A useful thread for figuring out if a name is "too popular"
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
This sounds like a logic puzzle, or one of those questions from the LSAT. |
Anonymous
| The majority of humans will always follow group-think, trends, and fashions. That’s all the popular names are. Sophia is not inherently prettier than Linda - Linda is just not in fashion. |
Anonymous
| I think a lot of people say popular but mean trendy. A name might be common enough to be in the top 10, but it is consistently there, so people might think of it as a common name, but not necessarily a popular name. Trendy names are the ones that might not be near the top of the list, but have jumped up or are rising, or they’re names you might hear a lot around you, even if the numbers don’t reflect them being popular. So if you don’t want a name that’s too popular, I think it depends on if you want to avoid a common name or a trendy name. |
Anonymous
I agree w that. Linda is a pretty name but I have a natural aversion to it bc it just is such a 1950s name and seems like it belongs to my mom’s friends and my friends’ moms so it feels unnatural to think of a baby or young kid w the name. I feel the same way about Susan and Judy. I like the way they sound but they’re too boomer-y for me to ever choose them. But like a lot of people nowadays who are into the old lady name trend, I do like a lot of names from my grandparents’ generation: Mary, Betty, Helen, Alice, Ruth, Frances |
Anonymous
This literally made me lol. I love Boston Rob. I think he’s a survivor genius but I would never associate the name Robert with him specifically. I don’t think Robert is too popular but I live in a liberal affluent Chicago area and I have recently met two baby Roberts, one goes by Bobby. Classic boy names seem big with this subset. For what it’s worth I love the name. |
Anonymous
Not neccessarily, Mom to kids whose names were #11, #5 (and would have been #1 if he hadn't come a week early!), and #102. I'm fascinated by people's horror of popular names. |
Anonymous
The people following the trend here are the people who choose their kid's name because of what other people choose. Searching for an "unpopular" name is super trendy right now. The idea that somehow it's bad to have the same name as someone else is group-think. I'm glad I gave my kid a name with meaning to me. The fact that my grandmother's maiden name, which I've always loved, happened to be in the top 20 did not sway me. |
Anonymous
DP but this made me laugh a little. Everyone is adamant they're not the trend-followers, even if they did use a top 20 surname-as-a-first name. Same with the poster above insisting that hating on Sophia is bucking groupthink, in a thread of people using "Sophia's mom" as an insult. YOU'RE ALL SNOWFLAKES, OKAY? NOW PLAY NICE. |
Anonymous
This. I'm 52 and was right at the beginning of the Jennifer trend. Know lots of them. I'm a Susan and was on the late end for that name since it peaked in the 50s (I was born 1969). I grew up on the West coast and Susan's my age were very unusual but now that I live in DC I know lots my age so there was definitely a regional variation. |
Anonymous
Same. My kids' name ranking at birth were #1 and #95. I like both their names and they say they do too. |
Anonymous
OP here and “Sophia’s mom” was an i silt in the OTHER thread— I started this one to try and avoid it. I though maybe if we though of the popularity issue as a problem we could help solve, instead of a reason to criticize, it might be more productive. Maybe? I will say, in response to the person above saying parents picking popular names won’t read this thread: I disagree. I think a lot of people like names in a gray area— it’s not a name you hear constantly but it ranks higher in the SSN list than you expect it to. This was true of the name we picked for our DD— has never met a person of any age with that name, and then was stunned by his high it ranked in SSN. Like it was confusing. But in the end we still went with it because while higher than we expected, it’s actually still relatively uncommon. We also learned in our research about why it’s jumped in the rankings recently (a demographic shift that has probably led to more exposure of the name, especially in cities with a lot of immigrants), and I think that was useful regardless. |
Anonymous
Yes, there was some analysis that showed it takes three generations for names to sound fresh again and rebound in popularoty. So right now Boomer names like Linda, Susan, Barbara, Judy still sound stale, but their mothers' names sound fresh (Helen, Alice, Mabel). Twenty years from now little Alice and Mabel will be naming their daughters Susan and Barbara (and of course insisting that they have always loved the name bc it is their dear mother's best friend's cousin's name, and nothing to do with trends). |
Anonymous
Why the cynicism though about the "claiming they've always loved it" when you've just explained how that claim is probably genuine? It is very likely that people who choose names do so specifically because they now sound fresh and different to them, and don't remind them of their parents or their parents siblings or friends, and also don't remind them of people they grew up with or now work with or are friends with. That leaves their grandparents' generation of names. In other words, it's not that these people are blindly following a trend or naming their kids Alice or Mabel because they heard about some cool celebrity doing it. It's that these names organically sound good to the ears of people currently having kids, and therefore they are choosing the names, and thus a trend is born. And the same will be true when our children name their kids Susan and Barbara and we think "Like Aunt Barb who wears too much perfume? Ugh, why?" It's because they have no memory of an aunt named Barbara wearing too much perfume, and the name hits their ears different. I hate the criticism of people "following name trends" because I don't think many people pick a trendy name on purpose. It's just that names that appeal to some people often appeal to a lot of people. That's it. No one is scouring name lists and thinking "oh, I want to give my kid the hottest, trendiest name of 2022 -- let's see if I can pick a winner about to jump 100 spots into the top 50!" As this thread shows, most people would like to avoid that if they can, but sometimes it's hard because you only learn about certain trends after the fact. |
Anonymous
PP here. It wasn't meant to be a criticism - just an observation that people unwittingly follow trends while insisting that they aren't. (E.g., I have several friends who said they chose Henry or Leo because it's a family name DESPITE it being trendy - but obviously it's a family name that is also very in-fashion right now. No one is naming their son Norman or Igor because it's a family name). |
Anonymous
Yes but they might be naming their kids Henry and Leo because they went through all their family names and those sounded most appealing to them. It doesn’t mean they just picked Henry because they love trendy names and are using the family name thing as a ruse. It just seems like you are assuming people are blindly following trends and lying about their intentions and name inspiration, but I think it’s more likely people are looking for names that appeal to them and the trends naturally emerge from that. |