to tell friend that her baby name choice is not unusual?

[toastofthetown]

My friend is expecting her first baby later this year. As I’m massively interested in baby names I asked her if she had anything in mind. She said she wanted something unique and is planning on using Aurora. I said that Aurora is a gorgeous name, but has risen hugely in popularity over the last few years and is now in the top hundred. My friend seemed annoyed with this and told me that it is a very uncommon name with only a few born each year, so I just changed the subject.

Since then I’ve been wondering if I said the wrong thing. Was I unreasonable to point out how popular the name is? I wouldn’t have said anything bad about the name itself, but l didn’t want her to regret her choice later, because she didn’t know about the sudden spike in popularity.

[BertrandRussell]

Yep. Having very common names doesn’t seem to have been a problem for John, Paul or George. Or Mick, Brian, Keith , Bill and Charlie. Or George, Charlotte and Louis for that matter!

Don’t get the unique name thing at all.

[WakeMeUpWhenGoodOmensIsOn]

I was a bit confused by that as well Pavlichenko, but of course there is: Maleficent.

[Boulty]

Lots of parents think their child's name is 'unique' until they join a nursery and realise the name they have chosen is the current trend.

Isla, Ava, Mia, Maia, Mya,Harper etc etc are the current Deborah, Tracey and Sharron of the 1960's and 1970's …. some names stick out for a particular time period whereas some names really are ageless and appear all the time.

[FineWordsForAPorcupine]

I think it's kind of fascinating how names trend - I am nearly forty and remember a couple of friends discussing baby names (when we were early twenties). Sure enough, a decade later when they had their babies, they realised that a LOT of people also really liked Eva, Grace and Oscar as well!

It wasn't that they had heard those names around them being used for children - when they decided on those names they were considered quite unusual. And yet a couple of thousand other people were also selecting the same names.

[hopelessatthinkingupusernames]

The year my son was born (2015) there was one baby in the whole of Scotland called Karen. I know someone who had picked an unusual name for her daughter and it suddenly shot up the charts. She should have gone for Karen!

[GummyGoddess]

@shoesarefab If your daughter was only one of I think 3 with that name it won't show up. Also it is only England and Wales, not Scottish or Irish if you're there?

DC1 was 1 of 6 in his year, I wish I had seen it beforehand as I didn't want a super rare name. I'm waiting for later to see how many DC2's there were and the split between sexes.

[Blueblueyellow]

Exact same thing happened to me! Wanted Aroura and someone told me it's really popular, I had no idea.Then another person told me the same. Went with a different name that I love but still have yet to meet an Aroura... 🤷‍♀️

[MsPavlichenko]

WakeMeUpWhenGoodOmensIsOn of course!

[ASHLEYBALDOCK]

I named my eldest Ellesse 21 years ago , at the time I had never heard another child called it , but the day I gave birth there were 3 others born in the hospital ,just spelt different, I have 6 children and names as common as Archie and Billy and then I have Tianna-Lleigh and Lacey-rae which aren't unusual but not as common ...,..i don't think you was wrong to point it out especially as she had said that was one reason she choose the name ?!x