To think unique child names take away some childish delights?

[EugenesAxe]

I was musing about this today - my DS (4y) came to me and said a boy on a certain CBeebies show had the same name as him, and he was really chuffed about it.

There is a book we read in which DS likes to point out some names in a school that are his and his two cousins' (all names in recent top 10s).

One of my favourite things about The Twits when I was young, was that it was 'For Emma'.

It seems popular these days to search for a unique name and I sort of think it's a shame that people forget the vague affinity you feel when you meet someone with your name. Or is this just me and AIBU? Not a very important one to be fair.

At school there was a heck of a lot of Samuel's (Sam), Benjamin's (Ben), Emma's, Jessica's and Jordan's (Jordan was more popular in secondary than primary school). It got really confusing differentiating between them, especially when they had the same first initial of surname! It would be a case of the teacher shouting to Jordan and then everyone would be like but which Jordan? And they'd end up being known more as their surname or for the one girl Jordan she was indeed known as 'the girl Jordan'.

My name was not popular at all. I was the only one in my primary school and only one of two in my year at secondary school. However it has recently become more and more common, I see my name on personalised tat now which NEVER happened when I was a kid and I was gutted about that. My best friend is a Ben and he loathed being one of about twenty in the school year, he still doesn't like having such a 'plain' name now and has mused about changing it to Wolf a few times .

I gave my DC slightly old fashioned classic names that aren't of the 'yoo-nique' variety but are equally not so common. It was important to me that they wouldn't share a name with a million others their age. I'm not sure why, I just didn't want that for them. A lot of the most popular names now are indeed lovely but if they were in that top ten list I immediately had to remove them from my list.

Talking about personalised stuff (I know you can have it made to order) my dgs has a very popular name, Finn. I can never ever fing the ready made tat with his name on it. There are loys of Finlays some Finleys but never a Finn, not even in Ireland except for the odd coaster with it as a surname. Why? Finn is very much a name in its own right.

My DDs all have fairly unusual pretentious classical names and I think YABU. It makes it even more special when we do hear of other kids with the same names.

Also, all of their first and middle names are from ancient mythologies or classics books, so there's a wealth of art and culture out there with their namesake's on. We have prints and key rings with paintings of "them" on even if they aren't plastic monstrosities from Toys'R'Us.

DD1's teacher gets her to tell the story of her namesake whenever they do the Greeks at school and she loves it.

I never looked at the top 100 lists or whatever when choosing names, degree of popularity was not something we really thought about at all, just went for names we liked and that went with the surname. There are usually about 2 more of DS's name in his 250 pupil primary but none with DD's, bith are very normal names, like ours and all our siblings.

SaucyJack - (non-confrontationaly) did you read my second post? I think your family sounds exactly like the kind of names I wouldn't raise eyebrows over! In fact it sounds a cool setup - I love classic names and Greek mythology; your children still experience that fun of seeing their name in stories and the like.

If you share a name with someone you regularly mix with eg same class at school you risk a nickname to go with it to identify you. I once lived in a shared house with four Anns.

If someone phoned and asked for Ann, you would have to say which Ann - Big Ann, little Ann, Asda Ann or Irish Ann?

I think there is a line as to how popular. I have known at least a dozen if not more with the same name as me (same name as yours going by your op) and I always wanted something less popular. I was nearly named Louisa and so wish I had been as it's not uncommon but I don't personally know any.

My DS has a very common name, but I don't know of any recent babies named it. It's a family name on dp's side so lots of relatives called it going back years.

My daughter has a lovely (unusual) name and we have never met anyone else with it..but over the summer she got really excited because on the real housewives of Atlanta her name came up on the screen.
She shouted me and said my names on the tv..does that mean im famous!?
I think she thinks shes the only one with that name..

My name was uncommon when I was born - I was named after my great grandmother. I was the only one in my class/year group all the way through school and I liked it. But when I was about 6 it suddenly became very popular and I remember hearing it being used all the time around me and aimed at 2-3 girls not me....I found this really odd after being the only one with the name.

