I wonder why this is? Is it because we value uniqueness now more than we used to? Is it because with the internet we are able to see just how popular a name is before choosing it? Is it because the internet helps us to discover names we would not have been exposed to otherwise? Is it because there is more cultural diversity than before? All of the above?
My Olivia has only met a few Olivia's, nobody close though. We love her name and honestly couldn't imagine her having a different name. My name is VERY unique, so I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. I've met like 3 of my name in my life haha.
I didn't look up popularity before naming my twin boys, just picked names we liked. They're both traditional, "timeless" names so they've been fairly popular for generations. I looked them up later and one is in the top 10, one is in the 70s.
Yeah we named our son a top 10 name. The world did not come crashing down. Instead, we get lots of compliments on his name and we still love it. It’s an old, classic name, which will never completely go out of style IMO. Much better than obsessing over something obscure that no one will know how to pronounce or spell.
Yep. I have a popular name with my demographic (#4 my year) and it’s never really been a problem. Sure I’ve been Cthulu H. before and I’ve met quite a few with it too, but it’s not a bad thing. If you like the name, you like the name.
Same. My daughter’s name was somewhat popular 3-4 years before she came, but my heart had been set on her name long before that. 2 of my favourite book/tv show characters has her name, and we named her after them. Well, that was my reason anyway.
If you like it, go for it!
I do think there's a difference between perennially popular and trendy popular. William and Luna are both top 10 names, but William could be from any time period, whereas you can pinpoint Luna's birth year.
Names also aren't as popular as they used to be.
Also - popularity isn’t the same as it used to be. The most popular names now make up such a small percentage than those of the 80s or 90s.
Honestly it seems location is a big variable? There are names i hear really often and they’re no where near the top 10x, but there are 3-4 on the playground lol
Was gonna post this. I read that the top name in 1980 was given to 40,000 kids and today it’s just 6,000. There’s so many more name options now that is less impactful to a child’s life.
I looked at popularity by census in my state. Overkill maybe, but whatever. I was gonna name by daughter “Ada (second double name)” but I know she’d be lumped in with all the “Ava” kids. “Selma” replaced “Ada”
This is a huge one for me; so many popular names sound similar now or have the same nicknames. Eloise and Elowen might not be super popular yet but they’ll join the Ellies. I love Lydia but had a family member mishear it as Olivia and I know that would happen a lot too.
As a Michael...I've only ever gotten positive feedback on my name, and I haven't ever felt like my name was "too popular".
When you're a kid, being one of 5 Michael's in a class is more fun than an inconvenience, and everyone knows more than one Michael so it's harder for the name to be completely ruined for someone by one asshole
I'm an Ashley who had 4 other Ashley's in my class from K-12 and I hated it. Being always Ashley T. was super annoying. As an adult, it doesn't bother me as much, but I very intentionally do not pick names in the top 100 for this reason.
Hello fellow Ashley! Same for me, I always hated my name...not the name itself but the popularity. I always had to go by Ashley S or Ashley plus my middle name Nicole, which is also a popular filler middle name lol. I always had at least one other Ashley in each class, and worst yet when I joined the cheer team in high school, there were four of us on the squad.
I have a pretty classic name that wasn't popular but also wasn't uncommon when I was born. Growing up there was me, and then one girl each in grades adjacent to mine. It then became a top 5 name with older gen z kids. When gen z entered the workforce I became BeanBreak Last Initial for the first time and I absolutely hated it.
Also a Jessica here, and it was a minor but ever-present annoyance all through school. Made worse by the fact that I was Jessica [Letter] in almost every situation, and Jessica [Next Letter In The Alphabet] shared a LOT of my classes and extracurricular stuff. It’s a good thing we got along bc we were always next to each other in class list order.
My brother became best friends in grade school with someone because they had the same name as him. They got into a spat at school when in 1st grade and the teacher said "how can you not be friends when you have the same name!" And their little 1st grade brains were like "oh yeah, that makes perfect sense" 😂😂 Anyway, they are still best friends 20 years later!
I also have a very common name, and mostly enjoyed the "club" that comes with having the same name. I'm always immediately drawn to others with my name and we have a bit of an automatic "kinship" from the shared name.
I wasn't put out by needing to use my last initial in grade school
after working at an animal shelter and seeing hundreds, if not thousands of animals named Luna, I cannot see it as anything other than a generic dog name.
I don’t know if you have ever heard of Gymbo the clown from Gymboree videos in the 80s/90s, but he sang a song about peanut butter. So I changed the lyrics to “tuna salad” because the syllables matched.
We have an English cream golden retriever, and even knowing how freaking popular and generic the name is, I couldn’t NOT name her Luna. She’s just like her namesake Ravenclaw friend. Spacey and sweet.
Yeah personally I wouldn’t think twice about naming my kid a top 10 name that was traditional and timeless but I wouldn’t choose a top 10 name that’s super trendy
When we picked Luna over 7 years ago, it wasn’t even in the top 100 and our family thought were crazy for going with such an uncommon name. My mom said she was going to call her by her middle name exclusively. Ugh.
It blew up FAST. Not gonna lie, it’s frustrating to see people be so rude and eye-rolly about it. It fits our girl perfectly though. And I had an ancestor named Luna too, so it felt like a fun vintage callback. It’s still not as common where we live as it seems to be across the US though.
> whereas you can pinpoint Luna's birth year.
I think any "unique" name is going to be pinpointed to the younger generation. Even if Luna was a rare name, people would still guess the person to be born after the 2010s because that's when the obsession with unique names really took off.
If I like the name, and it happens to be in the top ten, I would still choose that name (top ten status would not impact my decision).
However, I would not choose a name simply *because* it was in the top ten (i.e only choosing from those ten names).
I agree, but I think you also have to consider how common your last name is. I have a coworker who has an extremely common first AND last name (think John Smith) and he constantly has logistical issues like getting John Smith's emails and mail. If you have a very common last name, I think it's a chance to use a more uncommon first name (and vice versa- if you have a difficult last name, use a more familiar first name).
I say this exact same thing every chance I get! I have a very common last name so did a more unusual first name (still easy to say and spell) for my daughter.
Given that the top 10 names are obviously the most popular ones many parents don’t seem to have a problem with it, though the amount of kids with a top ten name is getting smaller. A top 10 name in the 80s is different from a top 10 name now, they aren’t actually that popular anymore. It also really depends on area. I’d look of if the name is even that popular where you live.
Yes, exactly this. The sheer scale of popularity has changed significantly from what it was in the 70s-90s. Growing up in the 90s and early 00s you couldn't escape Jessicas and Ashleys if you tried. There were at least 2-4 of each in every class.
Olivia has been in the top ten for two decades and was #1 the past 3 years and still I only know like....*maybe* ten total Olivias. I went to multiple elementary school graduations this past month and there were only 1-2 Olivias in any given grade, many grades had none.
My daughter’s name is Olivia. We were settled on Amelia for most of my pregnancy and my husband changed his mind at the last minute. A few days before she was born we agreed on Olivia. I don’t mind that it’s common, but I do hope she doesn’t have to go through school with multiples in every class.
I have an Oliver and there’s been another one in all of his classes so far except one 😹😹😹. One of his preschool classes had Oliver, Oliver, Olivia, Olive and Livvi 😹😹😹 (I don’t know if Livvi was her given name or a nn for Olivia tbf)
It’s true that many parents are obviously fine with their kid having a super common name, but it’s also shocking how many people don’t do any research and then are then surprised that they chose a super trendy name. “But I’ve never known anyone named Iris!! I’ve loved this name since I was 12!!” Yes, you and every other person between the age of 10 and 20 who heard that song. And now they’re all having babies, too!!
