Anyone picked a really “original” name...

[Canone]

... only to discover it isn’t at all?

I have a Kit. Thought it was a bit quirky and “different” at the time. Even the stats seemed to suggest so.

He’s 2 and I’m hearing it EVERYWHERE. Yet another celebrity has just had one. I still love it of course but isn’t funny how we think we’re being really cool and “original” and actually we’re anything but!

Anyone else have any tales of baby naming woe?

I've just put all my favourite names in and there are only a few per year born in the UK. Well happy with that. I will take my chances that there won't be a massively famous one of any of those names that will catapult it to a top spot!

I have a baby jade :)

My DS has a very unusual name in the UK as it's a foreign name- it's a family name for my DH. ONly 3 born in the U.K. in 2017! DS was born in 2018, and yet there's another one at his (not huge) nursery!! But a year or two older. Waiting for the 2018 naming data with interest 😊

I think anything outside the Top 100 is fairly unusual, in reality.

People choose much more varied names now than they did before. Even the no.1 names, Oliver and Olivia, will be comparatively fewer than their 1970’s counterparts, Jennifer, John.

My daughters name lingers between 115-120 in the name listings. The only other one I know of is from the mother and baby group I was (and still am) on. We live nowhere near each other and never have. We just share great taste in names.

Andy name outside the top 10- or even the top 5 you’d be unlucky to have one in the same class. Even Oliver is only 1 in every 40 (I think) boy babies.

@hammeringinmyhead it’s interesting you describe the vowel trend as ‘prettier’ - because the fashions change & all think their fashion is attractive. The next generation are likely to hear the vowel trend as deeply uncool as it’ll be linked to you mums generation.

I don't personally think they are prettier but I was reponding to me saying Christine/Julie aren't used and someone saying they know Julias and Christinas. There are so many Amelias/Ellas/Mias that I don't think the existence of baby Julias disproves my point.

I named my daughter Harriet in 1988. It wasn't in the top 100, I'd never heard of it being used for a child and some people expressed shock. Within a decade it was in the top 50 I think and now it's probably more common than that. It is a bit annoying.

As a teenager in the 80s I loved Harriet, Olivia, Adelaide etc. as names and they were not common at all then. I got quite a lot of my names from Georgette Heyer and Jean Plaidy to be honest.

My husband firmly vetoed Hero which was my final Heyer attempt. And that was that for teenage dreams.

We chose a "classic" name for DS1. I wanted something unusual for DS2. The chart shows what happened.

Yeah my kids names ain’t ever coming “back”. I didn’t pick them for originality. That’s the key.

Harriet is an interesting example. 51st in the charts, but only about 1000 baby girls called it out of about 300,000. So still unusual.

Names so often happen in pockets though don’t they? So although the nationwide numbers aren’t huge, you are more likely to know others because the name is popular in certain areas or communities.

Harriet is an interesting example. 51st in the charts, but only about 1000 baby girls called it out of about 300,000. So still unusual.

No, a name that is used a thousand times in one year alone is not unusual. And that's before taking into account the cumulative effect of previous years' worth of Harriets. I know quite a few Harriets.

An unusual name imo is used maybe 10-20 times per year.

My daughter had what we thought was an unusual name. called her it and then it was the most popular girls name a few years back! Typical!

My daughter had a unusual name but year after she was born it rose out of nowhere to number 1 or 2.

If a name rises AFTER you've used it, it's not so bad as she/he won't have many in their year group at school or work.

It's when you give your child a name that is already very trendy, so already in the top 50 or so.

Why is it bad? There’s enormous diversity in names now compared to even 20/30 years ago. Having the same name as a few other kids in the school isn’t that much of an issue is it?

And 1000 kids a year in a population of 60m+ means that you may never meet someone with that name. Or you may know five. But it’s still not a particularly heavily used name.

Eva, Ella, Ava, Mia, Harper, Layla/Lila are just the name of every girl here in south east it's just expected now lol

We have lots of Maisie’s, Millie’s, Lily, Ellie, Ella, Eva, Evie, Eve near me. I had a fairly uncommon name, still is uncommon, and husband was one of several, so we opted for unusual names for DD and DS. They aren’t even top 1000

I don't think there's much point saying "I picked names outside the top 1000 for my children". It's hard to predict what will come back - I assume that's OP's point. Presumably some time around 1995, the parents of a few children called Ava and Isla and Harper were saying the same!

No seriously. My kids names are never coming back. I can predict they won’t be popular as they were never popular to start. They aren’t even unheard of, they are just not names people go for because they are old man names that aren’t cute. There were 60 of DS1 and 140 of DS2.

Sissy79, I'll join you.

My DS's name shall never 'come back' either, as it was never 'here' to begin with.

Midwives and people in general, in the beginning:

'Oh, is he named after a relative'?

Me: 'No'

One midwife: 'An apostle'?

Me: 'No'

Awkward silence

Neither of my dds names show up on the names list thing, meaning 3 or less I think. I imagine youngest was the only one, eldest possibly one of 3, but both unusual and never heard another one!

Any name outside the top 10- or even the top 5 you’d be unlucky to have one in the same class

I was seriously unlucky ... ds1's name was ranked 55th for popularity in the country I live in the year he was born. He ended up being one of three in a class of 28 when he started school. (ds2's name was ranked 3rd in the year he was born and he did end up with another child of the same name but I clearly deserved that!)

That’s funny Lilac3! All the cuter old names come back, usually the ones ending in Eee sound or have a nickname that can be added with that sound, because they sound so sweet.

Charlie
Harry
Ollie
Teddy
Archie
Alfie
Reggie
Ronnie
Rory
Bertie
Sonny

You can’t do that with Keith.