Hubby and I only happen to like the top baby names in England.. help!

[MrsHBaby3]

Amelia and Harry
which according to bounty.com have the number 1 spots!
Are we that boring? Do we need to come up with something else or doesnt it matter?
Suggestions, please!

They are No. 1 for a reason!

Seriously, I was very surprised that Amelia was top. I have one in my class this year but hadn't taught one for ten years.

Have two friends who each have a baby Harry. I think that because people choose from a wider number of names, even the most popular names are not very common. Only 7500 babies called Harry last year, so if you went for this name, he is unlikely to have 4 in his class.

I regret not calling my DD Amelia and would advise you to think carefully before rejecting names you love.

If you love them and it's not important to you to have a "u-neeq" name then go for it. They are mostly traditional names that have stood the test of time. Amelia is a bit 'of the moment' but is a lovely name with lots of potential NNs. My son has a top ten name and so far has never had another child with the same name in any groups or his school class.

Both of my DCs have top ten names as we liked them. I have a reasonably rare name and hated it as a kid as I could never get any personalised stuff.

Amelia and Harry are both lovely names.

Also, in addition to the very good points above, although Harry was no.1 last year, it was given to less than 1% of the boys born, meaning you would have to know 100 newborn boys born the same year as your baby before you meet a second Harry.

Who cares! I knew Charlie was common and I picked anyway as I loved it. It suits him down to the ground, and weirdly I don't know any others. If you go into it with ur eyes open it's fine I think- it's worse when you think you're picking an unusual name and then it becomes popular.

Three of my Dc have current top 10 names. I don't know loads of them really. The youngest 2 aren't at school yet although I expect there to be a couple in their classes. It doesn't always mean anything though. I know of 3 Ellens born in the village who will all be in the same year at school. I have a top 5 namer the same age and don't know any that will be in the same year group.
I know a few Amelias but its a lovely name so go for it!
Harry also.

I think Amelia is more popular than Harry, although it obviously just depends on who you know. When I had my dc1 ten years ago it seemed like half of my nct circle named their dd a version of Amelia/Emilia or Amelie. And that was a decade ago!

Please try and like something else! What about Romilly?

dd's name was number 178 in the year she was born, and there were three of them at one toddler group i went to (and two mums had same name too). what's popular on paper and what's popular in yours and your child's life may be two dif things. also i have a name that was very popular when growing up and it didn't occur to me to mind.

Don't worry about it, I can only think of one Amelia I know and no Harrys; our DS's name is in the top 10 but there is only one other in his class (with the same surname would you believe ) but it hasn't bothered either of them. My DH's name is incredibly common for his generation, same as my brother's but they don't really care, much nicer than having some corny so called 'original' name.

Statistics are just that. In DS's year the top name was Harry - there is only one in his class but two Bens.

2011's top names were Oliver and Olivia, fwiw. I had a baby that year and didn't meet a single baby Olivia.

You could go with Ahmylya or Haree to be more unique. Or, like me, use the names you like, regardless of how popular they are and stop worrying about it.

I have 2 DDs, 3yrs and 4mths. We know one harry who is 3, and one amelia who is 3. I wouldn't consider them over-used names at all. I think there are far more Isabel/Isabella's for example.

Both are lovely names :)

My own name is very unusual - I've never met another person with my name. I have always liked my name, and thought I would avoid really popular names for my own children.

Now I have an Isobel. That spelling is not high on the list, but if you add up all the Isobel/Isabel/Isabelles it's probably even more popular than Amelia. DH and I loved the name, it felt right, we'd loved it for years, and it suits her beautifully. I never feel self-conscious about our choice. We've met another couple of Isobel/Isabelles at different groups, but she's the only one at her nursery - like other posters have said, even the most popular names are chosen by only a tiny percentage of people. It still feels unique to me, because it's unique on her. And like Amelia, it has plenty of options for nicknames if she wants to distinguish herself. Plus she has a middle name.

I think just go with whatever you love - you probably love it for some deep reason you can't even fathom and you'll risk regretting it if you don't go with your gut :)

I have an Amelia. Was just outside the top 10 when I chose it and even now she's only one in her class.

Still LOVE the name :-)

Who cares if its highest on list. If you love it you may regret not using it.

If you like them use them. The really funny thing is when people think they have been unusual and then get another in the same class. You are quite likely not to get others-especially if you think you might.

That happened to DD4. We met the only other one we have ever met in her class when she first went to school. They have been BFFs ever since. They are both known by NNs though.

DD3's name was in the top 10 for years and may still be for all I know. There was also another one in her class but that wasn't as much of a surprise. They use different abbreviations.

I like both Harry and Amelia and think you should just go ahead and use the names if you like them.

Lovely names.
And I don't think it matters about popularity.... Ds1 is almost 12, gave him my fave name which was not on any of those lists (to the point where friends wrinkled noses and said "what?" when we told them what we'd called him) six years later it was top 5 and went on to be top boys name a couple of years ago. So owing to the fact that you can't control what anyone else does, call your dc something you want for them.

Gorgeous names which I agree you should definitely use if they're you're favourites. If you love hearing them it doesn't matter where they are in the popularity list. One of my own to choices if I'm lucky enough to have a future dd would be Olivia, which is in a similar situation.

Ds was born in 2011 and in our immediate 'circle' of babies (friends, groups, nursery) we know 5 Harrys and 4 Amelias!

My DDs name is not only top 10, but the name of a stripper too.
She has never met another Ruby at school in her whole 11 years of being on earth.

You never know what's going to happen either. When I was at school my classmate was called Kylie which everyone thought was the maddest name ever and didn't know how to spell. She hated it for being so different! Then Kylie Minogue hit the music scene...and she hated it even more for becoming so well known!

So pick what you like because fashion is fickle.

I do think there's a difference between classic-popular and trendy-popular. I would avoid trendy (which would later sound dated and/or naff) but classic is ok. For example, I don't think James has been out of the top 20 for a few hundred years!

You can always get a clear picture from Mumsnet about whether a name is trendy or classic.

I think you can tell whether a name will become massively popular or not though. I was looking at the name stats for previous years when I was pregnant in 2002, i could see that Lydia was rising slowly, two places a year. Ruby (a name I really liked) was going up 15-20 places a year. I'm a nerd though. I don't expect everybody to study the statistics like I did. I need a smiley with specs.