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?

I’d use a name that was popular in the rankings if it was a classic so wouldn’t date too much and if I wasn’t constantly hearing it yelled across the local park because things do vary area to area and I ideally wouldn’t want my DC to be one of 3 at nursery. For that reason I would avoid Theo/Teddy because I know tons and it’s very of this era as in you don’t get many older ones. But I’d consider using Oliver for example since it’s classic and my DC don’t actually have any in their classes so clearly isn’t all that popular round here.

Yes,, I agree. Teddy and Wren are definitely going to date.

Dd1 name was my great grandmas name, I'd always said if I had a girl Id name her after GG who I looked after till she passed away for many years. So the name was very important to me. It was a top 5 name at the time. However when she went to school there was 100 pupils and not one with the same name till she was in year 6 and one was in reception. Yet ds1 had a much less popular name and there were 2 in his year and about 6 in the school with the same name. I'd say use what you like.

We had duplicated names at school too.

Yes. I didn’t just look at the top name lists, I collected the data for multiple years, collapsed similar spellings and recalculated the lists, and then predicted future trends on names of interest. I’m a data scientist so this is the sort of thing I do every day. It was harder back then though because we were just developing large language models and I had to code it all from scratch instead of just plugging into packages.

we chose low popularity names that were not trending upward.

then we moved and our next door neighbor had a daughter with the same name. They moved out and the new neighbors also had a daughter with the same name.

I predicted well on national trends. I also managed to find a name incredibly popular with the exact demographic of people who live exactly the way we live.

I had no data to control for demographics of name selection. That would have yielded different results.

the moral of my story: consider popularity with a grain of salt

Both my dd's have very unusual names, there are around 5-10 babies a year born given dd1s middle name and between 25 - 35 each year for dd2. DS has a more popular name, but its still outside the top 100, but there is another at a playgroup we go to and it does bother me somewhat. I don't know why, but it does.

I suppose it depends on how important the name is to you. I don’t like popular names for the sake of fashion trends however I had my DDs name picked out since I was a little girl the popularity of it wouldn’t have mattered at all. If it was just a name I liked with no significance and I had other options I’d definitely rule a popular name out, or at least knock it down the list.

It would put me off that name specifically because it's so common. Sort of the 2025 Sam/Tom/Joe from the late 80s and early 90s

That’s exactly how I feel. I’ve always been envious of friends with more memorable names, like Antonia or Thaddeus, as they are the only ones most people know with that name. It’s THEIR name.

I too hate being known as Clare H or Lacrosse Clare or Marketing Clare…. I wish my parents had tried a little harder tbh.

Theodore/Teddy was our choice if DD2 had been a boy. We had DS a few years later and I had gone off it because of how popular it was and because it didn't “go” with my DDs’ names. My three all have legitimate names but they’re not in the top 200. They’re also not names with obvious nicknames or abbreviations.

This is an excellent way of looking at it imo.

My parents deliberately chose popular names for me and my sister, their reason being that we wouldn’t stand out.

DS’s name was top 5 the year he was born (but top 20 practically forever, so not a name that will necessarily be ‘of a time’ in the future, the other two people we know with his name are late 50s and late 30s).

I had a big wobble about it before we ultimately decided, and if I’m honest still get an eyelid twitch when I hear another parent call it out at soft play or the park, but now DS is learning to say it himself it’s becoming totally ‘his’.

He does have a much more unusual middle name (top 500 names but only just) and if he chooses to use that in the future he’s welcome to. DH goes by his middle name so why not.

Of course there are trends. Ones that you can pretty much age a child by - Jayden and Kayden were very popular 10-15 years ago. Now it’s all Arlo and Theo etc etc.
But timeless names like Jack, James, Harry, George, William, Emily, Grace and so on do not age. They could belong to an elderly person or a new baby and they continue to be popular because they are good solid names.
Granted ‘nice’ is subjective but these names all remain in the top 20 (I think?) and they aren’t trendy names. They stay there.

But all that said, there were 3 boys at our small playgroup with the same name and it’s (according to stats) much less common, so you never know!

I’d go with it if you love it, I think popularity is something to consider but I wouldn’t not use my favourite name just because it’s popular

I understand this. My children have rare names and I like it that way. When I started DS1 in nursery, one of the teachers said 'im pretty sure we have another boy of that name starting' and I was weirdly gutted. However, she was mistaken (thank God).

I just want him to be the only 'him' in the room. I'm not sure why but I do know that my own name is completely unoriginal - one of the BIG 90s names. And it always pissed me off that I was always one of many in any given classroom. It made me think that my parents couldn't be arsed to give my name any thought. They just named me what everybody else was naming their daughters at that time.

You dont like your kids names?

My kids aren't called Theodore, Theo or Teddy.

My Dd has a popular name it is very early 90s although she was the only 1 her school year, We liked it, it is also a derivative of her great grandmother's name so meant something to us.

Honestly if you like a name just use it, all kids are individual it doesn't matter imo.

If you like it go with it, I don’t think they are a fad as these names were popular 18 years ago when I pregnant with ds
Prefer just Theo over Theodore though.

It just means he doesn’t have to be known as name + surname to identify him. We have a common surname too, so I gave him an unusual middle name just in case!

I don’t think they are a fad as these names were popular 18 years ago when I pregnant with ds
Theo. Not a fad, but the names were not popular until about 2006 (World cup year). They will fall out of fashion in the way that names like Gary or Darren have.

I thought I'd given my daughter an unusual name and now I've met quite a few girls with the same name.

That defeats the purpose of a name! We name people so they DO stand out and are identifiable.

Popular names are so unmemorable - we know at least 10 Theos, two of which even share the same surname!!