Baby girl names - thoughts please

[Tailored20]

My name is very common for my age group, in my school year there were five of us with the same name. I don't really want this for my daughter. She's due in 3 weeks and we are stuck on a name!
Our list changes quite often but these are the names we're considering:
Evelyn
Eliza
Maeve
Hazel
We both like them and they all sound good with our surname, I'm just not sure if any are off-putting. Any thoughts please?

All lovely names, but there are 3 Maeve’s in my child’s pre-school and 2 Evelyn’s in the Reception class. I think both are really popular names at the moment.

Eliza was our girls name (alas not meant to be) so that’s my favourite!

I know 3 Evelyns I think thats becoming popular!! I know a Maeva, I don’t know a hazel but im not too keen on it.

Try to over think it though. My youngest son is called Davy, which is pretty uncommon. We live in a pretty small village and he’s just started primary school and his class is a Davey!! What are the odds. So you just never know, pick one you like (and not necessarily approved by MIL she’ll get over it!!)

I’m curious, why are you letting your MIL dictate the name OP? It’s entirely up to you and your partner what you name your child, she had her turn naming babies. My DM is very opinionated so we kept the names of all our kids to ourselves until they were born and that was it, it was their names whether anyone else liked it or not.

The trouble is you get popular names of the day which are chosen initially because they are deemed a bit different.

I'd put Maeve (outside of Ireland,) in this category. 10 years ago it was reasonably unusual but now there seems a lot.

If you want to avoid it, you are probably better picking the names you had five of.

We had multiple Jennifer, Rachel, Laura type names but I can't think of any in my kids schools.

They are chock full of Evie, Ivy, Noah etc and the nurseries are Willow etc

Alice - like a lot and would use it, but it is popular
Elowen - wouldn't use it because it gets mispronounced and will be Ellie
Beatrice - like
Daphne - not unusual but not many of them
Naomi - the different ways of saying it would drive me up the wall

This list is much nicer than the one in the OP.

Maeve is very trendy and will date (in England) - it has shot up the charts in the last 5 years.

Evelyn (Evie) has been very popular for a while - maybe 10 years?

I think Hazel sounds freshest out of your options.

Maeve is nice if you are Irish or have Irish family, it’s become popular in England though. I know one Irish Maeve and one English, both young adults. I like the others and don’t know any girls called Hazel or Eliza. I have only met one Hazel who is in her 70s . I know one Evelyn who is in her twenties, and knew one born in the 1920s.

Evelyn, Maeve and Hazel are all really popular, especially Hazel. I love Maeve though

Oh I agree, SIMILAR names absolutely (Lily, Milly, Tilly, Lyra, Lila, Layla, Theo, Leo, Arlo, Archie, Alfie, Albie etc etc) but 5 of the SAME name? It would have to be an absolutely massive school year intake for that to happen these days- personally I’ve been in a lot of schools and I haven’t seen that happen in at least 20 years now. Tends to be double of a name per school year at most, maybe 3 if at a bigger single sex school.

Maeve is very trendy and will date (in England) - it has shot up the charts in the last 5 years. It certainly has. Maeve

I've worked with some Evelyns and they're Evie. Evelyn
Evie peaked in 2009, but there will be Evies registered as Eve, Eva, Evelyn etc

Hazel is becoming popular. (75 in the list)

@Alexandrine , It would have to be an absolutely massive school year intake for that to happen these days

I don't think it would. A few sets of parents thinking a name sounds fresh and a bit different, and you end up with several Arlos or Bonnies.
If you don't mix with young parents, you might not know that Arlo and Bonnie are both very popular now.

I think it's one of those weird things where names come in pockets. I went to a baby group where there were 10 of us and 4 of the babies were called Arlo. Statistically almost impossible but it happened!

My daughter has a Hazel friend. Didn't think it was that unusual.

My daughter has a very common classic name (Elizabeth) so you would think there would be many, but have never met anyone in her schools or friend circle by the same name. Loads of Olivias and Avas though.

@Mauvehoodie , it is. Arlo is very popular though, but they're all likely to be younger than 20.

I know a few parents of a Noah who chose it because it was different.

Evelyn is popular in the North East. Some pronounce it differently too, there’s Eve-Lyn but also some pronounce it Ever-Lyn. There’s a few in my daughter’s school. Maeve is very popular suddenly. There was two Eliza’s in her nursery class of just 20 children.
Hazel is old fashioned in my opinion, sounds like a middle aged woman. I know two both in their fifties, never heard of another since.

I like them all except for Hazel. None are particularly uncommon - I would say Maeve is less common than Evelyn & Eliza, where I am at least.

I posted links to Darkgreener in a pp. Maeve was used 84 times in 2018 (#507), and 1265 times in 2024 (#26). That's a steep rise.

It's a typical example of a name that seems underused but will be overused in an age group.

One of the name your MiL dismissed is the name dd2 has chosed for her baby girl due in 5 weeks! And I thought it was unusual!

@Lizziespring my 6th form tutor had a similar idea and all the kids in my class (only 6 or7) had the same birthday! It was a very large for the time 6th form college. We were all very different!

I love Lydia and Primrose

I wouldn’t let my MIL dictate names. Keep it to yourselves until baby is born.
of these names Beatrice is nice but becoming more popular. I’ve never heard of Elowen but I think would become one of the many Ellie’s out there. Naomi is probably the least popular currently but does have different pronounciations. Blossom, Lydia and Primrose are nice and probably not too many around these days. I like Daphne, it’s pretty and not too unusual but likely not too many around of similar age.

There are lots of Evelyns, Elizas and Maeves around here. Hazel isn’t unknown either (isn’t it the name of one of Julia Roberts’ children, so has reappeared a little in recent years?) Maeve suddenly jumped in popularity here after it was the name of one of the main characters in Netflix’s Sex Education.

One solution if you want something a bit less usual is a less “current” name like Elizabeth, which you can shorten to Eliza if you want, but which gives your DD the option to have as a longer version, or even a different diminutive depending on whether there are many Elizas amongst her classmates. (FWIW I know quite a few little Elizas around the 5-y-old mark.)

Sex Education ran between 2019 and 2023, and Maeve was the name of the Emma Mackey character, which explains the big jump! 😆

Ah! There's usually a reason. Thanks.

We didn't tell her the names. They were pinned to a wall with colour swatches for the nursery. She let herself in and found them. Turns out she cut herself a key which we didn't know about.
DH doesn't like to argue with her.