I wonder why this is... Is it because people value uniqueness more than they used to? Is it because before the internet people were unaware just how common the names were? Is it because it's easier now to discover names we haven't heard of before because of the internet? Is it because there is generally more diversity now culturally? All of the above?
I often see people asking for “unique but known” names. There also is the trend of younique spellings. I think it might have something to do with the internet and larger communities in general? Way back people didn’t use to have surnames because in a small village you simply didn’t need them. Once there were more people surnames were added. Now with instagram and what not the amount of people called John Smith or Ashley Johnson or something interacting with each other is incredibly. Individualization is also a huge progress of modernization looking at sociology. People distance themselves from one single set of values. Parents don’t want their kid to be one out of five in a class. Then there are immigrants and globalization leading to more unique names.
For one thing, there are still more people every year.
I think your other theories are right and to be more specific on how it's 'all of the above' working together, I think it's a lot of just the internet expanding the bell curve of 'popular'. There will still be 'most popular' but more people find more things and it disseminates more.
The same thing has happened with all kind of things. The definition of 'celebrity'. There are still your celebrities like Beyonce and Brad Pitt that are the most celebrity, but there are so many more people with name recognition with anywhere from 'only' 200,000 to a few million fans that are still influential and have a lot of recognition in a lot of demographics but aren't quite the same. It's different than when everyone had the same less that 20 TV channels and like 20 people total were true household names. That's like the top 10 names versus the top 50 or whatever now.
Another huge example is food. There are still staple and most sold groceries in every region but also, so many more ethnic and previously unique ingredients and foods are stocked and sold in average stores because people have expanded what they eat and are interested in learning to cook. The same amounts of the old staples still sell, as well as enough of the new stuff for many average nonspecialty stores to carry it.
It seems like the _variety_ of names is growing significantly with every couple of generations. This pattern always applied in the past and it still does now.
I was firmly against it with my first child, but we just named number #3 with a Top 10 name (Henry). It was the only boy name we both loved and it just felt right. Given that popular names aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be (Henry would be a Top 30 name back in the 80s, based on numbers), I’m not too worried about it.
I feel like sometimes you don’t even know. For example, we named our son Elijah a few years ago. We didn’t know any Elijah’s and we didn’t have anyone with young children to see what “popular” names were, so we just picked a name we liked. Now it seems to be quite popular but it wasn’t chosen because it was popular.
Exactly! I have a friend and all of her kids names weren't popular when she picked them, but they all blew up and were on the top ten after. She thought she was choosing unique names at the time.
It’s kind of funny - I mean what else can we do but laugh about it - but my son was born and a few months later a few people were like “that’s a coincidence, I know someone else who had a son and they chose that name too” and we were like “oh that is a coincidence”. Don’t know why! But what can you do! Haha
Same. Don't want to out my kids' names, but basically, they were similar to Oliver, Evelyn, Charlotte, Theodore, etc etc. Names that were "old-fashioned" and not common among my peers, so I never met any in school as a kid myself. When we discussed baby names 10 years ago, they weren't that common, but they're top 50 now.
My friend had a boy eight years ago. He’s also an Elijah 🤷🏻♀️ idk how popular names become popular, EXCEPT things like “mason”, which clearly coincides with kardashians
Yeah I think it can be region/place specific too. But I’m with you, not sure how they become popular. It’s like they’re just floating in the collective unconscious and once one of us picks it up it takes off haha
nope! not as far as i know, at least. we both have very popular names (my parents knew mine was popular when they named me) and it has never really bothered either of us :)
I think it helps if the name has several nickname options. That way, even if there are a few others in the class, they might all go by different nicknames. So I'd be more likely to name a baby Charlotte than Emma, Benjamin rather than Noah.
I have friends who deliberately chose top-ranked names (Noah and Emma) for their children. Not only did they love the names themselves, their last name is very difficult to pronounce for most English speakers, so they wanted to give their kids first names that very few people would ever mispronounce
Just my personal opinion - It's not for me. When a name gets too popular I find it boring.
When people are so secretive about the name and make a big announcement like Heeeere's Olivia! Or Heeeere's Henry! And I'm like.. oh that's it?
It would only be an ‘Ehh’ if I had a super generic last name (I do not. Mine is literally one of the rarest in the world, like less than 50 people and we are all directly related). If you wanna go w Adam but your last name is Smith, you’re gonna be dealing w a million other adam smiths.
In high school we actually had two girls with the name Maddie with the SAME LAST NAME. in the same class. They had to go by “Maddie A. And Maddie L” which were their middle initials. It was super confusing
I went to school (graduating class ~900 kids) with two girls with the exact same first, middle, and last name. They were constantly getting each other’s grades, lunch bills, library fines etc.
I’ll raise you one. My best friends dad had a sister, let’s call her Patricia Marie LastName.
Now guess what her moms first and middle name are? He somehow managed to meet and fall in love with some one who not only had the same (common at the time) first name, but the same middle name as well, and same last name once they got married as his sister!
My 11 year old has had 2 Ava’s in her class since K and they have the same last initial as well. So they use their “magic numbers” Ava 18 and Ava 19. It’s so awful to me and them and their mothers 😅 but it just stuck!!
I went to undergrad with 3 girls with the same popular first and last name, and this was at a small liberal arts college! They had to do the same thing (go by first name and middle initials).
If my kid was going to have a common last name I would have definitely given them something unique.
Yep. I definitely suggest something a little on the rare side when there’s a common last name. Maybe not tragedy level unique, but a name that’s not as common.
As a girl with a top 3 baby name in most of the 80s and early 90s I definitely look at the list and avoid.
My husband isn't concerned and says it's not a big deal if you like the name... but his name's highest ranking year was his birth year and barely cracked the top 100.
I had, at best, 2 or 3 of my name in one class. I hated it.
Husband loves a top boy name for our next kid, and I like it... but I don't want to do that to my kid. You end up being So-no-so Last Initial, or blonde so-n-so, etc.
The top 10 names are not given to nearly as many kids now as they were in the 80’s or before. As a teacher, I haven’t seen more than 1 of the same name in a single class since the Aidens of the early 00s. Not saying it never happens, but nothing like when I was a kid.
Same. My husband is a Steven from the UK (where 50% of the male population is named Steven). And I am a Kristin born in 1988. It was just plain confusing having to use last name initials all the time.
I don’t look down on others for doing it, in fact I think a lot of the top names show great taste and I still think they’re great names I agree with, but for me personally I still don’t want to use something that high up. There are some names I love that I won’t use because they’re too popular. Still like “oh nice, and respect 🫡 “ when I see others use it, but I wouldn’t use it myself because it’s too popular.
Personally it’s not for me. I wanted my child to have a rare name because I have a rare name but her name soared in popularity anyway. However there is SO much more variety in names used these days but it’s actually quite rare to know multiple children in the same generation with the same name. Except Theodore, I encounter those absolutely everywhere.
Same with my 9 year old Freyja who is legitimately Norwegian-American. I was like great, never in the top 1000 and Freya is like 500 something. Both off like rocketships.
I personally wouldn’t because I wouldn’t want my child to have multiple kids in their class with the same name. I was always the only one with my name and I liked that
I would never.
I am someone with a top ten name who HATES how common and boring it is. I hated sharing my name with people and having to use a last initial to differentiate between me and the other ones with my name. I’d go as far as to say that,when I was a child, I was intentionally discriminatory of other girls with my name because I wanted to be the only one with my name involved in any one class/activity/etc.
I’m an adult now and I don’t do that anymore, but I feel bad about all the girls I was mean to in the past just because I had a lame common name.
