Do you consider popularity of a name?

[CharlOctober]

We've got a shortlist and at the moment one of our favourites is Theodore - Theo/Teddy for short. I'm aware of how popular it is looking at the top 100 names.. wondering if you would let that put you off or just go with it?

My DD has a very popular name. We knew it was popular but went with it anyway as we loved it. She's 18yo now and it's fine. She likes her name and doesn't care that it's popular.

I did, but if there was a name that I absolutely loved I wouldn’t be put off my popularity.

I like my name now but having grown up with a very uncommon name and the various issues it created, I refused to inflict that on my children and purposefully gave them more popular names.

Doesn't bother me at all. If you love a name, go for it!

No, and I don't get it when people do!

All three are popular, so at some point it will drop in popularity.

I don't like the names, and never have.

No. I’m not that influenced by other people’s choices. One of my dc has a very popular name and the other has a not unusual but rarer name. It doesn’t factor for me at all. Popular names are generally popular because they are nice, timeless names and I’d much prefer that to something obscure and ridiculous for the sake of being different.

I wouldn’t want to pick a name that might then give the age of the person away all the time. So I’d avoid names that were having a surge of popularity that will probably be short lived.
For example, if you know you are going to meet a “Sandra” now, you know roughly how old she is.
Some names are popular but are always popular so don’t give away age - James is an example of this. You wouldn’t be surprised to meet a James who was 80, 50, 20, or 2. And obviously names that are always unusual are the same.

Popular names are generally popular because they are nice, I disagree.
They're popular because people use them.
When looking for a name for a baby people tend to pick a name from names that are currently used for children.

I hate having a popular 70s name as i always have to add my surname and the name sounds so dated now. I wish my parents had chosen a less popular, more unusual name for me.

We chose names outside the top100 for our children for that reason. Any name can rise in popularity but I wouldn’t knowingly choose an already very fashionable name.

We were set on the name Emily for dd but all of a sudden a lot of babies were being born around the time I was pregnant and they were named Emily. I didn’t want her to be one of a few in her class at school, so we changed the name.

as it was she didn’t have any Emily’s in either primary or secondary school classes however she says she prefers her name over Emily.

The popularity of a name wasn't at all important to me. I simply wanted a name I loved and that wouldn't cause my children any problems as they grew up.

If you love the name then use it.

We considered Noah briefly but it was rising in popularity so we crossed it off the list. We never thought it would be so popular.

Apparently my maternal grandmother chose my name, it was highly unusual at the time. I never had a classmate with the same name throughout my schooldays but it had a brief burst of popularity, in the 70s, i think, and is now (quite unfairly!) hopelessly dated or a bit naff. Or both...
I can't say I've ever really liked it although there is a derivation I don't mind and close family use this.

Yes I did consider popularity and avoided top 50 names for two of my children, but did go for a top 5 name for one of them (because I loved it so much). I’m glad I did as he’s never had any others in his class / year with the same name.

Why would that have mattered though? I don't get it!

It matters to some people but not to others, @SomedayIllBeSaturdayNight .

I think it depends if the whole name is popular and there would be multiple in the school year with the same first and surname. I have an awfully common name with many in school and hated it.
It would also depend if the name was geographically popular. For instance, Phoebe is pretty high on the charts but I don't know any in my local area so it didn't bother me!

Yes, my name was common when I was young and another child in my year who was more popular than me had the same name. I learnt that if I heard someone calling my name, they probably didn't mean me. I didn't want that for my child.

My dd has a very unusual first name and I would have liked to use May after it, as she was born in May and my mum's name was Mary. At the time names like Lilly May were very popular and considered common/chavvy, so i didn't do it. I am sorry now I was influenced, and wish I had used it.

I have a very common name and it's been a pain tbh. I'm never the only Sarah. I'm always Sarah H or Glasses Sarah or Hockey Sarah. My brother has a very unusual name and people remember him. People have heard of him. People immediately recognise that they must have friends in common when they meet him because they remember their friend mentioning seeing Balthazar (not his real name). I would say it has been an advantage for him having an unusual name, and a disadvantage for me having a meaningless name.

But people obviously don't agree, as evidenced by the three sets of Emma and Lucy siblings I can think of in our school.

Yes. DH has a common name and hates it. We wanted to choose something less popular for our DC.

Tbh I personally wouldn't go for a really popular name myself. But that's just me.

If you want to use a popular name, and you have a common surname, try to find an unusual middle name.
We've found this at secondary school. We had several girls in one year called Lily (Common Surname). Unfortunately, their middle name was Rose! Except for one, which was fortunate. They have a Unique Learner Number for exams, but it got very confusing at times!

I wouldn't have wanted a very popular name because those names will sound dated in the future, which personally I didn't want for my child.