Are these popular in your area?

[Midnightdream]

Me and DP have whittled it down to 2 firm names and I'm undecided on which one. I'm not a fan of popular names hence the title.

Sidney
Ernest/Ernie

Lots of Sidney/Sids in our area. Ernie, I've only heard once or twice.

I knew a Sidney when younger but it was a girl. Never met an Ernest under 70...

I know a couple of both. They are both of a certain generation, so will be growing in popularity.

Not heard of either where we are (midlands/South West border), but Sidney Earnest was my grandfather's name do I think you've made two great choices!

I haven’t heard of any. Nearly all the babies are Theo around here.

I'm in Kent and haven't heard of either in recent years. Lots of Alberts and Stanleys though!

Have spent years and years at baby groups and never met a Sidney (and I look out for that name as it’s one of my favourites!). If you look at the official stats both your choices of names are pretty rare and account for a minuscule percentage of total baby names that year. I think either is a safe bet although with almost all names theres no guarantee there won’t be two in a school but looking at the statistics it would be very unlikely

A couple of Sidneys but not in the last ten years.

A few Ernests. That's the most popular one but nowhere near as popular as Arthur etc.

Both lovely names.

Alway the names of our grandfathers and great grandfathers come back into fashion

I haven't heard either of them locally. I do have a relative with a Sidney and a Reggie though, neither of which I'd personally use.

I know one of each

I know one Sidney hes 4. I love the name. When I picked DS name, I had not ever heard another. I love old names. I have the girls name picked but I need to be sure on a boys name!

Haven't heard of either of them.

I’ve never met anyone with any of those names.

They’re all below the top 200 boys names if you look at the stats though, so I guess that’s not surprising.

Darkgreener is a good site for checking popularity trends:

names.darkgreener.com/#ernie

East London. I know three Sidneys ( male) all under 6. I’ve met a few older children called Ernest who all came from Poland.

I've not heard of any round here in the east midlands.

Delightful names.

In my area I’ve only met ones over 75, but I’d love to see a comeback.

@MinorArcana I'm surprised they are under 200! DS had gone from 427th to 88th

@Whatsyourflava my partner refused Sidney at first but it's now his favourite

On the boarder of Kent/ London- heard them
more amongst the Kent lot. Especially Sid.
The old fashioned/ traditional names tend to be more popoular in Essex and Kent.

Sidney is one of my favourite names! It was going to be both of our boys names but we chose different names instead.

We are expecting a girl this time, but if she had been a boy he would have 100% been called Sidney.

I asked for opinions on a couple of forums on the name and got a lot of stick for it. (That isn’t the reason we didn’t go for it in the end by the way, we had 2 other older names that we chose instead but I love Sidney just as much as those).

So I definitely vote for Sidney. I do also love Ernie, but it has nothing on Sidney in my opinion.

Good luck!

I definitely think Sidney is a name that grows on you so I can appreciate your DH taking a bit of time to warm up. I just love it though. Perfect
What’s your other DS name and what’s your potential DD name if you don’t mind me asking , I’m interested , if you’d prefer to DM me (or just not say!) that’s fine of course

• sorry DP not DH

Is it Ralph? That’s one of my other favourite names btw. You have excellent taste.

I only know girls called Sidney but I think that is a USA thing.

I know a lot of under 5s and know none of either (I'm in Bedfordshire). I do know a Sydney but she's 11.