Are popular names really all that bad?

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I see often on MN name choices being warned against as they're 'so popular' and 'everywhere' (but at the same time, don't go too far against the grain because nobody will be able to spell or pronounce it!).

I've just been reading a couple of articles about the 2022 ONS baby names report that was published the other day and from +/- 300,000 boys born in 2002 in England and Wales, about 4500 of them were the most popular Noah, so 1.5%.

Of +/- 300,000 girls, about 3000 were Olivia, so 1%.

Obviously there's variance from area to area and by demographic so the percentage will probably be a bit higher in some places than others, but 1-1.5% doesn't seem all that overwhelming common to me.

I've spent a lot of time stressing myself out that some of our favourite names are in the top 10, but based on the above information I've decided to let it go and use the name we love regardless of how close to the top of the list it is.

I'm sorry but that's ridiculous snobbery. Of course the 'majority' are going to pick the top 10 names. That's literally how statistics work. Once people stop using those names so much and they fall out of favour, different names that didn't use to be so popular take their place and become the new top ten, picked by the 'majority'. It cycles round in trends (and some of the names you mention were ridiculously popular themselves once upon a time and some people may find as dull and boring as you find the current top 10 if they know loads of 50-70 year olds with those names).

The figures show that it's clearly not a case of everyone picking the same names any more. The number of people opting for top 10 names is reducing year upon year, but there will always be a top 10 picked by more people than others no matter how widely spread people's choices become!

I think many on here often forget that those of us who post regularly on here, with a keen interest in names, actually make up a very small percentage of society who are aware of name statistics. Most people just pick something they love without a second thought for how popular it may be (as, to most people, it really doesn't matter). Popular names are, by nature, more likely to be on people's radars as they are the names people are currently more use to hearing on small children. Humans are naturally influenced by each other after all. Therefore the current popular and up and coming rising names tend to become more and more popular for a while, before people eventually tire of them or start to associate them with their own generation. Most people don't wish to pick a name which reminds them of loads of people they went to school with, so by that point the names start dropping down the charts (like what is happening now with Jessica, Chloe, Sophie etc). I predict Olivia, Amelia, Isabella, Ava, Evie, Noah, Oscar, Alfie, Finley, Lucas etc will have a similar fate in the next 10 years or so when Olivias and Amelias etc start having babies of their own in their droves.

Funnily enough, the most popular names among new parents at my school these days tend to be Sophie, Chloe, Jessica, Amy, Hannah, Megan, Lauren, Jack, Josh, Daniel, Tom, James, Ryan, Sam, Ben. There's a reason those names are now all in decline. Society eventually started to tire of them. The same will definitely happen to the current top 10 at some point. By then, the top 10 will probably be Maeve, Margot, Luna, Harper, Aria, Penelope, Ophelia, Lyra, Hallie, Bonnie and Arlo, Luca, Roman, Rory, Reuben, Elijah, Ezra, Hudson, Caleb, Harrison (just random examples of current trends, not an actual prediction!), and by then those names that all seem to be currently all the rage will be the ones people are questioning why are people still picking them?!

Basically, there will always be popular names. Questioning why people pick them when there are so many other names out there is missing the point of name statistics completely. You personally might not understand why people want to choose them, but the actual reasons behind why the majority do are pretty obvious.

I think the social and geographically factors are also interesting. Here in a fairly low income part of Central Scotland,Olivias and Georges are not thick on the ground. In fact,I've only ever met one Olivia and only elderly Georges.

My kids are adults now but amongst their peer group popular names were Ellie,Kirsty/Kirsten,Lucy,Hannah,Sarah,Molly,Finlay,BenDaniel,Kyle,Andrew,Connor,James, Angus

This group is now having their own children and names are Archie,Finn,Ava,Isla,Noah

I was always one of two of my name. I didn't mind. Dd was one of three Lucys so was Lucy J. She has never complained about. (She would if she minded.)

Popular names are popular for a reason! Fashion

My kids have very normal but uncommon names (think Peter and Jane). They would far rather be called Olivia and Max 😂

Names are popular cause lots of people like them.

So the opposite of bad.

Go for what you like. There were 4 Helens in my class, and none of them suffered trauma as a result

Our DS has a "popular" name and I understand why it's popular as we still love it.

His best mate has a very unique name and then came along another lad with the same name and same spelling in their class - luck of the draw. I'm not sure kids care. I especially find it weird this trend of people hunting down unpopular names, surely you pick a name you like and you are done.

To be honest with the rise of the internet, search engines etc having a less unique name may be a massive blessing.

I have a unique name in this country (but very common in my parents' home country) and I really like the fact that when someone says it, they mean me. I don't mind having to spell it out all the time, it's really a minor inconvenience.