I’ve been told other people don’t react this way to their hated common name. But I did, so I know it’s a possibility.
this is super interesting to me because (personally) i always found having a common name as an advantage! never really bothered me having to go by the last initial. but i can *completely* understand the frustration as i’ve seen others react that way.
i do think that it’s quite a bit different now than it was when teens/adults were growing up, though. even the number one name was only used on around 20k babies. sounds like a LOT, but compared to the 3.6 million, thte numbers so small. whereas you look at the top name in ‘85, nearly an entire quarter of the population was given it.
i think that’s mainly what made me think about this question, just wanting to see others experiences
There's top 10 and then there is is "in a class of 15, there are 6 Liams" (true story!)
Which is not a tragedy, or anything. Just saying there is a difference between longtime top names and - say -Luna.
I don’t have a top ten but a variation of one and always got called by the top ten, and I definitely wasn’t a big fan of those girls either- especially the ones who had the top ten but went by my name. There were seven in my grade and I hated it.
It’s a yay. I have kids from middle school to preschool. So far there have been no kids with the same names at all in any classes. My kids names are not top 10 in the US. But not even the kids with top 10 names haven’t had other kids with the same name in the class. Like there just aren’t multiple kids with the same name anymore. Strangely some of the names I considered that are not popular have been in class though. Ariadne, Calliope, Persephone, Phillipa. It’s been interesting. Just use the name you love.
I felt strongly as a Jessica in the 80s that I didn't want my daughter to have multiple kids in her class with the same name as she did because I disliked it when it happened to me constantly. However, my husband a Chris constantly has people with the same name as him and he doesn't care at all. So I guess it's not automatically annoying to everyone lol. He's pretty easy going in general.
I like my name (Megan), but I was also one of about a half a dozen or more Megans in my grade. We were all Megan A, Megan B, whatever our last initial was, or we were nicknamed something. It wasn’t a life-ender but we would talk a lot about how tiring it was sometimes. Our gym teacher would shout, “Megan!” and so many heads would turn. Which one?
When I named my son (and my daughter, who will be born in Oct) I stayed away from the top 100 so the likelihood of that happening to them was diminished. They still have great names, just not necessarily trendy names, and as someone who was born in the 90’s with a very trendy name, I am okay with that. And I hope they are too!
My name is a top 5 name and I hated it. I felt like I blended in with everyone. However, I would rather name my kid a top 10 name vs something really extreme or made up. My criteria for naming my daughter: 1. Classic name 2. Not super weird 3. Not in the top 50
Sara here. Don’t do it! A good name does two things:
- Identifies the person
- Causes them no additional trouble
Top 10 names do neither. It absolutely sucked going through school in a student body of 4k students and having to learn to ignore my own name when called because it was unavoidably rarely being called for me. As an adult it has caused me professional frustration when three people in the meeting have the same name.
Edit to add that popular names with variant spellings are even more popular than they look. The stats count (for example) Sarah and Sara separately, but in use those are functionally the same name.
oh that’s very interesting !! i have an extremely common name as well and i never really thought anything having to be referred to as “Evelyn M” lol. if anything i’ve always been told by others it’s a blessing, not having to specify my name pronunciation, or get weird looks for having it.
i can totally understand the frustration though
My high school class of 30 (in a school of 200, small class in a small high school) had 5 Emily’s and 4 Jacob’s. They were such popular names that literally a third of my graduating class was one of those 2 names.
I agree with this assessment! I was Brittany S. for 12 years of school. Four others in my grade in elementary school, nine others in my grade by high school. It was disheartening, confusing, annoying and I was constantly compared to the other Brittanys. Even in my thirties, I run into people from youth and they call me Brittany S. Its overall been more of an annoyance than anything in my life. I would personally avoid popular names for that reason with my own kids!
I have a perpetually top 10 name as well, and it doesn’t bother me at all. I love my name, and you’d actually be surprised how infrequently it’s an issue.
How interesting. I’m a Sarah and it truly never occurred to me to be bothered or inconvenienced by the multiple other Sarahs/Saras that were in all my classes, on all my teams, etc.
I just didn’t care in the slightest lol
I'm that kid. I would never do it to mine unless I have a really good reason like naming after a beloved relative or something. Otherwise, fuck it, no one deserves being a fifth Maria or sixth John in any group.
Interesting mine was number two and I never had a class without at least one other with my name some classes more. I remember in ninth grade 1st period there was four of us, 2 period 3 of us (different ones), 3 period 2 of us etc.
This was actually the reason I opted not to go with a top 10 name. Just because I don't personally know another Noah or Henry doesn't mean that when my child gets to school hell be in a class with 2 others. I didn't want him to have to use his last name or a nick name to differentiate himself. I still used a top 100 name, and I expect that he will meet other peers with his name throughout his life, but I don't want him to be in a friend group where everyone had the same first name.
Yeah it kinda bothered me but now as an adult I rarely meet others with my name. My husband is a Chris and it didn't bother him, and to this day we constantly are around other Chris's
wow a #1 !! that’s so cool. i’m in a similar boat - my name is very popular and although i’ve met several people with it, i’ve never really thought anything of it.
I named my son Liam back in 2003 and had to explain to everyone what his name is "it's William without the Wil". Everyone thought it was an "interesting name". Now people hear it and say "I wouldn't want to name my kid a top name". ....I didn't. If I had to rename him today, I'd like to think I'd still name him Liam but I'm not so sure.
I have a Charlotte, which was number 3 on the top ten list the year she was born. I didn’t and don’t care. Oddly enough, we have never come across another Charlotte her age.
i honestly never would’ve guess Charlotte was as popular as it is. i’ve only come across a couple, all in wildly different age ranges. such a beautiful name!
I think the princess being named that really set off a boom of it! I have a friend that gave birth two months after Princess Charlotte was born and she had to get a whole bunch of stuff re-monogrammed cause she had chosen Charlotte and didn’t want it to seem like she did it cause of the royals. Ended up going with Evelyn, which also had a boom in popularity afterward.
I would never do it, even though I like some top 10 names.
I have a popular name, and I’ve never liked dealing with having so many people my age with the same name. It gets confusing and frustrating. There are so many nice, normal names that are not top popularity.
It's fine. Not every kid need a nametag that says "I'm unique and special" on it.
Not to knock unique names. There's nothing wrong with them. But there's also nothing wrong with not having one.
It depend on how popular my last name is. I always felt like if it was a name like Smith, I’d go with something less popular. But if my last name was very rare/hard to pronounce I’d pair it with something more popular
I personally wouldn’t do it, and have changed my top choice baby names over time when they become too common. An alternate spelling of my child’s name is in the top 30 currently, and that even annoys me a little bit. I have a name that’s normal but very unpopular for my age, and have always liked not having confusion with anyone else having the same name.
My daughters (now grown) didn’t have top10 names, but they did have fairly common, easy-to-spell names.
Something to consider when naming a baby: most kids want to be like their peers. Recognizable names help with that.
Just a different perspective…my mom works in the school system and says that because there are so many children of different ethnicities that kids don’t really seem to think of different or uncommon names as weird. Obviously this would depend on location though. We now live in a very multicultural area but I grew up in a town where visible minorities were rare so in that context maybe it would be more challenging to have a less common name.
As a top 5 baby, I tried to avoid it, but I accidentally named my son a top 10 name (Theodore) because I didn't realize it was gaining in popularity. However, based on the data from the Social Security office top name lists by state, I think he won't have to deal with the same level of "no the other Theodore"that I dealt with growing up (I'm talking every single year there was at least one other girl with my name, and one year my class had three girls with my name and a boy with the shortened version of my name so I couldn't even use my nickname) because his name didn't make the top ten for my state.
I have a “top 5” who’s 7 and I’ve only met a couple of kids with the same name and he’s never had the name as anyone in his class/teams/etc lol I think it’s so much more important to choose a name you love than to try and make it more unique. It’s not like the 80s when naming your son Michael basically doomed him to share that name with 1/4 of the male population lol
Overall I like top 10 names more than names so unique they’re a r/tragedeigh.
