Using a popular name anyway?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Names follow trends. I do internally roll my eyes when I hear someone introduce their baby with a super common name. Like, come on, you couldn’t think out of the trend-pressure for one second?!

+1. No name is inherently prettier than another - it’s simply current fashion. I roll my eyes too.

The "current fashion" is to give your child a less popular name. That's why no names are as popular today as some where decades ago. Because so many people are looking for a unique name. Which is why this entire conversation is silly -- there are no "super popular" names. You are rolling your eyes at names given to a tiny fraction (less than 1% of all babies, generally much less, a few thousand children out of millions) for being overly trendy?

I don't roll my eyes at anyone's baby's names because I'm not a jerk, but I do think it's the people who are going out of their way to choose an unusual name are actually following more social pressure than anyone naming their kid Charlotte or Elizabeth.

You misunderstood the poster. Names definitely follow trends as does fashion. Ava isn’t inherently prettier than Linda but current trends dictate it is. It is fashion. You don’t have to give a unique name to not follow the trends dictated by nothing more than group think. In 2022, name your daughter Susan or Linda and she’ll never meet another her own age.

I’m tired of the Ava, Olivia, Emma, Sophia, etc trends and do internally roll my eyes.

[Anonymous]

Don’t give your child a top 5 name. There are so many beautiful names to choose from that there is no reason to saddle your kid with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my sister regrets naming my niece Ava. There's on in every class, on every team. And she does it does kind of feel less special. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to always specify the last name or reply to invites that were sent to the wrong Ava.

Haha. This was true for my DD's kindergarten class. She kept mixing up the initials for their last names when she told us stories about her school day such that at one point we thought she had 5-6 Avas in her class. It turns out there were only 3, but one sometimes went by first name middle initial and sometimes first name last initial. So confusing!

I’m not discounting her experience but this has never happened to me (child’s name is Max, 5 in his grade including one year, 3 on the same sports team!). Never gotten invites or anything intended for other kids, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Use what you like. If you don't mind it being popular, that's all that matters.

I guess the kid doesn’t matter.

There's no way to know whether the kid will be one of the people who doesn't mind a popular name, or doesn't mind an unpopular name.

[Anonymous]

I think giving your child a popular name is 1000x better than giving them a wacky name or a name with a stupid spelling just to be more "unique." OK, so there are a lot of Alexanders. Better than being cute and spelling it Alliksandyr, or that you should instead name him Sauron or Zermatt or Balthazar. Just go for it, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t give your child a top 5 name. There are so many beautiful names to choose from that there is no reason to saddle your kid with that.

I have a relatively rare name that I wish I weren't saddled with. To be a Jessica...

[Anonymous]

I don't think there are any popular names out that are even remotely close in popularity to names like Sara/Jennifer/Jessica when I was a kid. My children very rarely have had two of the same names in their class, and frequently, they are the children of immigrants or first generation kids because there are only so many foreign names that won't be slaughtered by white people. My daughter has three Nora/Norahs in her class, for example - one caucasian, one middle eastern, one indian.

[Anonymous]

I have a kid in ES, a kid in preschool, and a baby. Haven’t met any (not a single one since my oldest was born) babies/kids named Ava, Emma, Sophia, Amelia, or Isabella. We do know 1 Charlotte, 1 Mia and a couple Olivias.

We also know about 10 Noras and lots of Claires and Lilys, which are all must farther down on the popular names list (although all still within the top 50 I think). It’s just hard to predict what will wind up being popular amongst the kids you/your kids actually encounter. But people are using unusual names more often. My daughters swim class has the following kids: Bjorn, Ida, Esme, Nigel. Her gymnastics class also has an Esme as well as a Ruthie and a Frankie (and before you ask no my daughters name is not Esme her name is in the 600s on the popularity list though and we haven’t met any kids w her name). Who would’ve guessed 2 small classes would both have an Esme, which is #398 on the popularity list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Names follow trends. I do internally roll my eyes when I hear someone introduce their baby with a super common name. Like, come on, you couldn’t think out of the trend-pressure for one second?!

+1. No name is inherently prettier than another - it’s simply current fashion. I roll my eyes too.

The "current fashion" is to give your child a less popular name. That's why no names are as popular today as some where decades ago. Because so many people are looking for a unique name. Which is why this entire conversation is silly -- there are no "super popular" names. You are rolling your eyes at names given to a tiny fraction (less than 1% of all babies, generally much less, a few thousand children out of millions) for being overly trendy?

I don't roll my eyes at anyone's baby's names because I'm not a jerk, but I do think it's the people who are going out of their way to choose an unusual name are actually following more social pressure than anyone naming their kid Charlotte or Elizabeth.

You misunderstood the poster. Names definitely follow trends as does fashion. Ava isn’t inherently prettier than Linda but current trends dictate it is. It is fashion. You don’t have to give a unique name to not follow the trends dictated by nothing more than group think. In 2022, name your daughter Susan or Linda and she’ll never meet another her own age.

I’m tired of the Ava, Olivia, Emma, Sophia, etc trends and do internally roll my eyes.

Nope, I didn't misunderstand anything. I just disagree.