I had 3 Laurens and two Lauras in my primary school class. I think the downside might be that they were all unique kids but were unfortunately lumped into a group based on nothing more than their parents' choice of name (they were called "the laurens and lauras"). Maybe not a big deal, but I certainly was not grouped like that, ever.

If the name is very popular, eventually the fashion will change, and that name will be linked with an age group.
The names that were popular when I was born now say 'woman aged about 50'.
They're still nice names - 'they were popular for a reason'.

Exactly!

It's really annoying having a common name, teachers used to mix us up and colleagues have to check who is who. I did my best to make sure my dc's didn't have the same problem.

There’s obviously nothing inherently bad about a popular name—as lots of people have said, there’s a reason popular names are popular and lots of folks don’t mind (or even enjoy) having a name that’s a duplicate of someone’s else in their social circle, whether that’s as a school child or an adult.

Something I think about, though, is that people don’t always end up innocuously as Lily S and and C, or Blonde Lily and Tall Lily, as a pp’s post… some people end up with an identifier based on a characteristic they might not like and since a name is something you carry around all day, it can make things a bit worse day to day.

My best friend at school was one of several “Lily”s in our year, unusually tall, and not especially slim. She fairly often called “Big Lily”, which wasn’t meant cruelly, but she hated it as she was self-conscious about her size anyway. I wouldn’t say it was “traumatic”, and she obviously survived, but it made school and young adulthood just a bit worse for her. Or I can imagine there being a “Pretty Lily” or a “Clever Lily”—it’s probably fine to be Tall Lily as opposed to Blonde Lily, but it’s got to sting a bit to not be the pretty one or the clever one by definition.

Might well not happen, probably less likely to happen now than a few years ago, and wouldn’t bother everyone, but it’s something I’m bearing in mind when picking names out.

It’s sort of the opposite to the point people here always make when virtue names or names with strong associations are suggested (what if Grace is a clumsy kid, what if Ciarán’s hair turns blond when he’s a toddler, or the ever-charming ‘Chastity will probably end up being a right slag’).

I don’t think that ‘popular names are popular for a reason’ in that the names are not in any way objectively nicer than less popular names — it would be like saying that grey walls in houses were objectively nicer than other colours because at one point enormous numbers of people chose it. They’re just currently fashionable, ‘safely’ sanctioned by others, and will, in not too long, be as passé as grey walls.

I wouldn’t describe ‘classic’ popular names in this way. The trendy names that fly up the charts , then drop out just as fast yes, they are a fad. Classics that have been in the charts for ten years aren’t going to date like grey walls. When naming my children I wasn’t so much worried about popularity, more with avoiding a fad name. If you’re not careful you can end up with a fad name without realising, or even before it’s taken off. This seems to happen to lots of parents (all the parents of Arlo’s I know, who wanted something unusual)

There's a large crossover between people who like discussing names on the internet and people who prefer to use less popular names so I wouldn't take MN as a representation of general opinion. It was very important to me not to use very popular names but that doesn't mean it needs to be the same for you. It's certainly not worth stressing yourself out over.

@Porpoising @LadyMonicaBaddingham my dad and his friend had the same first and surname and neither of them had a middle name so they flipped a coin and whoever lost was to be called Stan. Dad won. This was about 40 years ago and Stan's still Stan-ing on all birthday and Christmas cards/in their name group etc

I agree with this. When I went up to university there were so many Daves that each of them had a nickname by the end of freshers' week purely so we could identify them. They were not, on the whole, flattering, and they stuck for the next 4 years+.

I chose classic but rarely-used names for my own children but I do understand why popular names are popular.

Nevertheless for practical reasons I would strongly recommend using either an unusual or a second middle name if you have a top five surname (Smith, Jones, Williams, Taylor, Brown) and you plan to use a top ten given name.

As I've said before, I chose Amelia for my now 24 year old. Back then it was about 30th on the list. Since then it has grown and grown in popularity. Wherever she goes, school or college for eg there's always at least another Amelia, or Milly. Tbh I sometimes do regret it but , hey my crystal ball was out of batteries.

And, of course, in the grand scheme of things it means nothing. She's healthy and doing well, happy etc.

@ThanksItHasPockets DH isn't British so no worries about our surname being common here. I've never met another one! (although it's very common in his home country).

My DD has a top 10 name. In 5 Primary schools, she was never in the class with another one.... in two of those schools, she was the only one with the name.
In secondary, there is one other in the year, but in the opposite half so they are never in a class together.

In DD2s first school, there were 12 boys in the class. 3 had one name, 2 had another rhyming name. Neither name was top 100, let alone top 10. None had been born locally.

But no name now is anywhere near as popular as David once was! David had a time when 4% of babies born were named it. Noah, the most popular name in 2021 was only given to 0.7% of babies.

Surname is an important consideration I think. We have a really common surname so I’ve been keen to choose less common first names.