Reply to s/o Baby names so common now you don't know why people use them

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[quote=Anonymous]This thread is really interesting to me because it is judgmental about people who use conventional baby names.  Before someone tells me that I am mistaken, look at the title of the thread.  The question is literally why would anyone ever use a common name.

I have a very common name.  I went through a period when I was 12 when I wanted a more exotic name.  But now I love my name; it is classic and pretty and I am glad my parents gave it to me.

When my husband and I were looking at names for our kids, we found this interesting article (with quoted excerpt):  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118247444843644288.html

[quote]Academics say there's been a demonstrable shift in the way people name children. In 1880, Social Security Administration data show that the 10 most popular baby names were given to 41% of boys and 23% of girls. But in 2006, just 9.5% of boys and roughly 8% of girls were given one of the year's 10 most popular names -- a combined decline of about 33% from the averages in the 1990s, says Cleveland Kent Evans, an associate psychology professor at Bellevue University in Bellevue, Neb. and a past president of the American Name Society. So while a once-ubiquitous name like Mary has fallen from No. 1 during most of the 1950s to No. 84 last year, many new names are taking off. Nevaeh (heaven spelled backward) ranked No. 43 among the 1,000 most popular names in the U.S. in 2006 and Zayden, another recent creation, was given to 224 boys.

"Names have become a matter of fashion and taste," says Harvard sociologist Stanley Lieberson.

Not everyone is happy about this development. Albert Mehrabian, a professor emeritus of psychology at UCLA and author of "The Baby Name Report Card," has conducted surveys of how people react to different names. He found that more common names elicited positive reactions, while unusual names typically brought negative responses. To him, giving children names that stand out may ultimately be no different than sending them to school with their hair dyed blue. "Yes, you can have someone stand out by being bizarre, but that doesn't mean it's going to be good," he says.[/quote]

Essentially, the article says that the real "trend" lately is finding a unique and different name for your kid so that they can have their own identity and do not have to "share" their name.  So really, all of you trendsetters who think you are being original are actually just following the crowd.

But really, a number 1 ranked name today is NOT EVEN NEARLY as common as a number 1 ranked name 20 years ago.  So, in terms of naming your kids something "common", I say go right ahead.[/quote]

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