Popular or Unusual? Thoughts plz!

[Wedonttalkaboutjuno]

Hi all, first time poster here in need of some help. Currently pregnant with my first child, a daughter, and my wife and I are struggling with a name we both love.

My name is Juno and while I really love my name now I did suffer from some funny looks whenever I introduced myself, and some light bullying growing up (didn't help that the movie Juno came out when I was a teen). This definitely shaped my preference for a more standard, common name for my kids.

My wife however is Amy and she always despised how common her name is, recalling times that she was one of 5 in a single class and how insignificant and nothing it made her feel. As such she always said her kids would get more unusual names.

I'm curious about others thoughts. Did you love/hate your own common/unusual name? Did it inform your descions about your own kids? Any thoughts welcome and appreciated!

I have one of the most popular names of my generation - I believe it was in the top 10 when I was born. Ironically, my mum chose it because she thought it was unusual - she had only ever met one person with my name. As a teen, I didn't like it - I thought it was too popular and it always annoyed me to be one of several girls with the same name in the year group or circle of friends. I felt somewhat jealous of the girls with names like Saskia and Felicity, who were unique in the school.

As an adult, having a popular name really doesn't bother me anymore. I mix with people of a wide variety of ages at work so my name is not so common in the workplace. I appreciate having a name that is classical, feminine, easy to spell and pronounce and works well internationally.

In general, I think having an unfamiliar name would be much more difficult than having a popular name - I have a friend who is originally from Eastern Europe and goes by an Anglicised nickname in the UK because he's given up on correcting the pronunciation of his actual name... Imagine a scenario where literally nobody in the English-speaking population can pronounce your name right, because that's the situation for many foreign nationals.

I think a middle ground between popular and obscure is best. The names I've picked out for my children aren't in the top 20 but they aren't unheard-of either.

DH and I have fairly classic names where you get one or two in most age groups. I think for us naming DC the main things were:

Easy to pronounce
Doesn't have loads of different spelling variations
Basically we didn't want DC to spend all their time telling people how to say or spell their names. I think on a practical level that's more important than how unusual a name is.

Based on those criteria, only Katherine from you/your wife's lists would be an absolute no from me, because of the various spellings.

The thing is I do really adore my name now I'm an adult. Nobody teases me anymore and I love that it's from mythology and find I get a lot of compliments. My wife hates her name now and hated it then so I guess thst might be a bit telling.

Both Amy and Juno are lovely names.
I prefer your name choices to your wife's though - Ariadne and Titania are a bit out there, I really don't think Titania would go down well.
My own name is a classic but with a spelling variation that firmly puts me in a certain decade! My DD has a name we thought was little used but it's become fairly popular, still love it though and it suits her perfectly.

Also the Eliot Page movie definitely had a huge effect on how people reacted to my name. I have memories of classmates, family friends etc making jokes about my mum having to keep an eye on me becasue 'juno's a pregnant teens name' 😒

• *A bit ironic really given that as a lesbian having unprotected sex with male classmates wasn't the biggest worry for my mum 😂

I think as lots have pps have said there’s a huge middle ground of names between super common and on trend and highly unusual/outlandish. Plenty of gems that are easily recognised and simple to say/spell but outside the top 100.

There are so many beautiful, underused names out there that I’m often surprised at how, even in these ‘anything goes’ times so many people pick the same ones. We’ve just received the class list for DD’s new primary school (London suburb), and it basically reads: ‘Olivia, Amelia, Isla, Isla, Olivia, Eva, Ava, Evie, Luna, Lara, Lyla…’ DD has by far the most unusual name, and she has one of those middle ground ‘compromise names’, rather than a really out there one.

I like both of your lists, except for Titania, which I suspect may invite teasing. A non-frilly, underused classic would be perfect I think. And, more than avoiding individual names because they’re in the top 100, I’d be inclined to avoid names that feature a currently trendy sound, with lots of similar sounding popular names - think the Ava/Eva/Evie/Evelyn names, or all the trendy short L ones: Lyra/Luna/Lily/Lyla/Layla et al.

Something like:

Claudia
Marina
Antonia
Adelaide
Audrey
Susannah
Carmen
Ingrid
Cleo
Iona
Isolde
Athena
Esther
Josephine
Viola

I agree with most - there is a compromise between all the top 10 names, and going to 'unusual' or even worse, unique.

Sally And Katherine fit nicely into that category - everyone has heard of them, but there aren't many babies being given those names at the moment

Your favourites aren't particularly common though?

Yes I feel this is what you're looking for. Almost worth looking at popular names from 20-30 years ago and comparing to now

I do have an unusual name and people sometimes struggle to pronounce it. I didn't like it when I was younger, but it has grown on me. My son has a common name, it very meaningful to us and it suits him 100% - I love it. He has a middle name which I love as well, however much less common and I like that he can choose if he decides he doesn't like his first name. You're trying your best as a parent, bit there's no guarantee.It's hard to make any predictions about your child's character. Some children might like unusual names to stick out, other might be a bit shy and prefer a common name.

I didn’t like having a very common name as a child. As an adult I don’t care much.

There’s a middle ground between Tatiana and Sally though eg Claudia, Lois etc

Oh I love Sally! You never hear that now and it's such a happy name.

Titania makes me think of Natalia, which could maybe be a compromise name?
tho I would LOVE to be called Eleanora!