Does anyone else agree that “unique” names are becoming so common?

[Mamatolittleboy]

We called our boy a common name so this isn’t me having a bash. Just wondering if anyone else is finding this too?

I go to a lot of baby groups where woman tell me how much they wanted a unique name so called their baby Oakley, River or Forest. Names I’ve heard so much this year. All beautiful names, lovely names.

Went round a friends house the other day to meet her new baby. Gorgeous boy, they wanted an uncommon/rare name for him - Arlo.

I think a lot of people just think popular names are still the names that were popular when they were kids

Then they get a shock when Theodore and Ivy are one of 4 in the class

Oi!! No lumping Rory in with Hunter . SHeessh

I wouldn’t call them uncommon anymore, they’re ridiculously popular and regularly top the name charts, and in my humble opinion, are cute for kids/pets but I can’t imagine interacting with an adult with that style of name, especially in a professional setting.

With my first we picked the only boys name that we both agreed on, turns out it’s in the top 50 boys names, and my friend named her son the same, 8 days later 🙈. It’s a biblical name, and very popular in the US, which seems to have spread over here, no others with the same name in his class at school though.

With my second we named her after my great grandmothers/ maternal grandmother, it wasn’t an intentionally unique name, but even with the revival of ‘old names’ I’ve yet to meet another child with either of her names, as it’s double barrelled.

In a year 1 class near me there are TWO Ziggys. Bet their parents are super annoyed that their 'unique' name has to have an inital afterwards to show which Ziggy..... 😂

Ok - I see names like River as being kind of middle class boho families . The kind of family who are happy with a bit of benign neglect as they have no worry for social services - being so middle class . Absolute stereotype - sorry !

They don't often come up in the working class families that I see. But I guess I only see a particular section and it may be area driven too. I do see a lot of the names that I've seen mentioned on other threads as being 'unusual'.

The Ziggy in our family is named after his grandfather who passed away shortly before he had the chance to meet him. It's gone from generation to generation on that side of the family, short for Siegmund. Not every family has Edward, Henry, George etc, some are more multicultural.

Yep - really not the same sort of name at all! Rory is classic but not overused (although from what this poster has said it may be gaining more traction in the last year or two).

👌

Yes my grandfather’s middle name was Oakley. He was a middle name handed down. His father and grandfather also had it as a middle name.

Yes and please please don’t say very unique!

I named my daughter Amelia in 1997 - it was my granny’s middle name. Wouldn’t have even known how to check for popularity back then, can’t remember it being a thing.
it still would have been her name regardless.

my mum was going to call me Zara - I was born 3 weeks before Zara Phillips!

I’ve noticed a trend with certain tv shows- Dr Who for one can probably be blamed for the popularity of Rose, Clara, Amelia, Martha, Rory

I remember someone saying a few years ago when there was a housing crash after years of snapping up properties to flip or buy to let, they people were, once again, going to have to by a house just so they could live in it. That’s how I feel about names, the only reason to pick it because you love it, not because it’s rare/unique/cool etc

Some folk don't actually understand the meaning of the word unique.

My boys are Noah and Elijah which seem to be a fairly common sibling pairing!!!

We don't know any other Noah's but Eli/Elijah's are ten a penny where I live!

I'm a teacher and I'm yet to teach a Noah or Elijah/Eli though!

(Sure I'll soon get an influx of Noah's as it's currently number 1 boys name!).

My Grandfather had what I believe to be a truly unique name and he always made us promise we’d never use it if we had a big because he hated it so much. He was Wilkinson, and to this day I’ve never ever heard of another.

And if I ever have a boy I will be using it (albeit as a middle name)

I can beat that. My great, great....great grandfather genuinely had the middle name Coffin according to the census. It didn't catch on! My grandfather's middle name was Webb. Goodness knows where that came from either.

I suspect if you called your child John or Mary or Jane they would be the only one in the class

I loved Jonathan/john for my first son but our surname is Lewis so didn’t like the association

Lol no you can't really call him John (or Jon) Lewis

My DD has nursery friends called Noah last year but no Elijah's. Though to be fair the Elijah's in the playgrounds are over 7.

It was quite common to give children, particularly eldest sons, their mother's maiden surname as a middle name in the past. Or sometimes a grandmother's maiden name. It's quite useful when you are tracing family history as it's a good clue that you've made the right link if you find a child's middle name matches with a surname one or two generations previous. So it could be that if you look further back you'll find those middle names are surnames further back.

"Webb" could be a maternal last name?

I remember watching an episode of "Horrible Histories" and apparently the Victorians often named children after everyday items so that's were "Coffin" could have come from.

@NotInvolved Yup. Ethell was a male middle name in our family for generations. After research I discovered it was after our wealthy Tudor ancestors surname.

@TheBirdintheCave it's a big help when you get particular naming patterns in a family isn't it? I have traced both my own family and my husband's back quite a long way and there have been several occasions when I've thought I have hit a brick wall but have come across someone with an unusual middle name that I know is the maiden surname of a woman close by in the tree, or has been used repeatedly down the generations. On the other hand I had to give up on one branch of my DH's family when I ended up looking at parish records from the 1700s and there were lots of families with the same surname and one of about half a dozen forenames. There were multiple Williams and Sarahs with our surname so it was just impossible to know which were DH's direct ancestors.
I've got a bit obsessed with it to be honest - I got very excited recently when I managed to solve the mystery of who was the child with a different surname living with my 2x great grandparents in the 1861 census! It was a recurring unusual name that did the trick there.

@NotInvolved Genealogy is just fascinating 😍 I spent a very long time untangling as many of our family branches as I could. The rich Tudors go back to Charlemagne so they're a particular favourite of mine. I have my 14th great grandfather's will and he was very generous with his property and money, even leaving some to his servants and the poor of the parish.