Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, here are names that are familiar but outside the Top 500 (which, btw, is heavy on misspellings of top 500 names).

Brendan
Pierce
Conrad
Lionel
Leonard
Quincy
Douglas
Bruno
Harold/Harry
Thaddeus
Stanley
Augustine
Thatcher
Ephraim
Duncan
Spencer
Cedric

If you’ll accept a name between 490-500, you can add Asa and Lawrence.

Blair
Matilda
Lorelai
Beatrice
Octavia
Laurel
Great
Marissa
Poppy
Marina
Noa
Martha
Deborah
Estelle/Estella
Judith
Opal
Nancy
Ramona
Iliana

And between 490-500, you get Lilith, Meredith, and Megan.

Augustine is just awful. I would do August over Augustine. And Great for a girl's name? Is that a misspelling? Never have I heard of Great as a name!

I didn’t say I liked all the names, just that they are familiar. Some I do like, but others not so much. And it looks like Greta auto-corrected to Great. Please, no one name your daughter Great!

Maybe Great was supposed to be Gretta?

Susan
Lisa
Julie

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charity
Chastity
Adolf
Napoleon

Adolf?

Pol Pot and Ataturk were taken?

I know a non-white Adolf who was, for sure, born after WWII

Anonymous wrote:Ok, here are names that are familiar but outside the Top 500 (which, btw, is heavy on misspellings of top 500 names).

Brendan
Pierce
Conrad
Lionel
Leonard
Quincy
Douglas
Bruno
Harold/Harry
Thaddeus
Stanley
Augustine
Thatcher
Ephraim
Duncan
Spencer
Cedric

If you’ll accept a name between 490-500, you can add Asa and Lawrence.

Blair
Matilda
Lorelai
Beatrice
Octavia
Laurel
Great
Marissa
Poppy
Marina
Noa
Martha
Deborah
Estelle/Estella
Judith
Opal
Nancy
Ramona
Iliana

And between 490-500, you get Lilith, Meredith, and Megan.

Augustine is just awful. I would do August over Augustine. And Great for a girl's name? Is that a misspelling? Never have I heard of Great as a name!

Anonymous wrote:Difficult for boys - you may want to reconsider needing to not be in the 500 unless you love Caspian, Koda or Ulises.

Only normal ones not in top 500-

Matthew, Trey, Chad, Craig

Girls are easier

Lindsey, Whitney, Lea, Noa, Tenley, Ellen, Maren, Emory, Kelly, Rory, Cameron, Bethany, Virginia

Matthew is in the top 20, Cameron is 60.

Ok, here are names that are familiar but outside the Top 500 (which, btw, is heavy on misspellings of top 500 names).

Brendan
Pierce
Conrad
Lionel
Leonard
Quincy
Douglas
Bruno
Harold/Harry
Thaddeus
Stanley
Augustine
Thatcher
Ephraim
Duncan
Spencer
Cedric

If you’ll accept a name between 490-500, you can add Asa and Lawrence.

Blair
Matilda
Lorelai
Beatrice
Octavia
Laurel
Great
Marissa
Poppy
Marina
Noa
Martha
Deborah
Estelle/Estella
Judith
Opal
Nancy
Ramona
Iliana

And between 490-500, you get Lilith, Meredith, and Megan.

I like less common names, but I agree that sticking to those out of the top 500 is particularly tough for boys. That said, I like:

Raphael (519)
Lewis (541)
Conrad (577)
Soren (580)
Curtis (612)
Carl (627)
Nelson (633)
Thaddeus (666)
Anders (729)
Henrik (801)
Hugh (836)
Heath (885)
Reuben (906)
Bjorn (953)
Chad (956)
Ira (972)
Seamus (977)

(Watch out for weird spellings of more popular names! There are a lot of those out there on the SSA list.)

Anonymous wrote:Charity
Chastity
Adolf
Napoleon

Anonymous wrote:There's a reason these names aren't common.

No, there really isn’t - names are subject to fad and fashion just like everything else.

Anonymous wrote:Or google ssa baby names and select for the top 1000, scroll to 501 and start reading.

My husband and I separately went through the top 1000 and crossed out everything we disliked and highlighted the ones that caught our eye, then crossreferenced and got rid of anything one of us crossed out. Generated lots of ideas that way. We didn't linger over each name, it was just gut reaction, so it didn't take that long.

Anonymous wrote:Or google ssa baby names and select for the top 1000, scroll to 501 and start reading.

Yup. How do you feel about Johan, Deacon, Cason, Danny, or Nikolai? Or Bethany, Alejandra, Janelle, Elisa, or Adelina?

Why is it so important to be out of the top 500? The #500 names are at about 0.03% of all births-- i.e. 1 in 3000 girls or boys (so 1 in 6000 kids.) Even the #200 names only come up in about 1 in 2000 girl or boy births (so 1 in 4000 kids.) Do you really need to be rarer than that?

Anonymous wrote:One of the things I have realized is that name popularity is somewhat localized. My DD was the only child at her DCPCS school with her 1st name. We moved to our neighborhood school and there are 3 in her grade.

But if you need not crazy names:
Cynthia, Marie, Monica, Elyse, Bridget, Eileen, Ellen, Rayna, Nora, Simone

Yes! DS's name is surprisingly common in the DC area. But down south, where I live now? Not at all.

There's a reason these names aren't common.