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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It just seems that there is no creativity behind a super popular top 5 name.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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