What do you consider uncommon? Some names are just currently out of favor. My girls both have normal names that everybody knows but they just aren’t currently in the top names.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any common name. I ruled out the names of every person I had ever met. Anyone can be an Emma, Linda, Allison, Elizabeth, Megan, Ann, Jasmine, Naomi, Susan. My kids have never been in a class with anyone who shared their names or seen their names on a keychain or even met any living namesake.

As someone with a very unusual name (never met anyone else w my name and I’m 37 and have lived all over the country), I can tell you it’s not that special. Mostly it’s annoying. I’d rather be another Sarah or Mary than have my “oh so special” unusual name. My parents have very common names themselves so I guess they thought of that as a negative like you do but I see their selection of my name as trying way too hard to be different at the expense of their child (me ) since I resented always having to have a discussion w everyone I meet about my name (is it short for something? Where did it come from/why did your parents name you that? Etc)

Yes, my best friend agrees with you! My husband has a very common name so he wanted to avoid anything too common. With one kid we avoided top 100 but he has still had a classmate share his name. With the other we picked something top 50 (can't remember where exactly) but it has two spellings, both of which are in the top 50 so really it is much higher if you combined them. Oh well, suits her perfectly! Here's the thing--if it is a nice name, people are going to use it. If you choose a very uncommon name, it is uncommon because most people don't like it enough to use it.

As for off-limits, we avoided a lot of names that would have created unfortunate initials as well as some of those "a Tom beat me up as a kid" type names. And ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, though I actually LOVE DH's college girlfriend's name! Oh, and names that would be mispronounced a lot! We considered a name with a final syllable that could be pronounced LINE or LEEN. Nope.

Lilibet

Anonymous wrote:KAREN

along those same lines - Felicia

So sad, because I think it is a lovely name.

Anonymous wrote:I know someone named their sons Sean and Ian. I asked them if they knew they gave their sons the same name..John? She didn't care but I thought it strange.

I know someone who named her boys John and Jack.

Figaro
Delmonte
Wimbley

KAREN

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any common name. I ruled out the names of every person I had ever met. Anyone can be an Emma, Linda, Allison, Elizabeth, Megan, Ann, Jasmine, Naomi, Susan. My kids have never been in a class with anyone who shared their names or seen their names on a keychain or even met any living namesake.

As someone with a very unusual name (never met anyone else w my name and I’m 37 and have lived all over the country), I can tell you it’s not that special. Mostly it’s annoying. I’d rather be another Sarah or Mary than have my “oh so special” unusual name. My parents have very common names themselves so I guess they thought of that as a negative like you do but I see their selection of my name as trying way too hard to be different at the expense of their child (me ) since I resented always having to have a discussion w everyone I meet about my name (is it short for something? Where did it come from/why did your parents name you that? Etc)

+100 parents giving their kids unusual names is for the parents, they don't think through how annoying it will be for the kids.

Gaynor

Huh, I was annoyed by the popularity of my name, and yes, I was trying to avoid multiple kids with the same name in a class or activity for my children, but I didn't go as far as no one I met ever having the name I gave my kids. My teen has the name of one of my middle school friends (not named after her, just liked the name and the spelling) and my younger just has a name that was more popular when my husband and I were growing up. If they cross paths with another one along the way, that's fine - just didn't want them to have to go by their last name like I did.

Anonymous wrote:Any common name. I ruled out the names of every person I had ever met. Anyone can be an Emma, Linda, Allison, Elizabeth, Megan, Ann, Jasmine, Naomi, Susan. My kids have never been in a class with anyone who shared their names or seen their names on a keychain or even met any living namesake.

As someone with a very unusual name (never met anyone else w my name and I’m 37 and have lived all over the country), I can tell you it’s not that special. Mostly it’s annoying. I’d rather be another Sarah or Mary than have my “oh so special” unusual name. My parents have very common names themselves so I guess they thought of that as a negative like you do but I see their selection of my name as trying way too hard to be different at the expense of their child (me ) since I resented always having to have a discussion w everyone I meet about my name (is it short for something? Where did it come from/why did your parents name you that? Etc)

Any common name. I ruled out the names of every person I had ever met. Anyone can be an Emma, Linda, Allison, Elizabeth, Megan, Ann, Jasmine, Naomi, Susan. My kids have never been in a class with anyone who shared their names or seen their names on a keychain or even met any living namesake.

Foreign Irish names that need a lot of explaining how to pronounce.

Anonymous wrote:there's a girl in my daughter's swimming class named Rapunzel. I would have that that was off-limits.

We almost named one of our daughters Alexa, before the Amazon echo came out. I'm so grateful we didn't.

Yep that kind of killed Alexa.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL. My dad wanted to name my sister Agnes.

I love this name but I also love all classic saint names.

I also love Agnes!