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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am fascinated by regional popularity of names. My own name seems to have trended heavily in one section of the country. I’ve spoken to others in TX and CA who didn’t have others around as a kid. My husband is a Bryan from TX and said he only knew one other growing up (any spelling)-which is funny because when he called me for the first time and left just his first name, there were 4 who could have been calling me.[/quote]

It is very interesting! My name was not very popular nationally when I was born (in the 100s I think) but shot to national popularity over the next 8 years or so and wound up top 10. Interestingly though, it was was definitely popular in my home town because there were always at least one other person with my name in my class and I had friends a grade above and below me in high school with the same name. I mean, I guess that's how names get more popular, via these little name booms in some areas that get replicated elsewhere and grow. But it feels random and I think often people are responding to stimuli that they can't possibly even be aware of. Like what caused so many parents in my relatively small home town to choose my name in those years? There must have been something, like maybe an adult with that name who had lots of friends (so her name got disseminated a lot and wound up on people's minds). Maybe it popped up in a movie or book that wasn't like a blockbuster, but enough people saw to make them think about the name, and it grew from there.

That's kind of how we picked our DC's name. We saw a tiny indie movie years ago (no one saw this movie, I bring it up to people and no one knows it, I think we are one of a few hundred people who saw it) that had a character with the name, who went by a specific nickname variant. I remember turning to my DH in the middle of the movie and saying "I absolutely love that name and that nickname is perfect" and he said "wow, I really like it too and I've never met anyone with it." And that became what we named our kid and we basically never wavered from it.

It's now a top 50 name after not even being in the top 1000 a decade ago. We've met people whose kid have this name and asked what inspired them and none of them have even heard of this movie that was our inspiration. They all have some other reason for choosing it. We thought we were so sneakily original. :lol:

Name trends are funny and I know there are people on here who think they can predict it and sometimes you can. But sometimes you can't! There are names that get popular seemingly out of nowhere. But I still love DC's name and it suits them to a tee (and yes, I'm intentionally concealing the name because I don't want it to get anymore popular than it already is -- so sue me!).[/quote]

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