As an adult I now have a friend with the same name as me and she has 3 other friends with the same too....it's a bit wierd but in other ways it's nice to be part of the gang.

My DS has a traditional name that is still pretty common. But he has never yet been in a group or class with another one of his name. And we can buy plastic tat with both the long and short form.

Both me and my dsis could never find tat with our names on, although dsis could now! It never really bothered us.

Dn and ds 2 are the same, we just order the tat off the internet.

None of us have ott unique names

I always thought I would give my sons slightly I unusual but not radical names such as Helena, Rowena, Isla - ie. names people have hard of but you don't come across too often.

Ended up using traditional names - there were three with eldest son's son in junior school, and two,with youngest son. In senior school, there is another lad with same first name and sir name, in same year!

Although I love their names, part of me regrets not being a bit more daring with their names. I think parents today are a bit more adventurous with all the granny names, as they look for something original but not radical.

I think now popular names aren't as popular as they were 20 or so years ago. DS has a name which is constantly near the top of lists yet there were only around 5000 born in the country last year. He is the only on in ks1 of his 1.5 form entry primary school and only 2 of them in the whole school.

You can get pencils / key rings / anything online with your name printed on. I just ordered these at Xmas and b/days for extra presents. They went down really well and problem sorted. You can even buy books containing their name.

DD has a fairly common name, with about 2500 in her birth year. She seems to be the only one in our village though.

At work, I'm one of 6; luckily we're rarely all in the room at the same time. We are distinguished by the prefixes Fat, Young, Big, Little, Bristol and Tachograph. However, the two Bobs who work in Despatch are merely known as Bob and Other Bob.

Ordering online is fine but it's sad every time DD is disappointed in a gift shop when she finds DS's name on things and not hers. Luckily we do find hers sometimes and she is overjoyed.

Before I had the DCs someone mentioned the gift shop thing and I just brushed it off thinking that just wouldn't be a thing at all, but it's surprising how often it happens.

I have a four year old called christian I wouldn't say it was unusual or unique never found another child the same Age with this name though nor can we ever find any keyrings cups etc with his name on it!

Yabu. I have an unusual name and have always loved it. It never bothered me to not have pencils etc with my name on. I do occasionally meet someone with the same name and I don't feel any affinity with them.

I have a v popular 1970s name my mum thought it was sophisticated I think but there was loads in my year at school although I am a snob dont like the shortend version much I would have liked a more unusual name at school

I suppose so. There weren't many Alexas were I was. I did like it how you didn't have to say Alexa M. when you said my name, just Alexa. DS2 has a unique name but other DC have fairly common names.

My DS has a 'normal' but it isn't spelt the traditional way. I doubt very much that he will ever find a coke bottle or keyring with his name on

Typo: he has a 'normal' name

My name was v common when I grew up in the 70s (five in my class) and I hated it - not the name but how common it was. I know quite a lot of adults with my name of course, but i often have to remind myself of their names as they don't seem like their name IYSWIM. probably because they're not me!

My DSs have much more unusual names. DS1's name unintentionally, I thought it was more common than it's turned out to be. We met another recently at the park, DS1 wasn't interested, tho the other mum and I had one of those 'isn't it strange hearing your child's unusual name called by another mum' convos.

DS2's name is rare (15 the year he was born). It's never going to be on a mug but weirdly shortly after he was born I discovered another baby locally with almost the same first name (unusual but not as unusual as DS2's) and the same unusual surname. We are all great friends now but it's caused some problems already - doctor's surgery got them mixed up once (they've flagged it on their systems now) and when we were looking at the same nursery I had to make sure nursery realised they were two different children (they hadn't) and would need two places.

My dds have popular names but not for their birth year if that makes sense the re was is nobody in their school years with the same names they see m to quite like that.