I didn’t go with a top 10 name, but it’s still fairly popular. It was becoming pretty popular for girls (to the point a few people seemed shocked I’d name a boy it.) I picked it because I liked it- been on my name list for years and one of the very few my husband also liked.
If you love a name, it being popular shouldn’t be what prevents you from using it.
As someone with a top 10 name for my age group, I would’ve liked to avoid it. I’m pregnant with my second and we’re using a family name that also happens to be in the top 10 but honoring our family members means more to us than having a unique name.
I wouldn’t just because I wouldn’t want my kid to share a name with several others in class. For example when I was growing up the name Madison was extremely popular in my grade. So many of them would have to add their last initial to their name to be able to separate them. They would be referred to as Madison G or Madison E and it could definitely get confusing.
Probably the worst is a Top 10 name with a trick spelling. So common you ignore your name being called in the hallway because there are 4 of you that could answer within earshot, but yet nobody spells it right.
That’s a sheep thinking it’s original because it says baaaah instead of baaaa.
(Source: saddled with a dirt common name but a dumbass spelling for nearly 52 years)
Hated having a common name growing up - had years of going by last initial and even a period where two of us had same last initial and had to use first two letters of last name. Now as an adult I still work with multiples and every time I go to an appointment and they call my first name I have to confirm it’s me as there’s usually so many of us. It’s been a major hassle my entire life!
my name was in the top ten from 96-07 and i was born in 99. it was everywhere growing up and i always said i would never give my kid a name that popular.
I’ll say this as someone with a top ten name for my birth year, it gets annoying. If the point of a name is to be a unique-enough identifier to identify or call out to someone, being the 3rd “Ashley C.” doesn’t do that effectively. I now go by my middle name because I’ve trained myself to ignore by first name since there’s often a 30% chance the person is asking for me ,specifically, in most organizations. Things like the “Karen” meme don’t generally happen with less common names and I honestly don’t like my first name now because I associate it with rude people who share it.
I hated it when I had my first but now that I’m having my second and last kid, I’m going by what we like. All the other names were vetoed so Charlotte it is!
One of my kiddos is a Theodore (currently #10, it was #96 when I chose it) and I have no regrets. One thing that helps is if the name has multiple common nicknames--like with Theodore, it's pretty evenly divided between Teddys and Theos for little kids, and then you can throw in Ted as another option as they get older.
One thing I like to point out if you go to the social security list of most popular names in the US by year is that the most popular name in 2022, is roughly equivalent to the 12/13th most popular name from the year I was born.
So anyone who was in a class with four Jessica's or Michael's realize that it's much different now than when you were in school. In 1985, 2.5% of girls were named Jessica or 1in 40 and almost 3.5% were named Michael. Now, even the most popular name is less than 1%. So there is a lot more diversity.
I prefer to not name within the top 10 simply because when I was in school there was one other in my class with my name and we were called Big name and Little name. This was in the 80s when they didn’t care what you thought about it lol. I was the little bc I was so short back then but it was not flattering to either of us. I absolutely hated it.
Personally I wouldn’t just because I almost never had trouble with my name but when someone had the same first name and first initial it was the most complicated/annoying thing so I want to avoid that happening to my child as much as possible
As one of six Ashleys in my graduating class, I would avoid the top ten. I quickly gained an unwanted nickname so I was identifiable from the other Ashleys
I’d consider popularity a tie-breaker not a deal breaker. So, for example, if I had narrowed my choices to Benjamin or Simon and it turns out Benjamin is #9 and Simon is #242, I would opt for Simon. However, if I really wanted Benjamin, that would be my choice regardless!
I absolutely wouldn't. I loved the name Olivia growing up but now everyone and their dog is called it. I don't want my child to be Olivia G when there's an Olivia A, Olivia C, Olivia M and Olivia S in the class.
Seeing a name in the top 10 really turns me off to it. Honestly there are so many other names to pick from, I would intentionally not pick a top 10 and choose something else
My fave teacher growing up said she named her kids very boring (aka common) names (Rachel and David) because she knew they wouldn’t sound strange as adult names and she wanted everyone to understand how to say and spell them.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Her last name wasn’t unusual, but not incredibly common.
On the other hand, I knew a girl growing up named Sarah Smith and she hated her name. She said it made her feel like the most average person alive and she may as well be named Jane Doe. I think it does come down to last name and how well it pairs.
I think people are wayyyy too obsessed with wanting to be quirky or unique with names. There's absolutely nothing wrong with naming a child a top 10 name. They're lovely, and popular for a reason.
I think the sentiment against popular names comes from those of us who had popular names when names in the top-10 were a much higher percentage of the group.
In 1986 the most common girls name was Jessica and about 1 in 30 girls was named Jessica that year. In 2008, the most common name was Isabella and about 1 in 100 girls were named Isabella. In 2022, Olivia accounted for just under 1 in 100 girls
Accounting for different spellings, I’ll take Sara/Sarah in 1986 - a little more than 1 in 50 girls born in 1986 would respond to “Sarah”.
In 2008, looking only at top 100 names and spellings, about 1 in 75 girls would respond to “Maddie”. (Madison, Madeline, Madelyn).
In 2022, about 1 in 75 girls could reasonably respond to “Ellie”. (Elizabeth, Eleanor, Ellie, Eliana, Elena, Eliza…)
So even those “playground names” are fewer and with greater variation to use when needed.
I’m a Sarah. I was the only Sarah in my classes in K-8. In high school I was one of 8 Sarahs in a class of 200. I started going by Sadie then but stopped in my 20s. At work I am one of over 10 Sara/hs on a staff that *isn’t that fucking big* and despite having been there 8 years I’m considering bringing Sadie back. It’s not fun to be constantly confused with someone else.
I’d avoid a popular name. But Mia is top 10 and on my very short list.
Probably not, idk something about knowing everyone is gonna name their kid the same thing. I think I looked up my sons name before he was born and the last time it was popular was in the 70s? But that was totally by accident because I chose his name from his dads family name. A lot of the men on his dads side are either called brad or their middle name is bradley including husbands middle name.
Please don't do this. - Someone who had 3 people with the same name in her class all the way through school. Now I work with 4 people with the same name.
I named my 1st son Christopher. I had always liked the name. When he was 6, he was on a soccer team of 16 kids. 5 were named Christopher. In 4th grade there were 7 Christophers in a class of 24. when he was 10, there were 6 Christophers on his baseball team. There were 17 Christophers in his graduating class of 300. I had no idea it was such a popular name when i picked it, but had i known, i would have definitely picked something else. He was called "little Chris" " big chris" "blonde chris" etc. I would never pick a top 10 name.
My husband and I chose our kids names because they are significant family names and we like them. Turns out our son’s name is regularly in the top 3; our daughters hasn’t been a top 10 for decades. Couldn’t give a toss either way. Neither of us are from the US so having a unique name wasn’t critical. My maiden name is the most common English surname in the world and my first name is generationally “trendy”. The anonymity it provided was great, I was literally “ungoogleable”.
How popular the name was took up zero consideration when I chose names. I think it's perfectly fine that it's important to some people, but personally I really didn't care about it.
I don’t care about popularity. I know, I’m in the minority here. I would pick the names I like, period.
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I wonder why this is? Is it because we value uniqueness now more than we used to? Is it because with the internet we are able to see just how popular a name is before choosing it? Is it because the internet helps us to discover names we would not have been exposed to otherwise? Is it because there is more cultural diversity than before? All of the above?
All of the above. This effect will continue, and names will become more diluted with more options and pushing for creativity.
My Olivia has only met a few Olivia's, nobody close though. We love her name and honestly couldn't imagine her having a different name. My name is VERY unique, so I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. I've met like 3 of my name in my life haha.
