Why do people pick popular names?

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I get that there are trends, and that when most of us were babies (myself included) our parents probably thought they were picking unique names for us, only to find at least one other classmate with the same name when we got to school. But now that we've got the internet publishing all the data/polls/lists, why do expectant parents STILL pick the most popular names? I'm not hating- just genuinely curious?

We lived overseas when DS was born. In that country his name was top 5 for the last few years. We just loved the name. We knew we would move back to Europe in a couple years, so we still picked the name. In my home country the name is well known, but its not as popular. Still top 100 though. I think if we had stayed abroad we wouldnt have picked it, because top 5 is really just too much.. but then again it would be stupid to not pick a name for this reason only if you really love it 🤷🏻‍♀️
DC2 has a very uncommon name, never met anyone with the same one. It was just really about what we loved for each of them.

We went ‘classic’ and biblical with ours. We didn’t consider them ‘common’.

Coming from a working class background we thought that might be more future proof than projecting something naff like Bee-yonsay or other the other extreme something like Bartholomew which would look
instantly pretentious.

We did know kids with unusual names like Torin and Ffion - they were nice names, but the kids were just ordinary nice kids. It didn’t endow them with special powers.

1 of mine has a popular name

• we liked it and it goes with the surname, would of chosen it regardless. She loved her name and it suits her.

Despite its popularity we don't actually personally know that many, 1 other in the school. Though we do obviously come across others in the park etc.

Two of my sisters have very common names, whereas I have one sounding Middle Eastern! Growing up is was jealous of them as I wanted to be 'normal'.
Now I really love it and get compliments as it's very unique.
One of my sisters hates her name and the other has always loved hers.
My brother also got a very unique name but being a bloke I don't think he's ever thought or cared about it!
I don't know what my parents were thinking!

Dd's name was about 340th popular of her year of birth. A well known but little used name. 62 born in her year.
She ended up in the same class as one of them. You can't win sometimes.

As strange as it may sound people have all sorts of reasons for picking names. It doesn’t have any impact on you in the slightest. I picked a classic but unusual name, a few years later it’s in the top names. Do I care? No! Call your kids what you like.

FWIW people do judge on names though, much you wish they didn’t. If you call your child Abcde (‘ab se day’) you will be quite rightly judged as a complete moron.

I’m at an age now where my peers from school, uni and work are well into having kids. I have to admit when I see another Evie, Isla, Jack or Oscar announced on social media I do think, “really?”. You don’t need to be massively into names and trends to know there’s a lot of them about and they’re pretty trendy atm.

I did read (possibly on MN) that parents having no.1 will likely just go with something they like, hence why you get a lot of Olivia’s or Ella’s or whatever. They’re nice, inoffensive names and are popular for a reason. Then those kids start nursery or preschool and the parents realise how common they are, and they are more mindful to factor in trends or popularity for subsequent babies.

I’m a bit of a hypocrite though- DD got a top 600-ish name, and DS got George. It’s only no.30 around here so not quite as common as in the rest of the UK, but boys names are well hard.

Having a unique name is not what makes a child a special individual, it’s their personality and their talents. I used to have a job whereby I knew thousands of kids names across a wide section of the U.K. and I saw some absolute shockers, it didn’t make me think wow those parents really chose a special name for their child I used to think poor child. When looking through class lists if I saw 2 Sophie’s or 2 Williams I wouldn’t think anything of it, but on a couple of occasions I saw two kids with the same unusual name in the same class and thought how annoyed the parents must have been to pick an unusual name only to find another child with the same name in their child’s class.

There no law that says people have to choose weird names

My DD has one of the current popular names. I liked the name and decided that I really don’t care if there are others with her name. I didn’t want to not choose a name just because it was popular.
I wanted a name that was strong, feminine, easy to pronounce and spell. A plus side is we can find her name on just about anything which she loves.

I had my children abroad and wasn't aware they were so popular. My middle child has a name that I thought was quite retro yet classical. I honestly had no idea so many other people used it. I just thought it was the most beautiful name ever. Then I joined mumsnet and turns out its so popular and 'overused' and almost a cliché, even though I've never met one other child with the same name!

I’m probably the opposite and judge parents who name their kids strange and unusual names with weird spellings and think poor kids stuck with that name, what on earth were the parents thinking.

Would you not consider choosing something that resonates with you in a personal way? A name that isn't just going to make your child stand out from the herd?

My DCs all had an exercise in school - I can't remember what age they were - where they spoke about why they were given their name. They all said it was nice to be able to say they were named after X or Y relative (we chose family names).

I have an unusual name and really didn’t like being so different when ai was younger so my DC both have more common names. I could wonder why people try so hard to give their DC unusual names but the answer obviously is because everyone is different and have different approaches to things.

Some parents don't want their kids names to be a 'Tragedeigh'

Some names have to be top 10. If children weren’t named them then they would just be replaced with another top 10 instead. It is the number of babies named that that shows the popularity not the specific rank.
personally popularity didn’t matter to me, I just went with a name we liked.

For me one was a family evergreen name and one I always wanted growing up. The second I thought would be a bit more unusual but turned out to be top ten for the year he was born. Neither has another in their class they done ok. For my girl for some reason it was more important to me they didn’t have a common name, so went for name that was a bit 70s ( currently not an in vogue decade for names) but that I loved.

Would rather have a popular classic name than on on trend name though that gives away the time they were born when older.

DS name is high top 10, it was just the only name we could agree on 🤷🏻‍♀️ there's no other kids in his class with the same name and only one in his sports clubs.

My DD is in 6th Form now but she goes to school with lots of Ellies and Rubys and Isabellas. It's just the fashion of the time. My own daughter's name was fairly popular but like pp I didn't check the polls.

My own name was popular in the seventies and there were two other girls in my class with the same name. Now it's quite rare to name a baby girl my name.

So cool

We picked names that we liked and had meaning to us - I had no idea where they sat in terms of popularity. Although interestingly, my now grown up son is called Zachary - there were 4 others in his year group at secondary school, but when I looked up where his name was in popularity, in the year he was born it isn't even in the top 100. It is now, obviously it's pretty popular, little Zachs everywhere 😂 but I literally know one Oliver and that's been number one for years!

I don't really understand the obsession some people have with weird unique names (and it isn't just wanting your child to be the only one in their class with that name, because no one ever wants to name their child Gary or Clive or Tracey in order to be different, it has to be Azulya or Ptolemy or Frobisher)

Takes all sorts to make a world tho eh

This question has been asked loads on here. I find it interesting that the OP interprets “popular” names as parents not trying very hard. As though those people didn’t put any thought into the name and thought any old thing would do? Why wouldn’t you assume they thought long and hard… and happened to agree on a name that lots of other parents like too? It’s almost like you’re looking for something to sneer at in other people. I don’t care about names being either unusual or popular - it wasn’t a basis on which I decided or ruled out names.

This!

Jack and Isabel are classics that have belonged in every generation going back a long way. Nothing like Kevin or Tyler.

I'm pregnant and planning to call my son Michael.

It's barely in the top 80 😮