Using a popular name anyway?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
I love it too, just like I love Sophia. They're very pretty names, and it's a big part of why they're so popular. But I just couldn't do a top 5 name. We pivoted to family names instead - even if it becomes super popular overnight, DD will always be named after my grandma so she hopefully won't end up in a thread like this saying "my mom didn't even have a connection to Jennifer, she just liked it, and doomed me to a life as Jennifer H." |
Anonymous
|
My kids have common, popular names and yet there are still fewer kids with the same name as my husband and I experienced growing up with Top 10 names in the early 80s.
My son has no other kids with his name in his grade, but a few in other grades. Growing up there was another girl with my name in every class, every sports team, every Girl Scout troop, etc. I have always used my last name and it never bothered me. |
Anonymous
I’m one of the posters you’re responding to and you’re wrong. My daughters name is not even in the top 500 (FWIW her name isn’t “creative” either it’s just a name that was popular in the early 1900s and is not popular right now) and I don’t judge creative names. I don’t actually judge ANY names except as a gut reaction on the basis of whether I find the sound of the name appealing or not. I don’t assign extra judgments to what parents name their kids beyond that. I just find that people in this thread are being very judgmental of popular names and I find that unkind and also doesn’t make sense as has been pointed out many times the popular names of today are not actually that popular. |
Anonymous
DP but that's because this thread is about popular names. If it were about creative names that's what people would be judging. If it were about Juniors and IIIs that's what people would be judging. If it were about androgynous names or nature names or virtue names that's what people would be judging. Etc. 60% of this subforum is about judging names. It comes across as very pearl-clutchy to act like you simply cannot imagine that people judge people based on what they name their kids. No one is that credulous. |
Anonymous
| It just seems that there is no creativity behind a super popular top 5 name. |
Anonymous
| I had the strange experience of choosing two names for twins one a family name from my DH and one not and having my cousins ironically choose the exact same name. I have never met anyone outside the family with those names. |
Anonymous
| PP from above. Not popular names either. |
Anonymous
Sure, but some people don't value creativity in this particular choice. I'm an artist and think creativity is often over-valued as a quality these days. There is an anecdote in Tina Fey's memoir that is kind of relevant to this. She talks about producing a TV show and how one of the challenges with working with creative people is their tendency to overcomplicate things. She'd ask the prop team for a sandwich for a scene and they'd bring out this exquisitely constructed work-of-art sandwich and she'd have to explain, no, we need like bologna and American cheese on wonder bread because the sandwich is serving a specific purpose and your work-of-art version will be too fussy to work with. Also, we need like 20 of them because we're going to film a bunch of takes (I'm paraphrasing this anecdote from memory, apologies for the details I'm sure I got wrong, but this is the gist). And I think it applies here. For some people, a name's uniqueness is it's most important quality. They want perfect work-of-art names that no one else will have, that will make people stop and say "oh my gosh, I've never heard that name before and I love it!" But when I was naming my DD, the things I valued most were (1) it had to have a good, positive meaning that I connected to and felt like a little blessing I could give her, and (2) it needed to be versatile in terms of offering nickname potential and being a name that can accommodate any kind of professional career and suit many different personalities. Those things were MUCH more important to me than choosing a name no one else would have. We went with Josephine (nn Josie) which I love and suits her perfectly. It's also turned out to be more popular, at least regionally, than I might have guessed. But no regrets. It met my requirements and just kind of clicked for us the minute we heard it. It was not a "creative" choice -- I'm pretty sure we found it by spending a lot of time on Nameberry. But it was the right name. I guess I just compared my daughter's name to a bologna sandwich, but hey, as analogies go it's a creative one! I'm a creative person but that's not what I valued in choosing my child's name. |
Anonymous
| I have a super popular name. Think Mary. And a common last name like Smith. At least it’s hard to internet search me. Many times I’ve had the experience “you’re Mary Smith!!!???” And I have had to say no it’s the other Mary Smith. I’m not her. It hasn’t been that difficult. |
Anonymous
So what. Give me a name I love any day over how YOU FEEL about creativity. 
|
Anonymous
yeah, they do. and most of the ones doing that are jerks. take pride in being a jerk or defending jerks all you want. |
Anonymous
Why does there need to be creativity in what you name your kid though? That's not a requirement or even necessarily a desirable thing. I have a very "creative" name myself and it causes problems for me and I kind of resent carrying this name which was much more about my parents than it is about me--they picked a name trying to be creative without much thought for how it would be for a kid (me) to actually go through life w/ that name, always explaining it and spelling it and correcting people on how to pronounce it, etc. I'd rather have a common/popular name. |
Anonymous
How . . . judgmental of you! 
|
Anonymous
| I worked in an elementary school for 20 years until recently. You know what's really fun? When there's a boy Alex and a girl Alex, a boy Taylor and a girl Taylor, a Liam, a Lian, a Leeanne, and a Lena....all in one class. You may think it's unusual or extreme, but it's not. Lots of kids having an identity crisis all year long. |
Anonymous
omg clever...i'm OK with judging mean people who are objectively mean as they are on here trash talking baby names. |