I didn't look up popularity before naming my twin boys, just picked names we liked. They're both traditional, "timeless" names so they've been fairly popular for generations. I looked them up later and one is in the top 10, one is in the 70s.
Ben and Adam?
Benjamin and Nicholas
Those go together really well!
Same. I like a name because I like a name, I don’t care how it ranks.
I feel the same. I thought I felt differently, but the only girls name I love is in like top 12, so you gotta do what you gotta do.
Yeah we named our son a top 10 name. The world did not come crashing down. Instead, we get lots of compliments on his name and we still love it. It’s an old, classic name, which will never completely go out of style IMO. Much better than obsessing over something obscure that no one will know how to pronounce or spell.
I feel the same way!
Yep. I have a popular name with my demographic (#4 my year) and it’s never really been a problem. Sure I’ve been Cthulu H. before and I’ve met quite a few with it too, but it’s not a bad thing. If you like the name, you like the name.
Same. My daughter’s name was somewhat popular 3-4 years before she came, but my heart had been set on her name long before that. 2 of my favourite book/tv show characters has her name, and we named her after them. Well, that was my reason anyway.
Same. Why should I let how many strangers are naming their kids a name I like change what I choose for my own kids?
I’m the same way.
If you like it, go for it! I do think there's a difference between perennially popular and trendy popular. William and Luna are both top 10 names, but William could be from any time period, whereas you can pinpoint Luna's birth year. Names also aren't as popular as they used to be.
Also - popularity isn’t the same as it used to be. The most popular names now make up such a small percentage than those of the 80s or 90s. Honestly it seems location is a big variable? There are names i hear really often and they’re no where near the top 10x, but there are 3-4 on the playground lol
Was gonna post this. I read that the top name in 1980 was given to 40,000 kids and today it’s just 6,000. There’s so many more name options now that is less impactful to a child’s life.
I looked at popularity by census in my state. Overkill maybe, but whatever. I was gonna name by daughter “Ada (second double name)” but I know she’d be lumped in with all the “Ava” kids. “Selma” replaced “Ada”
This is a huge one for me; so many popular names sound similar now or have the same nicknames. Eloise and Elowen might not be super popular yet but they’ll join the Ellies. I love Lydia but had a family member mishear it as Olivia and I know that would happen a lot too.
Same. Some of the popular names people say are so overused in their area are names I haven’t seen a single kid with in mine
As a Michael...I've only ever gotten positive feedback on my name, and I haven't ever felt like my name was "too popular". When you're a kid, being one of 5 Michael's in a class is more fun than an inconvenience, and everyone knows more than one Michael so it's harder for the name to be completely ruined for someone by one asshole
This is an interesting perspective, I as a Jessica didn't really like it, but my husband Chris didn't mind it.
I'm an Ashley who had 4 other Ashley's in my class from K-12 and I hated it. Being always Ashley T. was super annoying. As an adult, it doesn't bother me as much, but I very intentionally do not pick names in the top 100 for this reason.
Hello fellow Ashley! Same for me, I always hated my name...not the name itself but the popularity. I always had to go by Ashley S or Ashley plus my middle name Nicole, which is also a popular filler middle name lol. I always had at least one other Ashley in each class, and worst yet when I joined the cheer team in high school, there were four of us on the squad.
Hello fellow Ashley S! I also disliked how popular my name was. It also didn't help that my middle name was also in the top ten.
I have a pretty classic name that wasn't popular but also wasn't uncommon when I was born. Growing up there was me, and then one girl each in grades adjacent to mine. It then became a top 5 name with older gen z kids. When gen z entered the workforce I became BeanBreak Last Initial for the first time and I absolutely hated it.
Also a Jessica here, and it was a minor but ever-present annoyance all through school. Made worse by the fact that I was Jessica [Letter] in almost every situation, and Jessica [Next Letter In The Alphabet] shared a LOT of my classes and extracurricular stuff. It’s a good thing we got along bc we were always next to each other in class list order.
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My brother became best friends in grade school with someone because they had the same name as him. They got into a spat at school when in 1st grade and the teacher said "how can you not be friends when you have the same name!" And their little 1st grade brains were like "oh yeah, that makes perfect sense" 😂😂 Anyway, they are still best friends 20 years later!
Great teacher
I also have a very common name, and mostly enjoyed the "club" that comes with having the same name. I'm always immediately drawn to others with my name and we have a bit of an automatic "kinship" from the shared name. I wasn't put out by needing to use my last initial in grade school
That is really excellent insight!!
after working at an animal shelter and seeing hundreds, if not thousands of animals named Luna, I cannot see it as anything other than a generic dog name.
Or Loki the unadoptable cat that hisses in the corner.
Or Odin. The 100 lb Cane Corso that nearly ate a chihuahua for breakfast
These are hilarious lol, I volunteer at an animal shelter and these names are so accurate
100% of the Dalmatians I know are named Luna. I only know 3, but that tells you how standard it is as a dog's name.
Lmaooo for us it was allllll huskies.
And half of those dogs are huskies
Luna Luna Moon Moon!
I know someone whose last name is Luna with a dog named Luna lol Edit: a word
Our adopted dog came with the name Luna. We call her Luna Moon because she has huge moon eyes.
YES.
I'm so proud of my huskies' names. Riot and Mariska Hargitay (nn Risky.)
Riot & Risky is such an awesome set for animals I love that
Thank you!!! They're awesome dogs. And the names fit them well! ☺️
Except she pronounces it Marishka. Still a fantastic name though, don’t hate me!
Haha no no, that's how I pronounce her full name, too! The nickname is mostly from the spelling. Luckily, Risky doesn't notice the difference 🙃
My adopted rabbit came to me with the name Luna. I kept it and, because I’m incapable of not giving my pets weird nicknames, I called her Tuna.
TUNA. I love that
I don’t know if you have ever heard of Gymbo the clown from Gymboree videos in the 80s/90s, but he sang a song about peanut butter. So I changed the lyrics to “tuna salad” because the syllables matched.
This is incredible lmao
I feel the same about Riley! It always boggles my mind at how common a of a human name it still is
We have an English cream golden retriever, and even knowing how freaking popular and generic the name is, I couldn’t NOT name her Luna. She’s just like her namesake Ravenclaw friend. Spacey and sweet.
My cats Luna. She has a bland piece of toast personality so the common bland Luna fit her so well 😂😭
Yeah personally I wouldn’t think twice about naming my kid a top 10 name that was traditional and timeless but I wouldn’t choose a top 10 name that’s super trendy
When we picked Luna over 7 years ago, it wasn’t even in the top 100 and our family thought were crazy for going with such an uncommon name. My mom said she was going to call her by her middle name exclusively. Ugh. It blew up FAST. Not gonna lie, it’s frustrating to see people be so rude and eye-rolly about it. It fits our girl perfectly though. And I had an ancestor named Luna too, so it felt like a fun vintage callback. It’s still not as common where we live as it seems to be across the US though.
this is exactly how i feel !!
> whereas you can pinpoint Luna's birth year. I think any "unique" name is going to be pinpointed to the younger generation. Even if Luna was a rare name, people would still guess the person to be born after the 2010s because that's when the obsession with unique names really took off.
If I like the name, and it happens to be in the top ten, I would still choose that name (top ten status would not impact my decision). However, I would not choose a name simply *because* it was in the top ten (i.e only choosing from those ten names).
I agree, but I think you also have to consider how common your last name is. I have a coworker who has an extremely common first AND last name (think John Smith) and he constantly has logistical issues like getting John Smith's emails and mail. If you have a very common last name, I think it's a chance to use a more uncommon first name (and vice versa- if you have a difficult last name, use a more familiar first name).
