AIBU to think parents should stop being put off a name because it's popular?

[GreatStuff67]

I feel like I've read a lot of posts recently where parents are trying to decide on a name for their baby but the name they like best is popular and so they're unsure about using it. When I was at school we had multiple kids with the same name (myself included) and no one seemed to care if they shared their name with anyone else. When did popular start being a bad thing for a name? Am I being a grumpy git or are other people thinking 'Who cares if it's a popular name. If you like it, use it!'?

I picked my dd1 name then two years later it became popular. Dd2 has a mid popular name and ds1 has a popular name but I love it.

I don't understand the thought process of "theres three in every class" on the most popular names. They are used for less than 1% of babies. Its statistically more likely to be repeated, not guaranteed.

RTFT.

The point’s been made many times.

As has the refuting point. It’s not either / or.

There are a whole heap of lovely, normal, nice, under-used names in between top 10 and Yooni’que….

YABU. I have a common name and was always one of many with that name. I hated always having to use my surname too and wanted my children to have a one name identity. They have normal but not common names as a result.

Incidentally we were just talking about this as a family yesterday. DD15 loves her name for the fact she is the only one in her school.

Yanbu - I was one of 6 in my class with the same name and it didn't bother me.
Dc1 has a top 5 name for his year in primary there wasn't one other child with his name yet three children in one class had the same quite unusual name.
Dc2 also has a top 10 name and has not had one in the class with the same name.
Dc3 name is not as common but he has had dc with same name in his class.
You just don't know what the trend locally will be so best just to choose your favourite name.

We wanted to name our child something different but not so wacky that it would cause issues in the future with school, work etc and I think that's important to think about. No child wants to be embarrassed by their name, no child wants to spend the rest of their life spelling their name and (and I know it might sounds snobby and possibly overthinking it) you want a name for your child that will read well on a CV, university application etc etc You just want to get the right balance so your child can get on in life without their name being a barrier or cause for taking the p*ss from their peers or colleagues.

YABU, somewhat. I don't think the top names are quite as popular as they were in the '70s; they're a smaller share of kids. But a lot of us have memories of how there would be 4 Sarahs in the class.

My (married) surname is also very common for my ethnic group. If I picked a really common first name, it would be like being named John Smith. None of my children have unique names, but I like them being just distinctive enough that they don't feel entirely bland.

Dd1 has a reasonably uncommon name. I know a few kids and one adult now with her name, but she was always the only one in her class etc. she loves her name and likes the fact that it’s known, but not common.

dd2 has a common name. When I named her it 14 years ago I didn’t know anyone else with that name. The name isn’t unheard of in people older than her, but it’s not common either. But it seems that from her age and down every other kid has this name! She likes her name, but not how common it is. I still like it though and it does suit her.

There are 3 Avas in DD's class. I'd just find it annoying. There are hundreds of lovely names and I definitely avoided the very popular ones.

Then try being an Archie or an Ellie round here if you are 12-16. Names aren't evenly distributed across the country because socio-economic background, race, and religion also play a part. So you get hotspots.

Also my name was the top name the year I was born and there were 27 of us across the entire school 😅 I hated it.

I feel like, due to the more diverse range of names used now, you don't necessarily get the 'five kids with the same name in one class' thing as much as you used to. At school in the 90s there were multiple Christophers/Davids/Daniels/Sarahs/Gemmas/Claires.

But of the top ten names for boys the year my DC1 was born, there are only six boys with one of those names in his entire year group of 60 at school. And with the top ten girl's names, there are four girls in his year with any of those names.

DD2 has what was considered a very unusual name when she was born. It’s now about to go into the top 100 names, 20+ years later. One of the names we considered for her was in the top 10 that year. There was one at her primary school, and one in her university year. I don’t think popularity is the thing it was when you were one of four Sarahs, Lucys, Emmas or Catherines, because there is a much bigger pool of names to choose from.

Saying that, I have a friend who had a woman not want to have anything to do with her at a children's activity group because their kids had the same name. The first woman had thought she'd given her child the most special and unique name ever and was annoyed that my friend's child had the same name.

I wouldn't say my name is unusual just not widely used in my home country. My name is from a different country where it would be extremely popular. I've always loved that I've never met anybody with the same name as me. My dc all have unusual but not ridiculous names. People always comment on how lovely their names are.

At one point at primary one third of the girls in dds class were named Eve or a variant of Eva (Eve/Evie /Eva). Perfectly nice name but that mad!

I have a popular name myself and didn’t want that for mine.

I grew up with groups of kids where everyone had to use their last initial with their name because there were 3-4 of each per class. I didn’t want that for mine, so we tried to go for a happy medium and pick classic, established, traditionally-spelled names that just weren’t in the top 100. I think they’re nice. Everyone will always have a criticism, but I try to consider the source. SIL once told me she thought our names were stuffy and try-hard. Her own kids have the sort of vanilla names that one in 4 children has had for the last 40 years, so clearly we were never going to be attracted to the same genre. One person’s overused is another person’s classic. One person’s underused is another person’s try-hard. And then there was MIL, who told me not to give our youngest the name we chose because she knew a girl at school with that name who she didn’t like. 🙄

I do think that when it comes to the ubiquitously-used names, there is a big difference between going with a traditional spelling of an old classic and going for a weird spelling on a relatively ‘young’ name. It’s the newer invented ones get a little cringe, because it looks like the parents are trying really hard to have something original whilst failing to realise that they are just like the millions of other parents doing the exact same thing.

Baby names are far too personal to put much stock in what other people think. Go for what you like and then grow a thick skin!

Nobody my age had my name. Because it was a shit name. Everybody had an aunty or a granny with my name. I wanted to be a Debbie or a Julie or a Michelle (our school was full of them). Just not my crappy name which will hopefully never become fashionable again! My sister had an equally crap name. My brother, however, had a cool name.

When I was pregnant I really liked a name which was really popular at the time, and two members of my NCT group called their baby daughters the name, at which point my husband said it would be really silly if we used the same name and we had three of the same name in a group of eight babies.

Well. We had a son, not a daughter and had a name lined up for him that we both liked. We didn't think it was a very common name, though not very unusual and my much older cousin has the name.

BUT there was a boy in his primary school class with the same name :)

And we didn't keep in touch with anyone from the NCT group so it wouldn't have mattered if we'd had a daughter with the same name.

And later two work colleagues called their sons the same name as my son :)

So what you think is popular and isn't popular may change very rapidly.

I don't understand the thought process of "theres three in every class" on the most popular names

In my primary school class there were, as far as I can remember:

2 x Karen
2 x Tracey
2 x Mark
2 x Christopher
2 and at one point 3 x Helen

and probably more duplicate and triplicate names that I can't remember anymore

Baby names are far too personal to put much stock in what other people think. Go for what you like and then grow a thick skin

My advice would be to remember that babies grow up. Will the name suit a future adult?

I know so many people who have picked a name specifically because it's unusual (going on past popularity lists), only to find that it's actually incredibly popular in the year their child is born.

Yanbu OP. When we were deciding on names, it genuinely didn't occur to me to find out how common or uncommon they were. We just picked a name we liked.