AIBU to think the government should cap the number of children called a particular name each year?

[sausagesandwich34]

ok I know I am and this is supposed to be a bit of a light hearted thread but....

I am a brownie leader

25% of my pack are called Chloe!
3 of them have a surname starting with the same letter

out of the rest of them Molly,Holly & Emily I have multiples

I've taken to calling the entire pack by their full names so no one feels left out but that's 48 names to rememeber!!!

how do teachers do it?

You get the ones who think they're being frightfully original and edgy but then they find most other people in North London have picked the same name!

there has always been popular names though when i was young i,m 39 next months there were loads of claires, catherine [various variations] sarahs etc boys were all paul david stephen etc i dont think i have come across a baby paul or sarah for years and at some point maureen and alan must have been popular but can you imasgine a newborn maureen or alan?

When my parents were naming my brother they had 7 names they liked, one allocated to each day, and they named him accordingly. Don't see why that couldn't be rolled out nationwide for each day of the year!

It totally depends on the area which you live in.

I live in a very diverse area and, although my son has a popular name (popular for generations, not 'trendy'), we very rarely meet anyone else with the same name. There are no duplications of names in my dd's class, although one in my son's.

I'm sure if we lived somewhere else in the country he would be known as 'popularname3' or whatever.

yes it does depend on where you live how popular names are 1 areas Alfie is another areas Archie it is all geographical

In my NCT group there was a little boy called "Pholen". It was apparently his mothers maiden name but, dear god, it is ugly!

Pholen sounds like Fallen

There were 5 of us with my name in my French class at school (out of 30).

And one of the teachers had a lazy eye and would ask a question and then end with the name of the person she expected to answer, looking up at them. The problem was, she could look at two of us [samenames] at once! It took me most of the year to figure out which eye I should be relying on.

Archie. I know 14 Archie's aged between 4 and 10.

Rachel. Umpteen Rachels here.

Ethan, Oscar and Lewis are all popular boys names here, and Holly, Isabelle and Chloe are popular girls names.

Good thread Sausages.

There could perhaps be some pre-registration system (max 3 choices) with names to be allocated across the year. I could however see this leading to ds posts on MN along the following lines

"Dear MNers

What to do ?

Our (unborn) DS is currently waitlisted for a Harry and we have a firm offer on an Alexander . We have a backup of Timothy . All for September this year.

We love Harry but think he would grow into Alexander and we would probably be happy with it in time. I hate the name Timothy but my DH loves it (and wrote it down on the form without me knowing . ) I fear if we end up with Timothy I will have to leave the bastard.

So my question is , anyone live in the Upsidedown Netherbourne area and know what the situation is with the waiting list for Harry ?

Yrs Namedilemmanamechanger "

Ah, but if you have an unusual name then you forever have to spell it out and/or correct the people who can't be arsed to listen properly and call you by the male version of your name/another name entirely?

[bitter]

Yes, I know this also happens with Emilie and other variants on 'common' names but I'm willing to bet not half as much.

Yes, I picked an 'unusual' name for DS1. Well, it was unusual in 2002. Now every second child has the same name. In 2002, only 3 DC's in the COUNTRY were given his name. Now it is consistently in the top 100. Grrrrr.

I helped start the blooming trend!

Plus, if you had monthly quotas, can you imagine the queues at the registry offices on the 1st of the month as the competitive mummies try and jostle the others out of the way?

Nah I don't think it should be monthly rationing of names based on a first come first served basis, that's too boring. The parents should have to compete for their favourite names in the registry office - the parent who can fit the most grapes in their mouth at once gets to name their dd Emily :o

ID go with Alexander all the Alexanders I know are september born my dad and a cousin. I havn't heard of Alexanders for a few years dd2 is 14 and I know 5 her age so bring it back round

the hospital could have a ticket machine like the supermarket and new parents could pick a ticket to see what baby was called that would be different and they replace the roll every few months

On second thoughts I vote for the mouthful of grapes idea

Am I the only one that consulted official government statistics on name choices and ruled out anything in the top 50?

There are actually lots of good traditional names that don't seem old-fashioned, but are hardly used at the moment.

Spreadsheets compiled by Office for National Statistics here:-

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-266770

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-266770

In one of my dds classes there are 10 girls and 3 of them are called Ruby!
Whereas I picked what I assumed to be pretty common names (my youngest two are Emily and Rosemary) and have never met any others at the school.

I'm with you all the way sausage - I have taught a million Rebeccas/Amys/Tegans/Jacks/Connors/Dales etc. etc. (with all the various spellings thereof ) and it's a nightmare trying to sort them all out in your head when you get your new classes.
I'm secondary and I can have around 100 plus names to remember in short order.
I once had a class with a Mary in it a couple of years ago - it was so refreshing!
I vote for the lucky dip idea - they could use a proper old barrel of sawdust too. Just like the old days at school fetes

To the OP, Chloe is on 12th on the list, suprised you haven't got more Amelias

Rank Name Count
1 AMELIA 5,054
2 OLIVIA 4,938
3 LILY 4,761
4 JESSICA 3,984
5 EMILY 3,974
6 SOPHIE 3,923
7 RUBY 3,702
8 GRACE 3,691
9 AVA 3,621
10 ISABELLA 3,464
11 EVIE 3,385
12 CHLOE 3,347
13 MIA 3,346
14 POPPY 2,932
15 ISLA 2,849
16 ELLA 2,783
17 ISABELLE 2,719
18 SOPHIA 2,661
19 FREYA 2,619
20 DAISY 2,458

Ruby is definitely one of the up and coming names.

I'd really like to see a resurgence of Fiona, Elspeth, Eleanor, Catriona, David, Hamish, Ian etc.

I wish they had this system in the 80's, I have never been in a class and not had another Amy as a classmate.

Hardly anyone has my name.

I doubt it'll make a resurgence