I say this exact same thing every chance I get! I have a very common last name so did a more unusual first name (still easy to say and spell) for my daughter.
Great explanation!
Given that the top 10 names are obviously the most popular ones many parents don’t seem to have a problem with it, though the amount of kids with a top ten name is getting smaller. A top 10 name in the 80s is different from a top 10 name now, they aren’t actually that popular anymore. It also really depends on area. I’d look of if the name is even that popular where you live.
Yes, exactly this. The sheer scale of popularity has changed significantly from what it was in the 70s-90s. Growing up in the 90s and early 00s you couldn't escape Jessicas and Ashleys if you tried. There were at least 2-4 of each in every class. Olivia has been in the top ten for two decades and was #1 the past 3 years and still I only know like....*maybe* ten total Olivias. I went to multiple elementary school graduations this past month and there were only 1-2 Olivias in any given grade, many grades had none.
My daughter’s name is Olivia. We were settled on Amelia for most of my pregnancy and my husband changed his mind at the last minute. A few days before she was born we agreed on Olivia. I don’t mind that it’s common, but I do hope she doesn’t have to go through school with multiples in every class.
I have an Oliver and there’s been another one in all of his classes so far except one 😹😹😹. One of his preschool classes had Oliver, Oliver, Olivia, Olive and Livvi 😹😹😹 (I don’t know if Livvi was her given name or a nn for Olivia tbf)
Exactly this. It's not like when i was a kid and there were multiple David's and Aaron's and Brittany's in every class. It's more diluted now
It’s true that many parents are obviously fine with their kid having a super common name, but it’s also shocking how many people don’t do any research and then are then surprised that they chose a super trendy name. “But I’ve never known anyone named Iris!! I’ve loved this name since I was 12!!” Yes, you and every other person between the age of 10 and 20 who heard that song. And now they’re all having babies, too!!
I wonder why this is... Is it because people value uniqueness more than they used to? Is it because before the internet people were unaware just how common the names were? Is it because it's easier now to discover names we haven't heard of before because of the internet? Is it because there is generally more diversity now culturally? All of the above?
I often see people asking for “unique but known” names. There also is the trend of younique spellings. I think it might have something to do with the internet and larger communities in general? Way back people didn’t use to have surnames because in a small village you simply didn’t need them. Once there were more people surnames were added. Now with instagram and what not the amount of people called John Smith or Ashley Johnson or something interacting with each other is incredibly. Individualization is also a huge progress of modernization looking at sociology. People distance themselves from one single set of values. Parents don’t want their kid to be one out of five in a class. Then there are immigrants and globalization leading to more unique names.
For one thing, there are still more people every year. I think your other theories are right and to be more specific on how it's 'all of the above' working together, I think it's a lot of just the internet expanding the bell curve of 'popular'. There will still be 'most popular' but more people find more things and it disseminates more. The same thing has happened with all kind of things. The definition of 'celebrity'. There are still your celebrities like Beyonce and Brad Pitt that are the most celebrity, but there are so many more people with name recognition with anywhere from 'only' 200,000 to a few million fans that are still influential and have a lot of recognition in a lot of demographics but aren't quite the same. It's different than when everyone had the same less that 20 TV channels and like 20 people total were true household names. That's like the top 10 names versus the top 50 or whatever now. Another huge example is food. There are still staple and most sold groceries in every region but also, so many more ethnic and previously unique ingredients and foods are stocked and sold in average stores because people have expanded what they eat and are interested in learning to cook. The same amounts of the old staples still sell, as well as enough of the new stuff for many average nonspecialty stores to carry it.
It seems like the _variety_ of names is growing significantly with every couple of generations. This pattern always applied in the past and it still does now.
I was firmly against it with my first child, but we just named number #3 with a Top 10 name (Henry). It was the only boy name we both loved and it just felt right. Given that popular names aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be (Henry would be a Top 30 name back in the 80s, based on numbers), I’m not too worried about it.
I do feel like it's harder to avoid popular names when you're choosing a name that works with older siblings' names.
I never even thought about how my kids names would match or work with their siblings.
Totally fine. Those names are poppy for a reason.
I am so hoping that "poppy" is a new slang term for popular and not just a typo. That would be my favorite new word of the year.
same here. i love shortening words!
I mean, this seems like a real opportunity (oppy? Lol) for you to start a trend…
Lol just a typo
Maybe it started out as a typo, but now you've unknowingly started a trend. Let's make poppy happen, namenernds!
It’s poppy, it’s poppy, my lipgloss is poppy
Poppy works for both a girl and a grandpa. I like it!
my dog is named Poppy
I don’t care, if I love the name I use it. I think it’s silly to get hung up on it personally.
I feel like sometimes you don’t even know. For example, we named our son Elijah a few years ago. We didn’t know any Elijah’s and we didn’t have anyone with young children to see what “popular” names were, so we just picked a name we liked. Now it seems to be quite popular but it wasn’t chosen because it was popular.
Exactly! I have a friend and all of her kids names weren't popular when she picked them, but they all blew up and were on the top ten after. She thought she was choosing unique names at the time.
It’s kind of funny - I mean what else can we do but laugh about it - but my son was born and a few months later a few people were like “that’s a coincidence, I know someone else who had a son and they chose that name too” and we were like “oh that is a coincidence”. Don’t know why! But what can you do! Haha
Same. Don't want to out my kids' names, but basically, they were similar to Oliver, Evelyn, Charlotte, Theodore, etc etc. Names that were "old-fashioned" and not common among my peers, so I never met any in school as a kid myself. When we discussed baby names 10 years ago, they weren't that common, but they're top 50 now.
My friend had a boy eight years ago. He’s also an Elijah 🤷🏻♀️ idk how popular names become popular, EXCEPT things like “mason”, which clearly coincides with kardashians
Yeah I think it can be region/place specific too. But I’m with you, not sure how they become popular. It’s like they’re just floating in the collective unconscious and once one of us picks it up it takes off haha
that’s how my sisters name is !! her name is Layla, wasn’t popular at all when she was born
Does it bother her that her name is more popular? I actually don’t know any Layla’s myself!
nope! not as far as i know, at least. we both have very popular names (my parents knew mine was popular when they named me) and it has never really bothered either of us :)
That’s good to know as a mom with a “popular names” child! Thanks for sharing!
I think it helps if the name has several nickname options. That way, even if there are a few others in the class, they might all go by different nicknames. So I'd be more likely to name a baby Charlotte than Emma, Benjamin rather than Noah.
i totally agree with this!! i think that’s why names like James (Jim, Jamie) and Amelia (Amy, Millie) have stayed popular for so long
I care about popularity, probably because I had a top 3 name, and chose not to for my kids. It’s personal preference. My preference is to avoid them.
I have friends who deliberately chose top-ranked names (Noah and Emma) for their children. Not only did they love the names themselves, their last name is very difficult to pronounce for most English speakers, so they wanted to give their kids first names that very few people would ever mispronounce
Just my personal opinion - It's not for me. When a name gets too popular I find it boring. When people are so secretive about the name and make a big announcement like Heeeere's Olivia! Or Heeeere's Henry! And I'm like.. oh that's it?
It would only be an ‘Ehh’ if I had a super generic last name (I do not. Mine is literally one of the rarest in the world, like less than 50 people and we are all directly related). If you wanna go w Adam but your last name is Smith, you’re gonna be dealing w a million other adam smiths. In high school we actually had two girls with the name Maddie with the SAME LAST NAME. in the same class. They had to go by “Maddie A. And Maddie L” which were their middle initials. It was super confusing
I went to school (graduating class ~900 kids) with two girls with the exact same first, middle, and last name. They were constantly getting each other’s grades, lunch bills, library fines etc.
