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Original poster

Which would you regret more?

119 replies

Onceuponatime123 · 19/07/2020 20:34

Which would you regret more?

Choosing a popular name and child being 1 of 3/4/5 in class.

NOT choosing a popular name that you LOVE because it is popular.

The name I am referring to is Evelyn but the question is relevant to any popular name.

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wheresmymojo · 20/07/2020 10:18

Go for the name you love.

As an 80's Sarah I really don't get the issue - my name was number 1 for years and TBH I had one other Sarah in my class.

Then when you get into the wider world you're mixing with all ages, it's reasonably rare that I come across another Sarah in my teams, friendship groups, etc.

MamaDane · 20/07/2020 10:20

It wouldn't bother me at all, OP. I'd go for the name I love.
Evelyn is lovely. Don't worry too much about popularity.

PixieDust1986 · 20/07/2020 10:33

My daughter is Evelyn (pronounced Ever-lyn). She is 3.5 and at the time she was born we knew we wanted a classic/older name. We also didn't want anything too popular and I'd never met or knew of another Evelyn!
Within a couple of months of her being born , I knew of about 3 others and did hear it when out and about. I love her name though!
We did think we'd use the nn Evie (did for about a week) but it confused people and they started pronouncing her full name Eve-lyn (as opposed to Ever-lyn) so we stopped!
I'm glad we did as there are LOTS of Evie's about. I've since asked my daughter if she'd like to be called Evie/ Ev, as some people at her nursery /those who don't know us that well try to do so, but she says, "No! I'm Evelyn!"
No regrets on her name!

MsTSwift · 20/07/2020 10:36

If popularity doesn’t bother you it’s fine of course. I have a dull popular name (shared by 3 others on my friendship group). Didn’t want that for my kids personally. Was envious of my sisters name which is great and rarely used - feels much more “her” than my run of the mill wallpaper name.

My dds were the only ones in their 400 kid school with their names and I often got compliments on the names. Nothing unusual or whacky just not the top 10 ones everyone else chose.

aquamarine1 · 20/07/2020 10:38

I have two children - one with a super popular name and one with a really unusual name. Guess which one has a name twin in the class (clue - not the popular one!)

NataliaOsipova · 20/07/2020 10:41

Just choose what you like. You can’t second guess what everyone else will do.

Pieceofpurplesky · 20/07/2020 10:48

I have taught a few Eves but only one Evelyn (1000+ pupils on school and 20 years teaching)

MikeUniformMike · 20/07/2020 11:13

Choose the name you love.

I don't like Evelyn however you say it, Evlyn, Ever-lyn or Eev-lyn, and I really dislike Eva and Ava (think Braun).
I think that Eve and Evie are lovely, but so popular.
I can only think of about 3 Eves over 30, and that includes Claudia off the telly''s mum. It will date badly.

Poppydaisies · 20/07/2020 11:16

I have two children - one with a super popular name and one with a really unusual name. Guess which one has a name twin in the class (clue - not the popular one!)

Of course there are exceptions! But if you're one of 6000 girls with the same name or only one of 60, the chances of meeting others with your name throughout life is massively increased.

Iwantacookie · 20/07/2020 11:17

My daughter has a not common but not top 100 names. There ended up being another girl with the same name and birthday. It happens.

PurBal · 20/07/2020 11:20

I love Evelyn as a boys name so I wouldn't because I wouldn't want to be cruel. Otherwise yes.

aquamarine1 · 20/07/2020 11:31

@Poppydaisies um yes? I was just giving an example of my personal situation.

turquoise50 · 20/07/2020 11:34

A name doesn't have to be 'made up' for other children to consider it weird. My parents got my name from a baby name book, it's a real name, just a 'foreign' one which nobody at the time had ever heard before. Later, by the time I was at high school, there was a character in a popular tv show with the name, but that just lent itself to even more bullying tbh.

I do think that these days, with society being more multicultural and there being more variety in names generally, kids are more likely to shrug off others' unusual names (unless they find some way of twisting it to sound rude - this has happened to DS as well). But the whole thing is a minefield!

MsTSwift · 20/07/2020 11:42

Not advocating odd weird names agree that can be a pain too. Just seems odd that the majority pick the same names!

