Why do people give such basic names that will be an administrative nightmare?

[ThatFraggle]

If you have a 'bog standard' surname, why would you give your child a bog standard first AND middle name?

I'm not saying you have to call them Fifi-Tinkerbelle, but why put the person in a position that there will be dozens of people with the same name and date of birth. E.g. A name from the most popular names, (Chloe, Liam, Jack, etc.) plus common surnames (Smith etc.)

At least go for a middle name like Esmeralda, or Phoenix or whatever you feel like. You can have two middle names if you really want granddad Henry to be honoured in the name.

@ThatFraggle , because they didn't read the OP properly.

OP has been given a ridiculously hard time and I agree with her. The kind of administrative issues she describes are not as rare as many seem to think. In my last school there were two children in the same year group with identical names (first, middle, and surname) and mirrored dates of birth, eg 06.05.12 and 05.06.12. The Google ‘findability’ criterion is a strange argument. In academia, medicine, law etc it’s incredibly important to be easily identified by your name for the purposes of citations. I know several academics with very common surnames who were careful to give their children two middle names for exactly this reason.

I’m afraid I will never understand why parents with the surname Smith would name their child Oliver or Olivia. Sorry.

If it's a name they love, they shouldn't avoid it. It can also quickly change and suddenly, the name you picked out of the top 10 is a top 10 name the next year.

and like I said before, less people are using top 10 names now anyway so the stories of 4 Jack's and 6 Emily's in one class as an example is far less likely than what it used to be with Michael's and Sarah's of the past.

How much pandering do you suggest should be done in order to make admin idiot-proof, though?

Parents don't have crystal balls, and the likelihood of your child running across such a crew of slapdash, borderline illiterates in the same school are very slim.

I think most people try to avoid overly popular names but it isn’t always that simple. DD’s name was popular in the 80s (she’s less than 2) but it’s having a bit of a surge not due to anything with popular media (that we’re aware of anyway), it just seems to be a name that is coming back round.

I LOVE ordinary traditional names, no matter now common they might be. Lovely. When I see people on here considering "original" names I always think of Kath and Kim )))
"Eppo'knee-Rae"
"Tiramisu, that's nice"
"Michael Jackson called his kid blanket. Blanket? Oooh, that's nice."
"I heard some great names at the hospital - Catheta Enema for a girl, or how about Lupus for a boy? And Italian names are so cute, how about Cardio for a boy?"
"Tifany spelt Typhphanniii"

I've heard someone who called their kid Ikea. To me, any Emily, Elizabeth or Emma is way better than Dove, Cesca, India or Enema )))

Also, Esmeralda Smith or Phoenix Smith is hilarious )))

The people denying this always be an issue probably don't have really basoc names! My name is a name that there were about 3 of in every class during the 80s (Louise, Kelly, Claire etc) and my surname is a colour.

The attachment put on my wages by a random court wasn't the only issue I've had due to this just the biggest ballache!

I've also had debt collectors phoning me for debts that are someone else's with the same name and date of birth (not actually turning up though thankfully!), and an ongoing saga where Virgin Media kept emailing me to say they were installing my broadband at an address I was planning to move to but didn't- a year later, me cancelling, and them sending more appointments. Turned out someone with the same name as me (and there's lots of us!) had bought the same bloody house as we nearly did and was trying to get Virgin installed and I was scuppering her plans by cancelling it 😅
She was probably also cursing our name then!

It is very tiresome that so many posters insist on applying a false dichotomy to this discussion. There are literally thousands of name options on the spectrum of popularity between Oliver and, for example, Merlin.

I would honestly rather this than having to keep spelling my name every time I introduce myself.

There are a much more diverse range of names.being used now too, that repeats are very minimal.

Being called Tom Smith is going to be a major win against people tracking you online.

So you are advocating that, due to human admin cock ups, parents should name their child according.

Why not numbers?

I have the same first name, no middle name, and last name as my mother and sister.

No bailiffs or other admin cock ups in 54 earth years.

First name initial. Obviously we don't all have the same first name in the cult I've created

It isn't the same as the 80's now though because the volume of people using Noah and Olivia is much smaller than the volume of people using Claire or Kelly back in the 80's.

Statistically, a Noah may share a name with one other boy in his class but it would be very unusual now for him to be one of 3 or 4 Noah's in one class.

My friend took an exam when we were in school (10 years ago) for someone in the year above us because there were THREE of them with the exact same name and it was on her timetable 🤣

Jesus 😂

Flourbabies by Anne Fine is, I think, the definitive example of this.

😂

Say how you feel, don’t hold back!

True though. At what point do you just say ‘no, be more careful.’ I mean if it was Izzy Thomas and Isla Thomas is that ok? Or Izzy Thomson and Isla Thomas? At what point should the school teachers and admin staff actually just take some responsibility and double check which child they are writing about? I mean these two girls had totally different surnames!

From my experience of working with medical records having what you think is an non 'bog-standard' name is not going to stop you having the same name as someone else.

😯

Have you met this person? How do you know there's only one other person with the same name combo???

So we all avoid the top 10 names and pick other names. The top 10 will then change to 10 different popular names. Either way some kids will have more popular names.

Bloody hell. What vitriolic responses to a fairly sensible suggestion.

If the question is ‘why don’t parents with very common surnames consider avoiding very popular names?’ then bluntly the answer is that most parents don’t really give that much thought to the name they give their child. Unless they work with children first-time parents often have no idea how popular their choice of name is until their child starts nursery or school.

That's not how statistics work...

Your bailiff example made me laugh but to be fair I do have a common surname and so did purposely avoid top 20 names. In the end we just went with the names we had loved for years which luckily weren’t too popular or about to be very popular! I also think a lot of people choose names they think are rare but actually don’t realize they are booming and then end up with a top ten name. I can see a new parent choosing Arlo or Willow for example as they were rare 15 years ago when they were at school, not realizing how popular they are now!