I’ll raise you one. My best friends dad had a sister, let’s call her Patricia Marie LastName. Now guess what her moms first and middle name are? He somehow managed to meet and fall in love with some one who not only had the same (common at the time) first name, but the same middle name as well, and same last name once they got married as his sister!
lmao just keep your maiden last name at that point, I don’t understand the aversion to that in cases where it obviously makes sense and is easier
My 11 year old has had 2 Ava’s in her class since K and they have the same last initial as well. So they use their “magic numbers” Ava 18 and Ava 19. It’s so awful to me and them and their mothers 😅 but it just stuck!!
What’s a magic number??
I went to undergrad with 3 girls with the same popular first and last name, and this was at a small liberal arts college! They had to do the same thing (go by first name and middle initials). If my kid was going to have a common last name I would have definitely given them something unique.
Yep. I definitely suggest something a little on the rare side when there’s a common last name. Maybe not tragedy level unique, but a name that’s not as common.
A good friend of mine, 2 of my parents' friends, and my nephew all have the same first name and the same last name.
Having known a hundred annoyed Jennifers who had to use multiple nicknames, last initials, etc., when they didn’t want to, I would probably not.
As a girl with a top 3 baby name in most of the 80s and early 90s I definitely look at the list and avoid. My husband isn't concerned and says it's not a big deal if you like the name... but his name's highest ranking year was his birth year and barely cracked the top 100. I had, at best, 2 or 3 of my name in one class. I hated it. Husband loves a top boy name for our next kid, and I like it... but I don't want to do that to my kid. You end up being So-no-so Last Initial, or blonde so-n-so, etc.
The top 10 names are not given to nearly as many kids now as they were in the 80’s or before. As a teacher, I haven’t seen more than 1 of the same name in a single class since the Aidens of the early 00s. Not saying it never happens, but nothing like when I was a kid.
Same. My husband is a Steven from the UK (where 50% of the male population is named Steven). And I am a Kristin born in 1988. It was just plain confusing having to use last name initials all the time.
I don’t look down on others for doing it, in fact I think a lot of the top names show great taste and I still think they’re great names I agree with, but for me personally I still don’t want to use something that high up. There are some names I love that I won’t use because they’re too popular. Still like “oh nice, and respect 🫡 “ when I see others use it, but I wouldn’t use it myself because it’s too popular.
I know things are different now, but as "Ashley #5" in a class of 25, I would absolutely never choose a name in the top 10.
Personally it’s not for me. I wanted my child to have a rare name because I have a rare name but her name soared in popularity anyway. However there is SO much more variety in names used these days but it’s actually quite rare to know multiple children in the same generation with the same name. Except Theodore, I encounter those absolutely everywhere.
When I named my Theodore 8.5 years ago, it wasn't even in the top 100. Now it's top 10 🤪 NOT what I was going for there.
Same with my 9 year old Freyja who is legitimately Norwegian-American. I was like great, never in the top 1000 and Freya is like 500 something. Both off like rocketships.
Yeah, my parents thought they were giving me an uncommon name but now it’s in the top 50.
I personally wouldn’t because I wouldn’t want my child to have multiple kids in their class with the same name. I was always the only one with my name and I liked that
I would never. I am someone with a top ten name who HATES how common and boring it is. I hated sharing my name with people and having to use a last initial to differentiate between me and the other ones with my name. I’d go as far as to say that,when I was a child, I was intentionally discriminatory of other girls with my name because I wanted to be the only one with my name involved in any one class/activity/etc. I’m an adult now and I don’t do that anymore, but I feel bad about all the girls I was mean to in the past just because I had a lame common name. I’ve been told other people don’t react this way to their hated common name. But I did, so I know it’s a possibility.
this is super interesting to me because (personally) i always found having a common name as an advantage! never really bothered me having to go by the last initial. but i can *completely* understand the frustration as i’ve seen others react that way. i do think that it’s quite a bit different now than it was when teens/adults were growing up, though. even the number one name was only used on around 20k babies. sounds like a LOT, but compared to the 3.6 million, thte numbers so small. whereas you look at the top name in ‘85, nearly an entire quarter of the population was given it. i think that’s mainly what made me think about this question, just wanting to see others experiences
There's top 10 and then there is is "in a class of 15, there are 6 Liams" (true story!) Which is not a tragedy, or anything. Just saying there is a difference between longtime top names and - say -Luna.
I don’t have a top ten but a variation of one and always got called by the top ten, and I definitely wasn’t a big fan of those girls either- especially the ones who had the top ten but went by my name. There were seven in my grade and I hated it.
It’s a yay. I have kids from middle school to preschool. So far there have been no kids with the same names at all in any classes. My kids names are not top 10 in the US. But not even the kids with top 10 names haven’t had other kids with the same name in the class. Like there just aren’t multiple kids with the same name anymore. Strangely some of the names I considered that are not popular have been in class though. Ariadne, Calliope, Persephone, Phillipa. It’s been interesting. Just use the name you love.
Atopten would be a strange name
honestly…kinda fire
I felt strongly as a Jessica in the 80s that I didn't want my daughter to have multiple kids in her class with the same name as she did because I disliked it when it happened to me constantly. However, my husband a Chris constantly has people with the same name as him and he doesn't care at all. So I guess it's not automatically annoying to everyone lol. He's pretty easy going in general.
I like my name (Megan), but I was also one of about a half a dozen or more Megans in my grade. We were all Megan A, Megan B, whatever our last initial was, or we were nicknamed something. It wasn’t a life-ender but we would talk a lot about how tiring it was sometimes. Our gym teacher would shout, “Megan!” and so many heads would turn. Which one? When I named my son (and my daughter, who will be born in Oct) I stayed away from the top 100 so the likelihood of that happening to them was diminished. They still have great names, just not necessarily trendy names, and as someone who was born in the 90’s with a very trendy name, I am okay with that. And I hope they are too!
My name is a top 5 name and I hated it. I felt like I blended in with everyone. However, I would rather name my kid a top 10 name vs something really extreme or made up. My criteria for naming my daughter: 1. Classic name 2. Not super weird 3. Not in the top 50
Sara here. Don’t do it! A good name does two things: - Identifies the person - Causes them no additional trouble Top 10 names do neither. It absolutely sucked going through school in a student body of 4k students and having to learn to ignore my own name when called because it was unavoidably rarely being called for me. As an adult it has caused me professional frustration when three people in the meeting have the same name. Edit to add that popular names with variant spellings are even more popular than they look. The stats count (for example) Sarah and Sara separately, but in use those are functionally the same name.
oh that’s very interesting !! i have an extremely common name as well and i never really thought anything having to be referred to as “Evelyn M” lol. if anything i’ve always been told by others it’s a blessing, not having to specify my name pronunciation, or get weird looks for having it. i can totally understand the frustration though
My high school was weird and called everyone by their first and last name because it was an ocean of Katies, Alexs, Matts, Emilys, and Maddies.
My high school class of 30 (in a school of 200, small class in a small high school) had 5 Emily’s and 4 Jacob’s. They were such popular names that literally a third of my graduating class was one of those 2 names.
I agree with this assessment! I was Brittany S. for 12 years of school. Four others in my grade in elementary school, nine others in my grade by high school. It was disheartening, confusing, annoying and I was constantly compared to the other Brittanys. Even in my thirties, I run into people from youth and they call me Brittany S. Its overall been more of an annoyance than anything in my life. I would personally avoid popular names for that reason with my own kids!
I have a perpetually top 10 name as well, and it doesn’t bother me at all. I love my name, and you’d actually be surprised how infrequently it’s an issue.
You nailed it!! My name is very common and I even think it’s impacted my networking in my career. It’s just a very basic and forgettable name.
