How popular is the name Phoebe?

[Anonymous106]

So I know it's in the top 30 UK girls names, but would she be one of several in her class? 🤔

I only know of one across three primary and secondary schools.

Both her siblings also have similarly butchered names. I wince, slightly, every time I have to write any of them down!

I have a Phoebe and we are yet to come across another. She is the only one in nursery, pre school, and now her primary school. I never came across any in baby groups either. I nearly didn’t go with it as I was concerned about popularity but I’m so glad I did because I love it. Nearly all her friends have short names ending in ‘a’ which seem to be more on trend.
Obviously it very much depends by area, but even though it’s quite high on the list it’s actually only used around 1500 times a year which is nothing compared to names years ago which would have been used sometimes 10,000 times a year or more!

I don’t know any young Phoebæ.

Phoebe is no where near the same level as Catherine, Emma and Sarah etc. Even Olivia the most popular girls name for a long time now isn’t as used as any of those!

I'd choose the lesser used, but gorgeous Hebe instead.

I had a Phoebe in the 90's ,people assumed I liked Friends, which I'd never seen!
We had some wonderful spellings in the 'welcome baby' cards.

There were about 1500 born in 2024.

I know one aged about 4 and one aged about 12.

We also had a Phoebe in the 90's. It was my DH choice of name and we didn't watch Friends either. We also had many variations on the spelling including Feebee. Our other children have names which cannot be shortened and we said that we would not shorten hers either, but she became and still is Pheebs

@LovingAzureJoker , those weren't the actual names. The names were regional ones.

Dd is a Phoebe, she was one of 2 in her whole primary and the other one was a few years below her.

People spell it wrong all the time (Pheobe being the most popular misspelling). As a side note, when I first told Dh about the name, he'd only ever heard it spoken, not seen it written down, I found his little pad of baby names and he'd written it as Feebee.

It is super popular for babies right now. 18 months ago I didn't know a single Phoebe, I now know several babies and 1 year old Phoebes.

I know a Phoebe. But names are random. Most popular boys’ name in our Reception is Ben.

I love the name Phoebe, I know one in her 30’s & another who’s 5. I’d go for it, I think it’s a great name!

We had a card with 'Fibbi'!
She's called all sorts of things, including Weeble!

I know 2 babies called Phoebe at the moment but it is a lovely name

I know it’s not my place but if you have a boy then please don’t name your child phoebo!

There'll be no Phoebo's... don't worry 🤣

Not a fan. It gives "heebie jeebies"

We are in Wales, I don’t know many to be fair! It’s a lovely name.

I’m in Wales too - I’ve met a few younger ones (at primary schools and toddler groups) but here it is definitely more like a couple per school rather than one per class.

Honestly because of the wide spread of names now, I think people worry about the popularity of individual names more than necessary. There are a lot of “soundalike” names in schools now, like the “Ev” names, the “O” names, the “L” names etc- but luckily (though it’s not my personal taste) Phoebe doesn’t sound like that many other names.