewizard a us site? keeps crashing on me.

My thoughts are as follows:

1. Names that are popular are so because a lot of people think they are nice. To give your child a generally-seen-as-nice name is not a bad thing.

1. Don't worry about names becoming "dated". People don't tend to guess and age based on a name, more on number of wrinkles and grey hairs and reactionary opinions.

1. Children do generally seem to like having popular names.

1. Outside the top 10, odds are they won't know many others with that name. dd1 has a name in the 20s, I have NEVER met another child with her name.

1. They can always change it.

thank you for listening

Of course it doesn't matter!!
If you like the name, go for it - 'tis hard enough deciding on one in the first place!

For what it's worth dd's name just escapes the top 100 and ds's name is no.1 boys name!
I don't care! I like the names!

I personally dont mind popular names, but thats just me. When we were pg with DS, we decided on his name, named after DP's dad - popular back in the day name, plain and boring nowadays.

When he goes to nursery, he is the only one out of about 50boys that go to that nursery to have his name. We still haven't came into contact with a kid with his name. I think its a shame that traditional/plain/boring names are cast aside to make way for 'unique' names like Bronx Mowgli etc etc

The child will be MAx A or Max C or Max S at school rather than Max. i wouldn't like that.

Also if you have a Jack Smith there will be a lot of confusion for life with other Jack Smiths - which is quite handy if you are a criminal but quite annoying otherwise I would imagine.

i think try and go a little more original - there are so many names out there - my dd is the only one with her name in her class but there are 3-4 others in the school. Not that many but people keep saying 'oh which is she etc'

though i loved the post about how personality is the thing really - so true