Names: do you choose popular or unusal?

[GillW]

Just wondered - how did you all choose your children's names? And did you take account of how popular that name was at the time when you made your choice?

I was reading yesterday that the list of popular names for 2002 has just been published, and that Jack has now been the most popular boys' name for the past eight years, and Chloe the top girls' name for the past six years.

Personally, knowing that, I'd avoid those names like the plague, because I'd hate my child to share a name with several classmates, but obviously that doesn't apply to a lot of people, hence their continuing popularity.

Now I can see some advantages in having a popular name, in that you'll always be able to buy personalised products, and most people will know how to spell it, but beyond that....?

Equally, would you choose a very unusual name?

Incidentally, if anyone's interested the lists for the last 5 years for England and Wales are here for boys , and for girls

For babies born in Scotland, they're here , and here for Northern Ireland .

[Rhiannon]

The same does apply in Britain, you can't for instance name your child with a swear word and my local register office told me that the name Shiny Balloon Save The Whales had been refused!

[lou33]

MIne are Lily, Tallulah, Dylan and Rory, I've not really ever met more than one or two of any others with those names, although Lily seems to be increasing in popularity.

[dkdad]

I'm not sure democracy has anything to do with it, Rhiannon, but it certainly felt like an infringement of my rights when I was told we couldn't have the name we wanted.

The law is designed to protect the child against having an offensive name but it goes way over the top. You have to bear in mind the Danish/Scandinavian mentality is very different to the British. It is frowned upon to stand out here, everybody is equal and the common good takes preference. That's why there is no poverty, homelessnes and little crime here. It's also why the Danes will never produce a Richard Branson or Robbie Williams.

The names issue follows suit. We know many, many young couples that are really frustrated about not being able to give their child the name that they want. Some have even gone to court. However, most Danes will not understand why you would want to use a name that is not on the list.

Things are changing, of course, with immigration. Mohammed is hardly a traditional Danish name but is now on the approved list! In some African societies, the child would take the mother's maiden name as a first name and that would be impossible under Danish law. The EU criticised Denmark over that issue 8 years ago and so they have has to relax things.

I still think it is bizarre, though. And I cannot imagine a Dane living in Spain, say, being told that they had to use a Spanish name for their child!

[Eulalia]

elliot - intruiging ... my name also doesn't end in an ee sound and it can't be shortened ...!

[Eulalia]

whoops sorry mispelt your name elliott!

[Rhiannon]

dkdad, great fishing in Denmark though. My brother comes every year for 2 weeks! He's no Robbie Williams though!! R

[bigtoe]

I gave my child the same middle name as my first real love. Not a soul realises this, including dh. I have changed my nickname here to keep my identity totally secret

[astonmartin]

My mum has always had a thing for unusual names, also I personly have an unusual name and love it, plus it makes me feel different to others, I have never found my name anywhere(not spelt the same anyway). I think thats why I wanted an unusual for my first.

Not only was it unusual but i chose to spell it in a very differant way. I wish I hadn't because it makes it to differant and in a way weird, and I can never spell it any other way now.

So with number two we chose a more popular name, he is only 7m so I can't say much, it has been alot better not just for us but for family and friends too,. With the first people just had not got a clue on how to spell it and some of them still haven't got the hang of it yet and hes 3!!! but I can't imagine him as anything else than Zauvier(usually spelt Xavier). For 2nd ds we chose Kyle

[mollipops]

Ds' name is a Top 5 for the past 5 yrs (Daniel)! Dd's name isn't in the top 100 at all (Tessa)!

It says a lot about our leisure activities but both their names we first heard on TV. Ds' was a character in a movie, played by Mel Gibson, and we both looked at each other and said it with our surname and it sounded right. This was before we were even pg! So even though he was our 2nd born, we had that name already chosen. Dd's name was a character in a TV show here called GP; a Greek-Australian female doctor! I really liked it, and so when we were pg it was on the list along with Elyssa/Alicia and Tahlia. We decided against Tahlia after I heard someone calling a child with that name "Tahls"...ugh. And when dd was born, she looked more like a Tessa.

We chose them since they go with our surname and also because all the abbrev. are okay to us, ie Tess, Dan, Danny etc. - not that we use them but I'm sure it will happen at school!

My name is unusual too (it's actually Cher's real name - not sure if that's where dm got it from though!) and it is a pain always spelling it, but kind of nice to be a bit different too. Definitely not as unusual as those Utah names! Or the stars, Moonunit, Fifi Trixbelle etc. Have to add my fave at the moment is a customer I recently had called Mrs Rosemary Lamb. Love that.

[mollipops]

Just found the most popular babies names in Australia for 2000:

Boys: Jack, Thomas, Joshua, Lachlan, William, James, Alexander, Matthew, Nicholas & Hugh.

Girls: Charlotte, Georgia/Georgina, Isabelle/Isabella, Emily, Rachel, Emma, Lily, Chloe, Olivia & Catherine.

The boys are very similar, excepting Nicholas and Hugh; Harrison, Luke, Benjamin, Daniel and Oliver are in the Aussie Top 20, but no Callum, Lewis or Joseph. The girls except Lily and Isabelle - and I was surprised C/Katherine is way down the England/Wales list. Jessica, Hannah and Sophie were still in the Aussie top 20, though not Lucy or Lauren.

