Why are people in the DC area so weird about name popularity?

[Anonymous]

I can't believe I made it through the entire thread...

Interesting to think about...my Mom's family is from Slovakia and it seems that half of her relatives are named Mary or John. She's "Helen" and there were two others in her family as well. An aunt and a first cousin. LOL.

IDK. My spouse and I wrote down a list of names when we were having each of our kids - we didn't find out for either - so there were boy names and girls names.

Went through and picked out our favorites. Thought about other people that we knew with that same name and felt ok about them. That was that. Middle names are spouse's maiden name and then after our Moms. Didn't really care where they were on a list or how popular the names were at the time.

[Anonymous]

I have a kid with a top name at the height of its popularity.

Never been a problem. Only a handful of kids at elementary had same and it was cool that someone shared your name. Now older and still only a few kids


I think the time of one name being very dominant (like Jennifer in the 80s) is long gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of parents try to find a sweet spot with names - a name people recognize, can easily say and spell but isn't everywhere. The kind of name where people say, "Yeah. That's a nice name, I haven't heard that in a while." The name then becoming popular was not part of their plan.

LOL My best friend in college was one of the many Jennifers. Her mom was very much not a follow-the-crowd person and named her Jennifer when nobody used it. It was the "Nice name, I haven't heard that in a while." A few months later "Love Story" came out and that spawned the infinite Gen X Jennifers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the name?!

Why is everyone so coy?

What fits in but stands out?

I like the name Maeve.

I don't like sharing my kids' names on here because of anonymity, and also because people can be nasty on here and I don't want to hear how ugly or trendy or "downwardly mobile" other people think my kids' names are.

I think Maeve is lovely.

+1 love Maeve. One of my kids has a popular name because he's named for his grandfather. The other is Erin, which I think fits the category of known but not very popular. People generally know how to pronounce and spell it (although there are creative spellings out there). It's also clearly a girls name without being girly which is a good fit for my "tomboy" DD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up as a Jennifer/Jenny in the Midwest, and this was absolutely an important aspect of naming my children. I just wanted them to have more unique names.

I get this. But also NO NAME will ever again be as universal and popular as Jennifer was from 1975-1995. Even if top names have stayed the same, the percentage of babies named the "top" names is still pretty low. Jennifer was like 1 in 10 babies for 20 years. And then it dropped like crazy and is barely used now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of parents try to find a sweet spot with names - a name people recognize, can easily say and spell but isn't everywhere. The kind of name where people say, "Yeah. That's a nice name, I haven't heard that in a while." The name then becoming popular was not part of their plan.

LOL My best friend in college was one of the many Jennifers. Her mom was very much not a follow-the-crowd person and named her Jennifer when nobody used it. It was the "Nice name, I haven't heard that in a while." A few months later "Love Story" came out and that spawned the infinite Gen X Jennifers.

This used to happen a lot. There were no published statistics on name frequency so people thought if they'd never met a kid with that name, they were good.

I think this is a secret reason why names have diversified so much and there are no more Jennifers or Jasons. People notice a name is "on the rise" and intentionally back off of it. You can actually see this in a lot of names -- they will shoot up and then level off, sometimes at 300, sometimes at 100, sometimes at 40. It's like people are exercising collective restraint.

I'm actually really grateful for this because my kid has a name that has climbed quick into the top 100 before we had her, but we'd had the name picked out for years and it was just already her name, so we picked it anyway. And it's just hovered right around that level ever since, not dropping or rising more than 5 or 10 spots. I'm glad to all the people not choosing the name so that we could, without it getting too popular!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up as a Jennifer/Jenny in the Midwest, and this was absolutely an important aspect of naming my children. I just wanted them to have more unique names.

I get this. But also NO NAME will ever again be as universal and popular as Jennifer was from 1975-1995. Even if top names have stayed the same, the percentage of babies named the "top" names is still pretty low. Jennifer was like 1 in 10 babies for 20 years. And then it dropped like crazy and is barely used now.

Surprisingly (to me) Jennifer is still a top 1000 name! It's ranked in the 500s. There were over 500 baby girls named Jennifer last year. Jessica is really similar. The name Jason, which is the Jennifer name for boys, is ranked #148 and was given to over 2000 baby boys last year.

But yes, it is simply not possible for a name today to get that level of coverage. At its peak, more than 60k babies a year were being named Jennifer. Just contrast, the top rated girl name last year, Olivia, was given to under 15k babies.

I also think the distinction people are making between "trendy" and popular (or as I've seen elsewhere "trendy" v. "classic") is not that big of a deal. There are a handful of names that I do think will be seen as trendy in perhaps an embarrassing way -- the name Khaleesi, after the game of thrones character (who turned out to be terrible!) comes to mind. But a normal name that was not obviously inspired by a television show but happens to be popular? I don't think anyone will ever wince and say "yeah, I'm one of the 2022 Violets, so embarrassing."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the name?!

Why is everyone so coy?

What fits in but stands out?

I like the name Maeve.

My sister has a Maeve and a Charlotte. Her Charlotte has always been the only one in her circle (despite it being a top ten name at all times since she was born), but Maeve has 2 or 3 others in various classes and activities (I think it was 400-something when she was born; sometimes you just hit on a microtrend without realizing).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the name?!

Why is everyone so coy?

What fits in but stands out?

I like the name Maeve.

My sister has a Maeve and a Charlotte. Her Charlotte has always been the only one in her circle (despite it being a top ten name at all times since she was born), but Maeve has 2 or 3 others in various classes and activities (I think it was 400-something when she was born; sometimes you just hit on a microtrend without realizing).

