Super common/popular baby names - why?

[Alwaysyoudoyou]

If you gave your baby a very popular name, did you think further than 'I like that'? If yes, what was your reasoning/motivation behind the choice? I'm just curious what makes people choose names from the top 10/20/30 etc? How do you feel when you meet another child with the same name? Or if there are multiple children with the same name in the class or friendship group? I like learning about how people are different and how they make decisions.

Personally I tried really hard to choose names which were recognisable but not overly popular. My motivation was that they would be the only one in their class/of their friendship group, but without it being something outlandish. Basically wanted to avoid the top 100. I'm not sure why it felt important at the time, as I seem to very much enjoy meeting people who share a name with me, but wanted something that felt more unique for my children. Both children also share names with grandparents which added a nice touch for us.

It hasn't worked out mind.... my sons name wasn't even in the top 500 when I chose it and we now know eleven of them 😅and my daughters is appearing on more and more forums so I assume it's catching up!

Anyway as I said, just curious really. No judgement. You do you!

DS has a popular name, tbh all the names we really liked are popular and I didn’t want to choose a less popular name that I liked less! It’s also the name of a deceased relative so has meaning that way.

Just to add, I appreciate it can be impossible to predict the future and understand how quickly name trends can change, so totally understand how people can get caught out sone years after choosing a name. This isn't aimed at them (although it just goes to show how you can put loads of thought into avoiding popular and still end up with one in the near future anyway).

I'm on about those who actively pick a current popular name but still have a misplaced belief they're being different, and even state to others how they chose to pick something different. The misplaced oneupmanship is quite hilarious as a bystander, just waiting for the day they realise. Although they're often the kind of people who will claim afterwards that the name wasn't popular when they named their child but was then suddenly everywhere straight afterwards, as if they must be complete trend setters and everyone has copied them! 😂

Maybe they genuinely believe that, who knows, but the stats don't lie!

I chose fairly common names but they were classic biblical names that I thought were solid and would be timeless. I personally think unusual names are a bit ‘try hard’. It’s a bit like zany clothes are usually a signal for someone who is making up for lack of personality. ‘Unique’ children’s names often say something about the character of the parent.

I have a name that was very common in the 70's, both as a first and middle name.
My parents chose it because it was in a song they both liked as was my sister's.
DS1 has a top 5 name and was named after my grandad. There was another baby named it in the very first baby class we ever went to, but none in his school classes.
DS2 has an outside top 100 name, he has a traditional Scottish spelling of it and always complains that he can never find individualised tat.
DD has a top 10 name, there's another one in her class at school but they are the only two in her 500+ primary.
Just go with what you like!

I'm on about those who actively pick a current popular name but still have a misplaced belief they're being different, and even state to others how they chose to pick something different.

That's where the ONS lists of ALL baby names comes in useful. It shows how often a specific name was given (to at least 3 babies), and you can look at trends over time.

There are lots of normal classic easy to spell names outside the top 500. So the alternative to a popular name is not necessarily a 'unique' weird name

I personally think unusual names are a bit ‘try hard’. It’s a bit like zany clothes

Unusual names can be beautiful normal names that are just currently not popular!

Exactly. I totally understand how many people have zero interest in stats at all, and that's fine, but I do find it very strange when people claim to be looking for something more unusual and then clearly haven't bothered to research it when the data is so easily accessible.

I think many think it just sounds good, to claim you don't want to give your child a really popular name, when in reality they can't be that bothered if they haven't actually looked properly into what is currently popular.

Or some people think of 'popular names' as being what was popular when they were at school. Yes you might not have known anyone called Oscar when you were at school Sarah, but they're 10 a penny now! Whereas Matthew, which you turned your nose at for being too popular, is right out of the top 100 now! Or she will turn her nose up at Jessica or Chloe, as she still thinks of them as being in the top 10, and opt for Ivy instead 🙄

Absolutely. DS has a name so unusual the numbers weren't individually listed in his birth year naming stats(which I think means fewer than three babies?), but it's a Biblical name which occurs in slightly variant versions in many languages, it's just not used much at all in the UK at the moment.

It's not as if it's a choice between George and Zephyr-Bodhi the Third.

Yes, I find being desperate to give your child an unusual name a bit too 'try hard' too. I mean, why? What's the point? Why do people do it? If it's a little bit too over the top or unusual, you're going to set your child up for a lifetime of people mocking the name/taking the piss, or just not pronouncing it as you want them to, and not spelling it 'correctly.'

Sometimes people will even look at them differently... If you've got Emma or Jonathan or Charlotte or James applying for a fairly good job - they're probably going to get it over Bexleigh, Jaidden, LuluBelle, Destiny-Mae, or Macauley.. You have to think ahead when you're giving names to your children.