Eve variant type name
Isabel variant type name
Amelia
Olivia
Grace
Poppy
Alice

Most girls are named one of these round here. Why not Miranda Zoe Tess off top of head there are many nice normal but underused names

cookiesaurus · 20/07/2020 11:50

My parents named me a really old fashioned name (they named all of us, me and my siblings, after grandparents or great-grandparents) and I hated it! All through school I wanted to be called Laura or Sarah!!

I could never buy any of the gift shop tat with names on it as my name was never there!! Plus, my first name has only 3 letters so I can't even get any kind of nickname out of my name plus they didn't go for the most common spelling of it so it's forever being written incorrectly! Additionally, they never even gave me a middle name! 🤦🏻‍♀️🙈

I've called my daughter a popular name, which can have many different nicknames and given her what I think is a beautiful middle name! I had to go through a very awkward conversation with them when informing them that we wouldn't be using traditional, family names!

In my opinion it's worse for the child to have an unpopular name than a popular name!

threeduckslittle · 20/07/2020 11:51

Is Evelyn pronounced Eve-Lyn or Ever-Lyn? Where I live it is 'Ever-Lyn' and they are all called 'Evie' as a nickname.

RuthW · 20/07/2020 12:17

Evelyn isn't that popular. Evie is. Just use it.

turquoise50 · 20/07/2020 12:25

@MsTSwift If anything it's worse for the boys. At DS's school that he's just left, all the boys seem to be called Alfie, Finley, Charlie, Matthew or Alex. Much more variety among the girls, with only Millie and Matilda seeming to be the overused names.

@cookiesaurus Couldn't agree more. Name popularity tends to be very class-dependent as well, so that while you may get clusters of a particular name within a school, by the time they leave school and go on to uni or work where there are people from a wide range of backgrounds, they may find all their namesakes disappear or at least are more spread out. I had an XBF at uni whose name was Richard. At his school (boys' independent), his entire friendship group had been called Richard, and had to go by Rick, Richie, Dick(!) etc to distinguish each other. But at uni he only knew one other Richard, and I've barely met anyone else with that name since.

MsTSwift · 20/07/2020 13:23

My father and basically all his friends have the same name 😁

Must be something about human nature the urge to fit in with the crowd is very strong

worriedmama1980 · 20/07/2020 14:17

I think the issue is you can do what we did and choose a 300-ish name, and find it leaps up to the mid-hundreds in one year. You would then be really frustrated you'd chosen a less popular name for 'nothing.'

Something I've also never thought about is the sound of the name- we have a name that ends in 'a', she's the only one of the little cluster we know with her exact name but all except one of 20-something female toddlers I know have names that end in 'a', so in a group with Rosa, Ava, Eva, Mia, Mya, Ella, Aria, the fact is her name is a bit same-y in a way I hadn't anticipated.

It's like the something-mae or something-rose names, they feel a bit of a type.

I've accepted that some kind of subconscious influences makes a generation of parents gravitate towards particular names, and maybe that's ok and we shouldn't fight it so hard.

FizzyGreenWater · 20/07/2020 15:12

I hate to say it but the reason you 'LOVE' Evelyn is likely the same reason 1000000000s of others do. It's currently one of THE names. Everyone feels like you - or they did - otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them. Nobody names their child a name they don't 'LOVE!'

So less real attraction to the name and at least a big chunk of simple exposure. That's how it works.

Eve variants are so overwhelmingly popular - it's meaningless.

I would really urge you to genuinely consider less popular names because I honestly think you'd probably find other names you love as much.

helia · 20/07/2020 15:14

I think even if you choose a popular name it's only something like 1 in every 50 children who share it. I like popular names too. Oscar is the only boys' name I like and would use at the moment (the others I'm not brave enough for - like Barnaby and Raphael) but it is also overwhelmingly popular.

Soubriquet · 20/07/2020 15:16

Choose the name you love

I don’t think Evelyn is that popular anymore tbh

Soubriquet · 20/07/2020 15:18

Names are weird

My dd in a massive school never met a child with the same name

Moved to a local village school, and there is another girl with the same name in her class.

Don’t regret not giving your dd the name you love

halcyondays · 20/07/2020 15:18

I have 2 dds, one has a name that’s probably not been out of the top ten for many years but she’s never been in a class with anyone with the same name. The other has a name that’s not unusual but not top 10. She was once in a group of children where there were two others had the same first name and the same initial surname.

So you can never tell, just go with what you like.