The next big thing...?

A friend of mine has just called her little new born girl Joanna. Which struck me as odd at first, but actually I really like it.

Ds1 & 2s names always appear in the top ten in England & Wales but never ever in Scotland where we live so they are quite distinct e.g. at school. Ds3 was one of something like 50 born in Scotland in 2007 so we'll have to wait and see - the short version of his name is terribly common popular though and we are very clear that he is the looooong one. Glad to see neither name for dc4 (due in the next month) has appeared. Yet.

(I know, me too Mamalazarou, but we thought it would be too tricky. Skyler seems fairly accepted in US. I still wobble though...)

'Sarah, Ruth, Emma for girls' - flashback to 80s where I was known as 'little Sarah/Ruth/Emma*' as there was always one bigger than me!

*not telling which

I think we'll see a return to classic names:

William, Richard and Peter for boys..

Sarah, Ruth, Emma for girls...

I know 2 little girls called Skye. I quite like it.

I predict a massive rise in the name Sky/Skyler for a boy

I have a Jemima,born 10 yrs ago.
deliberately called her that as was classic but unusual.
Hope it doesn't gain in popularity.

We have got 3 Jemimas in our circle of friends who were all born in the last year.

newmum265 - there's no reason why you can't call your son by his second name if you want to. You can even swap them around on his birth certificate if you feel strongly about it

I have seen Astrid and Celia popping up on a few shortlists lately.

Like alot of people I'm feeling quite relieved that a girls name I really love is not featuring on here (not PG but have it in mind!). DD's name was top 100 but I didn't know until after she was named it. I have not met another one & everyone we speak to says how unusual & pretty it is

anyone seen this??
makes me feel a bit better - our great-grandparents weren't so hot on finding new names either!!
am completely stuck with boys names at the moment. our surname doesn't help (tends to make most syllabic names into adjectives)

We have a Christopher (absolutely not a Chris, but a Christopher). He is the only one I know born in recent years and yet it's a really traditional name.

I'm pretty conservative where names are concerned, but I find it ironic that so many people are trying to be "different" that some of the most obvious traditional names are completely dismissed .

DS1 was called Noah - we didn't know any at the time, and my mother was quite horrified as she'd never heard of anybody (other than geezer owning the ark many centuries ago ), kept saying that it wasn't a real or proper name and couldn't we come up with anything better...

within about three weeks she had come across not one but 7 others who were named at that time, mostly grandchildren of her friends, hairdresser, lady in the post office etc. And - by a couple of days! - she was the first to 'have' a noah and you would have thought she had come up with using the name herself

mind you a couple of years later she did ask if I thought we had done the right thing choosing noah and didn't we regret not choosing what was actually the name of my old teddy bear - errr no mum, I like the teddy's name (for the ted) but it was never in the running for ds1 name! so I'm not convinced that she really does like the name still!

Mind you, better than for one of my sister's dc's names - when told what it was going to be she said 'you can't call her that, it's a dog's name'. It was a proper girl's name that occasionally (along with many other names) gets used for pets - not like she wanted to use Rex or Rover. Dsis was upset and wondered what to do for weeks before deciding to stick with it and it does suit her dc. and BIL has decided to call his next dog after my mum (ie his MIL) so that her name will then be a dog's name too

I know 3 small Beatrices, 3 Tabithas and for hoys, a few Louis/Louie/Lewises.

ps we made the mistake of discussing our considerations with everyone- after the baby was born too- advice for pregnant folk- DONT DO THIS!!

There seems to be loads of baby Ruby's in my area as well as all the usual Emily, Isabel, Molly, Milly, etc.

For boys there seems to be loads of shortened names ending in ...ie. Freddie, Charlie, Alfie, Eddie,etc

tallbirduk- were you happy with your choice in the end or do you wish you had stuck to the original? We did the same- had a name (james) and then once our baby boy was born it just would not stick. We called him james for a week and it didnt work and we ended up calling him Conor (gave him James as his second name) (we are irish btw), But I constantly think we shouldve stuck with our first choice as conor is a really common name.I love the name and he suits it but wish we'd tried to be a bit more orginal!. btw he is 7 months now! I need to get over this dont I!??

I've also known 2 Tess's born in the last few months and never known/met one before (although have known some Tessa's).

I'm in Scotland and I reckon the trend for celtic'y sounding names will continue so that would be: Connor, Aidan, Ethan, Logan, Lewis, Findlay with a quite few Jacks and Mathews and lots of Joshes.
and there are hardly any Alfies here, but perhaps it will become more popular in the next year. In it's stead is Achie, which I think will continue to be popular.
For girls very popular and bound to continue will be Sophie (no. 1 for a few years), Megan, Ellie/a, Eva/ie, Kaitlin, Isobel and variants and Kyra type names.

sigh seems you can't escape the zeitgeist. I didn't know any Oscars when we named ds 4 years ago - weren't particuarly trying to be different, just loved the name.#

Now I'm 4 mo pg and Florence has always been my girl's name, but almost all of you have it down as the next big thing!

newmum - I always had a list of at least 5 and decided once born. Hard to put a name to face as they look so wrinkled and red when born but definitely had a few wobbles and kept thinking I'd made the wrong choice .. I haven't (x4.) Advice to anyone pregnant - Don't tell anyone the names you like (obviously you can discuss with DH!) Then introduce child with name and nobody will say a thing to your face! None of my babes names mentioned but they are who they are ... as long as you like the name what does it matter?

Emma for girls. Many friends are very enthusiastic about it at the moment.
It was Leo and Theo 2 years ago for boys. No idea now

Newmum - yep - we had a shortlist but when DS arrived we scrapped it and it took us 4 weeks to give the poor boy a name! And then it was one that we had never even considered.