When I was naming my two daughters, I didn't think 'I really must get the most unusual names possible' because I'm so edgy,' or 'I want them to be yoooouneeek.' I just picked their names because I loved the names. They weren't massively unusual names in the mid 1990s. They just, (as I said earlier in the thread,) were much more popular 4 or 5 years earlier, so hardly anybody in their age group (within 3 years either way) had their names. They're very pretty, and also quite classy names, and I absolutely love them. I never had any name regret and they love their names too.

Personally I have an unusual name, (parents were hippies,) so I may be projecting slightly LOL. I was mocked at school and some people teased me, and some were downright rude and nasty. I actually don't mind the name so much now, but didn't make peace with it til my early 40s! I do often give a different name to people though. For example, if my name was Venus, I will say my name is Vee or Nessa. Or if my name is 'Brazil' I will tell people it's Barb, or Zilly. Or if it was Serengeti, I'd tell people it's Renée. That sort of thing.

My parents took a lot of pride in giving us kids 'unusual' or 'rare' names and honestly I didn't love it. Mine was not common at all in the late 80s and I found lots of people had never heard of it, didn't know how to spell/pronounce it, would confuse it with other similar names etc. I didn't really like having a name that caught attention in that way, I felt very defined by it.

Both my name and my brother's have gone from extremely unusual to super popular now and have been mentioned on this thread. My sister's is still quite rare but it's an old lady name so I expect it'll have its day.

For my daughter I chose a classic name that was easy to spell and pronounce, and which I felt people would have heard of despite not being crazy popular. It's just inside the top 100 but I suspect it'll keep rising. I didn't mean to choose something trendy for her but I also really don't care that there's another child with her name in her school year (in fact they both seem to like it!). I wasn't out to show off how original I was when I chose her name, I just wanted to give her something serviceable that would see her through life.

I don't think I'd intentionally choose a top 20 name for my next child but you can never predict what will have a surge of popularity. I personally don't think it's worth straining yourself to do so.

Dm said that she deliberately chose ‘the most common and boring’ ( her words) names possible because she was teased for an unusual name at school in the 1950/60’s!

Needless to say after being known as ‘first name & middle name plus surname initial’ throughout school to differentiate me from the billion others with the same name combination I went the other way with baby naming well out of the top 500!

Sometimes people will even look at them differently... If you've got Emma or Jonathan or Charlotte or James applying for a fairly good job - they're probably going to get it over Bexleigh, Jaidden, LuluBelle, Destiny-Mae, or Macauley.. You have to think ahead when you're giving names to your children.

You are not comparing popular vs less popular names.

You are comparing classic names vs made up 'chavvy' names

This is not what i understand the thread to be about. There are LOTS of classic normal underused names. Names that are just not 'fashionable' and that will certainly not disadvantage you for jobs!!

Sometimes people will even look at them differently... If you've got Emma or Jonathan or Charlotte or James applying for a fairly good job - they're probably going to get it over Bexleigh, Jaidden, LuluBelle, Destiny-Mae, or Macauley.. You have to think ahead when you're giving names to your children.

Emma and Jonathan aren't currently popular baby names in the UK, but like James and Charlotte they are classics (Bible and royal family names) and don't fall out of use.
Your other names are not popular (only 3 Destiny-Maes registered between 1996 and 2021, 0 Bexleighs, 0 Jaiddens, 0 LuluBelles and not many Macauleys)

I think the thread is more about names where people only choose from the names that are very popular at the time vs ones that are known and classic but not currently in the top 100.

And frankly, all that either of those sets of names say is about Charlotte, Jonathan, Destiny-Mae or Bexleigh's parents' and their choice in names twenty or twenty-five or thirty years earlier. It tells you nothing whatsoever about the potential recruits themselves. Unless @HungryLittleCrocodile is saying he or she recruits based on the grounds of likely social class of origin.

@MidYearDiary , I think @HungryLittleCrocodile got the wrong idea.

I hope @HungryLittleCrocodile is not in recruitment!

Call your child Barry.

You will not have a problem with multiple Barry's.

DS1's name dropped out of the top 50 just after he got it, after having been popular for about 900 years up to and including my generation, and I think may not even be in the top 100 now.. DS2's name had just about moved from "embarrassingly old-fashioned" to "maybe ready for a revival" around the time he was born, but became massively popular not long after that, although curiously he only ever had another one in his class once. They're both in their late 20s now so think something like Peter and Jack.

I would not have wished either the datedness of "Peter" or the ubiquity of "Jack" on either of them. If I'd known, I'd have wanted something in between the two extremes. I can see why people might not want their child to be Oliver J in the same class as Olivers P, S and W, but at the same time if you're called Geoffrey or Bernard when everyone else is called Oliver, you might not feel as if you really fit in.

My thoughts went to Bandit first of all until I realised what you meant and my DS is a huge PP fan 😅

When I named my son Leo, I literally knew no one with that name I had got it from Charmed 😂now he's 1 of 10 Leo's in his school!
My did not want the same for my daughter and wanted to go more uncommon and had narrowed it down to Elowen & Harlow.. she's named Arowe! Don't think I'll meet another one.