First, no one has ever claimed that only popular names are pretty, or that they are prettier than less popular names. There's lots of pretty names. Also, pretty is subjective and what I think is a pretty name is probably different from what you think is a pretty name, which is fine. One thing more popular names tend to have in common is that they appeal to people from different ethnicities and language traditions, which makes them more universally acceptable. Sophia/Sofia works in English and Spanish and French and Danish and Russian and Arabic. Useful! That's how it got so popular.

Yes, names follow trends but it's not just what people think is prettier. Trends don't dictate which names people find attractive. Trends are caused by lots of things. Right now there are very strong trends for names that work in multiple languages, as well as for shorter names. That has nothing to do with pretty. People are thinking about their children living in a diverse world, or perhaps one with fewer borders. They think about making sure their name can be pronounced easily.

But there is also a strong trend toward giving kids, but especially girls, names that are less common and more singular. They've actually studied this! People have become less likely to choose names that are already popular, and more likely to introduce brand new names (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3592279?mag=science-baby-names&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents). This is why the top names are no longer as popular as top names used to be. There is also a coordinated effect on the bottom of the list which people don't notice because they don't publish the full list -- there are just more names on the list. Lots and lots of names only being used by a very small number of people.

So yes, giving your child an "unpopular" name is.... a trend! You are being trendy when you do this. Which is why it's weird to be critical of people who use more popular names as "following trends". Whatever you think of the names they choose, they are actually following an incredibly longstanding naming tradition of choosing a name from a smaller subset of known and relatively common names. This is the "classic" way of selecting a name.

I personally don't think there's a right or wrong here. I like how much variety there is in baby names and I enjoy learning how people choose baby names and also seeing how kids always seem to grow into whatever the name is, like magic. I bet I'd like your kids names. But I also think you're wrong about who is being trendy in their naming approach and who isn't. You're trendy! Your kids' specific names may not be popular, but the way you chose to name them very much is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think giving your child a popular name is 1000x better than giving them a wacky name or a name with a stupid spelling just to be more "unique." OK, so there are a lot of Alexanders. Better than being cute and spelling it Alliksandyr, or that you should instead name him Sauron or Zermatt or Balthazar. Just go for it, OP.

Sure, but what’s wrong with Marina or Daphne?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think giving your child a popular name is 1000x better than giving them a wacky name or a name with a stupid spelling just to be more "unique." OK, so there are a lot of Alexanders. Better than being cute and spelling it Alliksandyr, or that you should instead name him Sauron or Zermatt or Balthazar. Just go for it, OP.

There is an ocean of possibilities between trendy names and unique (weird) names. Names like Laura, Blythe, Melanie, Belinda, Jean, etc.

Just not another Ella or Sophia, please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think giving your child a popular name is 1000x better than giving them a wacky name or a name with a stupid spelling just to be more "unique." OK, so there are a lot of Alexanders. Better than being cute and spelling it Alliksandyr, or that you should instead name him Sauron or Zermatt or Balthazar. Just go for it, OP.

There is an ocean of possibilities between trendy names and unique (weird) names. Names like Laura, Blythe, Melanie, Belinda, Jean, etc.

Just not another Ella or Sophia, please!

I think Ella and Sophia are prettier names than most of the others you listed though. I’d rather be named Ella than Jean or Blythe even if there were 5 others in my class/office etc. I do like Laura though.

[Anonymous]

I truly hate the overused top ten names because they are overused. They all sound so stale at this point. I do judge the parents a little bit and think they’re followers. I made a point of naming my kids outside the top 100 names and they all have names you would recognize. Beautiful names, in my opinion.

Look harder, OP. You child is going to be one in a million so name her that way. She deserves better than to be “another ___”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think giving your child a popular name is 1000x better than giving them a wacky name or a name with a stupid spelling just to be more "unique." OK, so there are a lot of Alexanders. Better than being cute and spelling it Alliksandyr, or that you should instead name him Sauron or Zermatt or Balthazar. Just go for it, OP.

There is an ocean of possibilities between trendy names and unique (weird) names. Names like Laura, Blythe, Melanie, Belinda, Jean, etc.

Just not another Ella or Sophia, please!

I think Ella and Sophia are prettier names than most of the others you listed though. I’d rather be named Ella than Jean or Blythe even if there were 5 others in my class/office etc. I do like Laura though.

And importantly, OP prefers her top 5 name to those other ones. She should choose a name she likes and connects to. She doesn't have to go hunting for a less popular name unless the popularity of the name she picked bothers her.

Think of it this way, PP -- if it weren't for people willing to name their kids Ella and Sophia, your kids names would not seem as unique. Which is what you like about them! Live and let live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly hate the overused top ten names because they are overused. They all sound so stale at this point. I do judge the parents a little bit and think they’re followers. I made a point of naming my kids outside the top 100 names and they all have names you would recognize. Beautiful names, in my opinion.

Look harder, OP. You child is going to be one in a million so name her that way. She deserves better than to be “another ___”.

OP's kid will be one of a kind no matter what her name is. You're overthinking this, especially on behalf of someone else's kid.

Guess what, someone will judge your kids' names no matter what they are. No. matter. what. Just please yourself.