Who is still naming their babies Oliver and Olivia?

[Algor1thm]

Controversial... but really...

I work in a job where I meet lots of little kids and there are just so, so many. Half my friends are also married to or dating Ollies so it's not even limited to one generation. Does it being the top name for so long really not put people off?

I am aware that Oliver was recently knocked off the top spot, but still.

I'm also aware that this is going to be unpopular because approximately 50% of you probably have one yourself 😂

I’m an 80s Helen who has been twenty years too young for my name all of my adult life. I’ve recently started a new job and there are so many Helens that it creates real confusion and I keep having to ask for clarification on whether a task is being delegated to Helen A, Helen B, Helen C etc like we are in primary school. There are so many Simons they are referred to by their initials.

@ZoyaTheDestroyer not that I was aware of. I obviously looked up names but never spotted it. Then two years later I was doing same for second dc and it was number 1! Although tbf internet wasn't like it is now but there was none in my child's school/life.

Quite. Oliver was the 3rd most popular name in England and Wales in 2007 before it hit number one in 2009 (and it’s worth noting that even at #3 it was used 6438 times, far more popular than the current #1 Noah which was used 4525 times). Olivia was the second most popular name in 2006 before it went to #1 in 2008 and again with a real number drop in name use of over 1000 compared to 2021.

Both Oliver and Olivia were more popular ‘before they became popular’ than they are today!

I suppose what I find interesting is, why does it matter if names date?

Because some us don't like being among a huge number of people born around the same time and all given the same name! Such names require us to add a surname to identify us and our ' fashionable' names fall out of fashion and start to sound dated.

Would YOU like to be a Sharon or Tracy or Clare born in the 1970s?

Is much rather be names something more timeless, names that were never in the top 10, ever.

Sorry for the typos - I'd rather be names a more timeless name!

named

Here it’s the Eve derivative names. May as well have called them “girl”. Every friendship group has several Evie’s. And people still using it!

I agree that a lot of people don't care how popular a name is.

But also a lot of people don't understand how it works. A friend of mine has an Amelia born in 2004 and she told me she wanted something unusual. I said............ ''oh''.

Olivia is a lovely name. So many names are used these days that a name can be number one and yet you only know a couple of them

With regard to names dating, I think it's hard to predict which names will be tarnished with age.

Unfortunately Karen, Sharon and Tracy got hit hard

I know lovely people with all of these names and I don't just mean that they're good people. They behave in a classy way and are not flag-bearers of the tarnished image of the name in any way.

However, Suzanne, Louise, Rachel, they're all of the same era and they have got away unscathed. Yes, dated but names date.

Exactly!

Based on my name alone, you’d probably think I’m about 15 - 20 years younger than I am, because it suddenly got popular due to a celebrity example, having been rare when I was born. But I don’t think anyone who’s seen my name on an email has collapsed in shock when I’ve appeared in person. Or maybe they’re just thinking “Christ, she looks rough for 25” 😆

Is much rather be names something more timeless, names that were never in the top 10, ever.

That doesn’t make them timeless.

@WomanStanleyWoman2 Names that were never 'fashionable' can't fall out of fashion and sound dated. I consider such names timeless. For example
Cecilia
Marianne
Antonia

There are lots of beautiful names that have never been in the top 10.

But again, that’s not what “timeless” means in the sense of names. As others have said, a timeless name is something like James or Lucy, where you wouldn’t be surprised if they were 18 or 80.

Never having had a mainstream peak of popularity is not the same as being timeless. I’d definitely assume a Cecilia, Antonia or Marianne was older.

3 Ollies/Olivers in my DC class (year 3) but our (small, just over 100 pupils) school has even more Harrys. I know a few Livs on their mid-20s
There’s 20 years between my eldest and my youngest child so I’m familiar with a big range of what was popular over the years, and I’d say Jack, Joshua, Harry and George were in every single of my DCs class, for girls Millie/Chloe/Katie/Mollie/Meg(an)…though in the youngest DC school there are some Olivias but more Floras and Florences - also pretty.

With my eldest DC we gave a name that was rare that year but then it exploded in the next few 😁. I don’t regret it because it suits her so much and was my favourite since my childhood, however I don’t think I would intentionally go for a super popular name(and always made sure it wasn’t at least in the top 50)

My parents did give me a pretty but bog standard overused name of my generation and I did shrug over the years about their lack of creativity/imagination 😁

Well, I disagree. To me a timeless name is one that was never popular but is still well known.

I know Antonias and Cecilias who are toddlers, young adults as well as over 50s.

Thankfully we all have different tastes and ideas of names we love. I personally much prefer names that are well outside the top 100.

My parents did give me a pretty but bog standard overused name of my generation and I did shrug over the years about their lack of creativity/imagination 😁

Yes!

Off the top of my head, I haven’t looked at any popularity guides, but I guess if you named your child Peter or John in the last 10 years they wouldn’t have been in the top 50-100 but they are still easily spelled and understood classical names, just fell out of fashion.

Not right to immediately assume that a rare name needs to be sounding out there

Oh god, I quoted a completely different post and it was in the preview, don’t understand what happened! I’ll find my original quote!

Yes, the parents of Sophie and Alex just had different criteria

It's funny how names come and go. When I was in school majority of boys were called.
Luke
Josh
Kenny
Steven
Ryan
Daniel
Connor
Henry
Jordan/Jay
Charlie
Tommy
Mathew
Liam
Sam
Jake

Girls were always
Rebecca
Emma
Chloe
Chantelle
Rosie
Georgia
Holly
Lucy
Amy
Jessica
Leanne
Sarah
Shannon
Carly
Gemma
Kayleigh
Sophie
Chelsea
Rachel
Courtney

Now I don't know a single person who's used one of these names since we all started having children.
It always makes me laugh that the newspapers are always saying the name Gary is becoming extinct 😂.

And Louise was always the most popular middle name!

Well, I disagree. To me a timeless name is one that was never popular but is still well known.

Plenty of popular names can be timeless too. My daughter's name was number one for girls in almost every decade (dropped down in the 30s, 40s, and 50s but then returned in the 60s and remained top since then) over the last 120 years (since they started recording popularity) in my country (and popular all over the world for centuries) - that's a timeless name.

Probably Buoy or Gyrl. Maybe Gyrlly-Mae. I’ll stick with the dull classics…

It’s not a direct choice between Olivia/Evie or Moonunit Trixibelle. There are lots of “normal” classic names that aren’t overused. Off top of head
Honor
Tess
Mary
Miranda
Susannah
Zoe

All lovely recognised names barely used yet legions of Eve/Amelia/Lily/Isabel/Olivia variants.

Oh and Grace. If you’re about to have a baby avoid any of these!