It's because Maeve is trending among a specific demographic (UMC white professionals, largely in or near major metropolitan areas). Whereas Charlotte (and really any top 50 name) is more dispersed throughout all demographics and geographies. Charlotte is technically more popular, but less likely to be reoccurring.

Maeve is exactly the kind of name that people desperate to give their kid an original name hone in on, so of course a bunch of people looking for a name like that will hit in the same one. I've seen this happen repeatedly at my kids' school with names like Sebastian, Iris, Viola, and Hugo. It's funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the name?!

Why is everyone so coy?

What fits in but stands out?

I like the name Maeve.

My sister has a Maeve and a Charlotte. Her Charlotte has always been the only one in her circle (despite it being a top ten name at all times since she was born), but Maeve has 2 or 3 others in various classes and activities (I think it was 400-something when she was born; sometimes you just hit on a microtrend without realizing).

It's because Maeve is trending among a specific demographic (UMC white professionals, largely in or near major metropolitan areas). Whereas Charlotte (and really any top 50 name) is more dispersed throughout all demographics and geographies. Charlotte is technically more popular, but less likely to be reoccurring.

Maeve is exactly the kind of name that people desperate to give their kid an original name hone in on, so of course a bunch of people looking for a name like that will hit in the same one. I've seen this happen repeatedly at my kids' school with names like Sebastian, Iris, Viola, and Hugo. It's funny.

This is crazy! Our school has multiple Maeves and Cecilias. Sebastian is the one that really cracks up my mother because it seems so unusual to her. My kid will be talking about his friend and she'll cut in with "SeBAHtian" like Bridehead Revisited.

[Anonymous]

I like it all, except Jennifer. I don’t really care for the name Lisa either.

I like the name June.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the name?!

Why is everyone so coy?

What fits in but stands out?

I like the name Maeve.

My sister has a Maeve and a Charlotte. Her Charlotte has always been the only one in her circle (despite it being a top ten name at all times since she was born), but Maeve has 2 or 3 others in various classes and activities (I think it was 400-something when she was born; sometimes you just hit on a microtrend without realizing).

It's because Maeve is trending among a specific demographic (UMC white professionals, largely in or near major metropolitan areas). Whereas Charlotte (and really any top 50 name) is more dispersed throughout all demographics and geographies. Charlotte is technically more popular, but less likely to be reoccurring.

Maeve is exactly the kind of name that people desperate to give their kid an original name hone in on, so of course a bunch of people looking for a name like that will hit in the same one. I've seen this happen repeatedly at my kids' school with names like Sebastian, Iris, Viola, and Hugo. It's funny.

Exactly. Which is why people should just use the names they like and not worry about it. I have a James, a Caroline, and an Anna - all names that are kind of evergreen popular/common but not trendy, and only James has had a repeat. Meanwhile, I’ve met multiple children with my favorite obscure (relatively speaking) names, Marlowe and Desmond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the name?!

Why is everyone so coy?

What fits in but stands out?

I like the name Maeve.

My sister has a Maeve and a Charlotte. Her Charlotte has always been the only one in her circle (despite it being a top ten name at all times since she was born), but Maeve has 2 or 3 others in various classes and activities (I think it was 400-something when she was born; sometimes you just hit on a microtrend without realizing).

It's because Maeve is trending among a specific demographic (UMC white professionals, largely in or near major metropolitan areas). Whereas Charlotte (and really any top 50 name) is more dispersed throughout all demographics and geographies. Charlotte is technically more popular, but less likely to be reoccurring.

Maeve is exactly the kind of name that people desperate to give their kid an original name hone in on, so of course a bunch of people looking for a name like that will hit in the same one. I've seen this happen repeatedly at my kids' school with names like Sebastian, Iris, Viola, and Hugo. It's funny.

OP heard parents talking about name popularity. You are making assumptions that other parents are desperate and didn't simply choose a name they liked---the way you did.

One of my relatives named her son Sebastian after the character in Reign. She was fangirling and not desperate for originality. While I don't know about the others, Sebastian started trending after Cruel Intentions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up as a Jennifer/Jenny in the Midwest, and this was absolutely an important aspect of naming my children. I just wanted them to have more unique names.

I get this. But also NO NAME will ever again be as universal and popular as Jennifer was from 1975-1995. Even if top names have stayed the same, the percentage of babies named the "top" names is still pretty low. Jennifer was like 1 in 10 babies for 20 years. And then it dropped like crazy and is barely used now.

Lisa was top one hundred from 1962 to 1994, almost 30 years. It was number one from 1962 to 1969.

Jessica was huge in the 80’s and part of the 90s, number one a lot and top ten from 1985 to 2000.

I remember Emily and Emma being popular. Now the popular name is Ella. They just changed the mm to ll

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up as a Jennifer/Jenny in the Midwest, and this was absolutely an important aspect of naming my children. I just wanted them to have more unique names.

I get this. But also NO NAME will ever again be as universal and popular as Jennifer was from 1975-1995. Even if top names have stayed the same, the percentage of babies named the "top" names is still pretty low. Jennifer was like 1 in 10 babies for 20 years. And then it dropped like crazy and is barely used now.

Lisa was top one hundred from 1962 to 1994, almost 30 years. It was number one from 1962 to 1969.

Jessica was huge in the 80’s and part of the 90s, number one a lot and top ten from 1985 to 2000.

I remember Emily and Emma being popular. Now the popular name is Ella. They just changed the mm to ll

Yes those were all popular names, but the PP is right -- no name of the modern era (post WWII) touches the popularity of Jennifer in the 70s and 80s. Go on Behind the Name and compare -- none of the names you just mentioned were as popular as Jennifer. Lisa and Jessica come closest, but the more recent names don't even touch it. The frequency of Ella is nothing compared to what Jennifer was.