Just FYI!

[susanmt]

I was also surprised thatthe C/Katherines were low down thelist, but Katie (which is just short for Katherine is way up there). My dd is Katherine and while we or her friends may shorten it in time, if she ever turned into some top exec, I would like her to have a dignified name o go with her position

[tallulah]

My mum gave us names that couldn't be shortened, and doesn't agree with middle names. Everyone lengthens my name instead, which drives me insane, and everyone spells it wrong. My brother was born in 1965 & named Paul.. (WHY?!!!). Everywhere we went, if they yelled "Paul", every child in the vicinity turned round. He is now known to all his friends & colleagues as Woody..
I loathe my name, but can't think of anything else. It's harder to name yourself than someone else.
I really can't see the point of opting deliberately for a common name. A name identifies you, so why would you want your child to be Katie G, in a class with 5 or 6 other Katies? One of my children has a very unusual name I've never heard anyone else use; 2 have oldish names that are rarely used & the other has a more traditional name that isn't commonly used (I wanted to name him Warwick but my husband objected). They've all got boring middle names in case they wanted to use them later.
(My nickname is the name of my dog. I usually use my cat's name, but someone else was already using it on this site).
The odd thing is that everyone seems to pick the same name at once, independently of everyone else (like Hannah in 1996).
My pet hate must go to "old uncles names", George, Bill, Albert, Stan.. I can only assume that these are used by parents too young to have had elderly relatives with these names. (but it's interesting that you don't hear of many little girls called Gladys, Brenda, Doris or Barbara).

[lou33]

Nice to know your dog and my daughter share the same name Tallulah!

[Stimpy]

We chose the names ages ago for a boy and a girl (don't know what I'm having - only 8 weeks pregnant!)......

Madeleine May Evelyn for a girl (Friend, husbands' grandmother, my grandmother)

Nathaniel Charles George for a boy (we like it, my grandfather, husbands' grandfather)

......so on the whole we chose family names but they are also names we like - for example my other grandmother is called Phyllis and much as I love her I didn't really want my child to have such a bizarre name!!!

We have actually tried to keep away from the "top ten" most popular names - I don't want to end up with the same thing as three of my cousins have - their babies were all born within 4 months of each other and they are all called Jordan - two girls, one boy (we aren't a particularly close family otherwise it would have been avoided!).

[iota]

We had an horrendous time trying to chose names - factors under consideration:- names we BOTH liked, not ones friends or rellies had already used, not too common, not too extreme, no horrible associations with people we didn't like, names that sounded good with our surname, initials that didn't spell silly words. A real struggle, and in the end both DS have names in the top 10 (something had to give!)

[aloha]

Ah, but all those 'old uncles names' are of course, going to sound wonderfully groovy pretty soon. And people will be saying 'Jack? Callum? Ugh, how ugly and old-fashioned!'. I'm sure even Brenda and Gladys will come back into fashion. As I said, when I was born (63) Chloe was regarded as a hopelessly old-fashioned joke, and a cruel burden to saddle a child with, hence my mother was talked out of it (she wanted to name me after the ballet Daphnis & Chloe). I got a more unusual name instead.

[Bozza]

Agree with Aloha that some of the old Aunt's names are returning eg I had a great-aunt Alice

[Bumblelion]

This is such an interesting thread. On checking the American site, I see that my DD1 Ashly is ranked 8th most popular with her spelling coming in at 222. I was very surprised to see my name Jacqueline coming in ranked at No. 34 with 4980 with my spelling.

Sorry to see that Daniel is 10th but can't gave up looking for DD2 rank (Sasha). I think it will score more highly in the pet's name list rather than baby's names!

[titchy]

Having spent my entire life with people doing double takes when I tell them my name I was determined to give dd and ds names that people were familiar with!

We also wanted names that didn't immediately suggest a personality, occupation or social class - didn't want others to make judgements about them until they had met them. Hence Jeremey and Imogen were out (couldn't see a Jeremy being a bricklayer for instance, and dh thought an Imogen could only ever be an art teacher - not that there's anything wrong with being an art teacher but dh hated art at school and he was adamant dd would not be an Imogen )! We therefore ended up with names in the top 40 and top 20 respectively. Middle names are family names.

[Bugsy]

Having grown up with an extremely unusual firstname and surname, I like unusual names. We chose unusual but not weird names for our ds & dd. I love my name (get bored of constantly spelling it though) and find that people remember me because of it (not always a good thing!).

[laganlover]

Dh has an unusual christian name and a really really unusual surname and wanted to go OTT unusual for ds and dd. I wanted to go for a more popular/traditional name and so we both had to compromise. We went for Bryce for ds and Darcy for dd (both vaguely celtic names as I'm from Norn Iron and dh is half Irish) so perhaps it looks like I compromised more?? You should have heard some of his original suggestions, though!!

[grommit]

Laganlover (I used to live near that river)love the names - how does in go down in conventional Norn Iron??

[grommit]

sorry that should read 'how do the names go down'...