Popular boys names to avoid

[Deedodem]

Due a little boy in September. I was wondering if anyone who works with small children could give me some popular names in your area to avoid..

Struggling to find the perfect name for our boy.

Thank you

Why don't you just check the regional ONS data? That's a much more reliable way of doing it. If you're wanting a name where your little one is the only one in class or school then certainly look outside the top 100 , preferably outside the top 200 names.

What sort of names do you have on your list?

@whatsyourflava

I did think of this but it is only the names for 2018 and I wanted to know what had become popular in 2019..

Jude is VERY popular here, I know 4 under 2!

Liam
Jack
Frankie
Josh
Alfie
Archie
Noah
Ryan
Scott
Jamie
Leo

My DS has a top 5 name, he's never met anyone in his class or friendship group, Scouts, sports clubs etc with the same name ... until he got to Uni & his best mate has the same name - they find it highly amusing!

Alfie, Archie, Oliver, Jack, Arthur, Harry, Theo etc are all very popular..!

The kids I know right now are:
Archie, Alfie , Arthur
Felix
Jack, Jasper
Leo
Oscar

A lot of them have the other ones as middle names too

Seriously, it doesn't matter. Pick a name you like - if it's the "perfect" name then who cares if someone else has it?

There were four boys called Matthew in my primary school class. My first ever friend had the same name as me. My husband's nephew is known by his first name and surname-initial at school. (Four hundred years ago half of all children born were given one of six names. - ok, that's maybe a bit annoying.)

Forgot Harry, Noah and Reuben. So many

Why does it matter if it's popular? I'd rather pick a name I like that deliberately avoid one just because it's common

Just make one up if you're that bothered about being different.

Leo
Liam
Riley
Kaden, Caiden
Albie
Jude

Name trends change very slowly on the whole so when the 2019 data does come out it is unlikely to be very different to 2018. The names.darkgreener.com site is useful to see how long a name has been popular for; for example Jack is beginning to fall now but it was incredibly popular for many years and there are a lot of Jacks around.

It doesn't matter if the name is popular, you can't always tell what we I'll be popular that year. We had 5 Ellies in one year group at school one year. As a teacher the only thing I would say is avoid 'interesting' spellings. It doesn't say 'I'm so creative' it says 'rules don't apply to me'.

what will be popular

Popularity mattered to me and matters to lots of other people too. You don’t get to tell someone else what is or isn’t important in naming their own child.

Arthur, Harry, Oscar, Oliver, Leo, Theo, Henry, Bertie, Freddie, William, Dylan, Archie, Kit, Charlie, Tom, Zachary, Noah, Ben. Know multiples of all of these under 5.

Of course lots of these are lovely, hence the popularity!

Alfie, Archie, Louis, Leo, George and Teddy / Theo are all overly popular on my area

Agree Zoya!

Teddy I know 8 under 5.

The under 2s I know:
Leo
Edward x2
Theo
Corey x2

ONS data is far more reliable than anecdotal reports. After I had ds (now 2) I met 3 Ezras, while the name has grown in popularity it doesn't mean that this is one of the most popular names in my area, just a coincidence that I happen to know 3! Depending on how unusual you want your child's name to be I would look outside the top 50/100/200 names and make a short list from there.

Just pick a name you like! What does it matter if your child has the same name as someone else? I think there are probably a lot of local variations. A name that's popular in my area might not be in yours.

I picked the most popular name in the UK at the time for DS1 because it was a name that I'd loved since I was a child and my DH liked it too. In real life we haven't encountered that many kids with his name. Same with DD's name; according to MN her name is everywhere but there isn't anyone at her school or in her hobby group with it.

There is also a long-running thread on this board where hundreds of posters have contributed the the names of the five most recently born babies that they know of. It’s anecdotal but interesting.

The most popular boys names for 2019 aren’t likely to be much different than the most popular boys names for 2018, so I think you’d be ok using the 2018 data.

The website names.darkgreener.com/ shows naming trends in England and Wales from 1996 onwards, so that’s another useful resource if you’re concerned about popularity.

A name that’s, say, ranked at 101 but has been trending sharply upwards in recent years, is a name that’s likely to break through into the top 100 soon and keep climbing.
Whereas a name that’s ranked at 101 that’s been bumping along in more or less the same place for the last decade isn’t likely to be getting super popular in the near future.

Having said that, the top 10 names these days are given to much less babies these days than the top 10 names of 20/30/40 years ago. There’s a much wider pool of baby names used now.
The top boys name in 2018 (Oliver) was given to less than 1% of babies born in 2018, so less than 1 in every 50 boys was named Oliver. So I don’t think popularity is something you generally need to worry too much about, even if you decide you prefer one of the more popular names.