To wonder why you would pick a name in the top 10?

[FreckledFrog]

So the latest top 100 baby names have been released this week. It has prompted me to wonder why on earth you would pick a name in the top 10-20 names.

There are thousands of beautiful, unique names out there, yet so many people are happy to pick the same names despite knowing their children will go to school with multiple Olivia's, Noah's, Amelia's or George's.

Do these people not desire some originality for their children?

Am I being unreasonable? I have a very very unusual name and have picked less common names for my children and I wonder if this clouds my judgement?

I work in a school, a very small primary and it never ceases to amaze me how each year our Reception class always has at least two children with the same name - usually not top ten names. Our intake is 10 children and this year out of those ten two are called Oscar. Last year two girls called Ava, another year two Heathers, another year two Finlays, both with double barrelled surnames. It seems so strange out of such a small number of children.

I'm avoiding top 10 names (actually we discounted anything top 50) but when you look at the numbers rather than the ranking, even the no.1 names don't have that many children being named that each year.

YABU both of our names are in the top 10, if you look at it the other way, at least you know lots of people like your name and everybody will be able to spell it! Better that than calling your child vcdggfg to be 'different' and actually most people being quite

But you don't know until after the event what the top 10 names are going to be

Oh come on! The Top 10 have barely changed in years: Amelia, Olivia, Isabella etc etc. They're the same as when I named my daughter nearly 9 years ago. her names is well down in the 600s or similar in the popularity lists. there's 5 Isabel/Isabellas in my daughter's dance class.

I absolutely can't imagine wanting to use something that so many other kids were called. i hated being one of several girls with my first name in my class at school . No way would I raise the chances of that happening for my kids.

Meant to say I have a fairly unusual, inoffensive 80s name- I think it's fairly stripperish. Most people say it's Spanish (ok it is) but unusual. My life is in no way enriched from this name

Our daughters is top 50 but it's recently become clear some people close to us were so surprised by it they thought it was made up. So you never know

googled names from my mothers generation, some are making a comeback.

My name is in the top 5 of that list. I doubt my parents knew that would be the case 29 years ago.

I think my sons name is in the top 10 or so. Chose it not because I couldn't be arsed to think of something "unique" but because of the meaning behinde it. It's special to us for family reasons so sod it. If he's in a class with another 10 with the same name who cares. I don't. And actually he's the only one with his name at the moment!

My middle son has a name on the late 90s end of the top 100 and there was still another child with the same name in his class at nursery. Unless you completely invent a name you've got a chance of someone else being called what you chose. There's not a single olivia in any of my kid's classes so popular doesn't always mean popular! Name your kid what you like, yabu

Even with a top 10 name, there are 2.000-6.000 others that year also called Olivia, Oliver etc. Among 800.000 babies a year. One in 1.000 if you are really unlucky. Not worth the head space and preferable to Yooniqueness.

Only around 50 people in the UK are born with DS's name each year. I swear they all live in a 3 mile radius of us.

Both of my children's names are now in the top 20. They were the only names we could agree on and I spent ages worrying abou them becoming more popular, but they're nice and classic names so I decided that I didn't care about what other people thought and used the names I liked.

Popularity shifts a lot. I have a name that was very unusual in my generation, so much so people used to spell it wrong, or ask if it was part of my heritage.Twenty years later it became incredibly popular, top 5 or above, and now at work all the twenty somethings are called it and we all have to use initials to distinguish ourselves. I don't think my mum could have predicted that! So, to have a truly unusual name, you have to find one that is always and never will be very popular which is actually quite hard as names cycle, and names like Emily which would have seemed very unpopular in my generation (of Sharons, Janes and Wendys) are now absolutely ubiquitous.

As for living with a popular name, it's fine, I'd rather have a pretty name that lots of people like with positive connotations than a very unusual name that no-one can spell. I have one child with an unusual name and one with a top ten name and the top ten one is much happier with her name as everyone can say it easily, she doesn't mind the initial thing either and is best friends with the other one of her name in her class, it's the two Janes (not Jane, you get the idea). The unusually named child is fed up of everyone saying her name wrong.

Both of my boys have names in the top 10. I chose the names because I like them. I couldn't predict they would be so popular so YABU.

Because I want my child's personality to speak for itself rather than assumptions being made from a name so a common one means there are less misconceptions. I like the privacy from googling it will give them. I really don't like the idea of giving my child a name which speaks about who I want them to be rather than who they turn out to be. I want them to fill their name rather than being defined by it.

One of my DSs has a top 10 name, but we gave it to him over a decade ago when it wasn't even top 50!

My DC have popular names. One of them even has a name that we knew fine well was in the top 10 when we picked it.

Ultimately, we picked their names because those were the names we liked best. I wasn't willing to give up on the names I loved best simply because they were popular. It's not a decision I regret, so far at least.

Plus, popular now isn't the same as popular decades ago was. The most popular baby name now has been given to something like 1% of babies born last year - that's not really massively popular, in terms of "are they likely to be falling over other kids with the same name".

Checking last year's infant school tea towel - despite my DC's names ranking high in the lists, there's only 2 of each of them, including my DC, in the whole infant school.
(Incidentally, not a single Olivia or George in the school, and only 1 Amelia and 1 Noah).

1. I have an unusual surname that requires spelling. Didn't want to land the children with a complicated first name too.
2. My name wasn't popular when I was young. I could never find things in gift shops with my name on. This irked me.

There were no baby Nigels last year. You could have a baby Nigel and he'd never have the insurmountable problem of sharing his first name with a classmate.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41332138

Because they're popular for a reason?! They're nice names!

My DD has a name just the top 100, DS is within the top 50, but until I looked at the list I would have thought my son's name was less popular than my daughter's.

If we have number 3, some we love are top 10 and some don't even feature in the top 100.

I personally probably wouldn't actually choose a top 10 name for number 3 as our other two are less popular, but give me Oliver or Amelia over any 'youniqye' name any day!

I picked a name that was no. 41 in the year I was pregnant. I was happy with that - thought the name was not that common, but not too unusual either. I have a name which was almost unique when I was a child, though is more common now, and I really hated that as a kid.

The year my child turned 1, that name was up in the top 10. And has been in the top 5 ever since. Really odd how everybody started choosing that name so quickly. This was my first child and I had honestly never met anyone else with that name before - and then it kind of exploded.

I'm not thrilled that my child has a name that is mocked on MN - but you know, it's never bothered her, so meh.

Meant to say 1 in 100

Probably because they hear the popular name somewhere and think "wow that's beautiful!" And name their kid that before realizing how popular it is..before dropping their kids off at daycare and meeting 10 other Ava's and Jackson's and Olivia's.

That's what happened with my first son, I found out after the fact that his name was hugely popular..names are cyclical it seems, I had never met a kid with that name growing up so I thought it was more unusual.
I was in the generation of Jennifer's, Jessica's, heathers, and Ashley's. I tried naming my second boy something more unusual, so that when he's older people won't immediately think "yup, you were born in the year xxxx"

There were 3 Emilys in my year at school (I'm 46). 2 Emilys and 2 Amelias in my sister's year.

But I didn't know a single Lily growing up, and all the Olivias I knew were over 50.

My children's names are consistently in the top 10. Both were named after very dear family members. Maybe I should have made up some ridiculous names with 'original' spellings, just in case anybody thought I lacked imagination. Oh, hold on - I don't GIVE a shit.

I don't really get it either. My friends sons are called Harry and George. I just think...it takes no thought or imagination at all really, to pick two of the most obvious boy's names around.