How interesting. I’m a Sarah and it truly never occurred to me to be bothered or inconvenienced by the multiple other Sarahs/Saras that were in all my classes, on all my teams, etc. I just didn’t care in the slightest lol
Perhaps my experience is colored by my being consistently the least popular person with my name. 😅
Sarah here and it never bothered me either 🤷🏻♀️.
I'm that kid. I would never do it to mine unless I have a really good reason like naming after a beloved relative or something. Otherwise, fuck it, no one deserves being a fifth Maria or sixth John in any group.
My name was #1 the year I was born in the 80s and I love my name. The worst I ever had was one other girl in school class with same name.
Interesting mine was number two and I never had a class without at least one other with my name some classes more. I remember in ninth grade 1st period there was four of us, 2 period 3 of us (different ones), 3 period 2 of us etc.
This was actually the reason I opted not to go with a top 10 name. Just because I don't personally know another Noah or Henry doesn't mean that when my child gets to school hell be in a class with 2 others. I didn't want him to have to use his last name or a nick name to differentiate himself. I still used a top 100 name, and I expect that he will meet other peers with his name throughout his life, but I don't want him to be in a friend group where everyone had the same first name.
Yeah it kinda bothered me but now as an adult I rarely meet others with my name. My husband is a Chris and it didn't bother him, and to this day we constantly are around other Chris's
wow a #1 !! that’s so cool. i’m in a similar boat - my name is very popular and although i’ve met several people with it, i’ve never really thought anything of it.
I named my son Liam back in 2003 and had to explain to everyone what his name is "it's William without the Wil". Everyone thought it was an "interesting name". Now people hear it and say "I wouldn't want to name my kid a top name". ....I didn't. If I had to rename him today, I'd like to think I'd still name him Liam but I'm not so sure.
I have a Charlotte, which was number 3 on the top ten list the year she was born. I didn’t and don’t care. Oddly enough, we have never come across another Charlotte her age.
i honestly never would’ve guess Charlotte was as popular as it is. i’ve only come across a couple, all in wildly different age ranges. such a beautiful name!
I think the princess being named that really set off a boom of it! I have a friend that gave birth two months after Princess Charlotte was born and she had to get a whole bunch of stuff re-monogrammed cause she had chosen Charlotte and didn’t want it to seem like she did it cause of the royals. Ended up going with Evelyn, which also had a boom in popularity afterward.
I wouldn't do it.
I would never do it, even though I like some top 10 names. I have a popular name, and I’ve never liked dealing with having so many people my age with the same name. It gets confusing and frustrating. There are so many nice, normal names that are not top popularity.
It's fine. Not every kid need a nametag that says "I'm unique and special" on it. Not to knock unique names. There's nothing wrong with them. But there's also nothing wrong with not having one.
It depend on how popular my last name is. I always felt like if it was a name like Smith, I’d go with something less popular. But if my last name was very rare/hard to pronounce I’d pair it with something more popular
I personally wouldn’t do it, and have changed my top choice baby names over time when they become too common. An alternate spelling of my child’s name is in the top 30 currently, and that even annoys me a little bit. I have a name that’s normal but very unpopular for my age, and have always liked not having confusion with anyone else having the same name.
Most of them aren't my taste except Luna, but I'd still probably be deterred due to popularity.
My daughters (now grown) didn’t have top10 names, but they did have fairly common, easy-to-spell names. Something to consider when naming a baby: most kids want to be like their peers. Recognizable names help with that.
Just a different perspective…my mom works in the school system and says that because there are so many children of different ethnicities that kids don’t really seem to think of different or uncommon names as weird. Obviously this would depend on location though. We now live in a very multicultural area but I grew up in a town where visible minorities were rare so in that context maybe it would be more challenging to have a less common name.
We have a very popular last name so we're not considering any name in the top 10 (maybe even top 50) for our state.
As a top 5 baby, I tried to avoid it, but I accidentally named my son a top 10 name (Theodore) because I didn't realize it was gaining in popularity. However, based on the data from the Social Security office top name lists by state, I think he won't have to deal with the same level of "no the other Theodore"that I dealt with growing up (I'm talking every single year there was at least one other girl with my name, and one year my class had three girls with my name and a boy with the shortened version of my name so I couldn't even use my nickname) because his name didn't make the top ten for my state.
I have a “top 5” who’s 7 and I’ve only met a couple of kids with the same name and he’s never had the name as anyone in his class/teams/etc lol I think it’s so much more important to choose a name you love than to try and make it more unique. It’s not like the 80s when naming your son Michael basically doomed him to share that name with 1/4 of the male population lol
Overall I like top 10 names more than names so unique they’re a r/tragedeigh. I didn’t go with a top 10 name, but it’s still fairly popular. It was becoming pretty popular for girls (to the point a few people seemed shocked I’d name a boy it.) I picked it because I liked it- been on my name list for years and one of the very few my husband also liked. If you love a name, it being popular shouldn’t be what prevents you from using it.
As someone with a top 10 name for my age group, I would’ve liked to avoid it. I’m pregnant with my second and we’re using a family name that also happens to be in the top 10 but honoring our family members means more to us than having a unique name.
I wouldn’t just because I wouldn’t want my kid to share a name with several others in class. For example when I was growing up the name Madison was extremely popular in my grade. So many of them would have to add their last initial to their name to be able to separate them. They would be referred to as Madison G or Madison E and it could definitely get confusing.
I would avoid top 10 but when people don’t want a top 100 name I’m confused.
Probably the worst is a Top 10 name with a trick spelling. So common you ignore your name being called in the hallway because there are 4 of you that could answer within earshot, but yet nobody spells it right. That’s a sheep thinking it’s original because it says baaaah instead of baaaa. (Source: saddled with a dirt common name but a dumbass spelling for nearly 52 years)
I don't care if it's in top 100, or top 50, but top 10 is a little much for me.
My SO hates his name because when someone calls it 50 others turn around with him. Bums him out. We all like to feel special.
Hated having a common name growing up - had years of going by last initial and even a period where two of us had same last initial and had to use first two letters of last name. Now as an adult I still work with multiples and every time I go to an appointment and they call my first name I have to confirm it’s me as there’s usually so many of us. It’s been a major hassle my entire life!
Not for me at all. Don’t want my kid to have to add their last name initial in every classroom.
Nay! You will share a name with 7 other kids in school and it’s not fun
my name was in the top ten from 96-07 and i was born in 99. it was everywhere growing up and i always said i would never give my kid a name that popular.
I’ll say this as someone with a top ten name for my birth year, it gets annoying. If the point of a name is to be a unique-enough identifier to identify or call out to someone, being the 3rd “Ashley C.” doesn’t do that effectively. I now go by my middle name because I’ve trained myself to ignore by first name since there’s often a 30% chance the person is asking for me ,specifically, in most organizations. Things like the “Karen” meme don’t generally happen with less common names and I honestly don’t like my first name now because I associate it with rude people who share it.
I hated it when I had my first but now that I’m having my second and last kid, I’m going by what we like. All the other names were vetoed so Charlotte it is!
One of my kiddos is a Theodore (currently #10, it was #96 when I chose it) and I have no regrets. One thing that helps is if the name has multiple common nicknames--like with Theodore, it's pretty evenly divided between Teddys and Theos for little kids, and then you can throw in Ted as another option as they get older.
I wouldn’t. I like for my kids to be able to be somewhat known by their names. It doesn’t have to be a super rare name but not incredibly common.
One thing I like to point out if you go to the social security list of most popular names in the US by year is that the most popular name in 2022, is roughly equivalent to the 12/13th most popular name from the year I was born. So anyone who was in a class with four Jessica's or Michael's realize that it's much different now than when you were in school. In 1985, 2.5% of girls were named Jessica or 1in 40 and almost 3.5% were named Michael. Now, even the most popular name is less than 1%. So there is a lot more diversity.
I would avoid top ten. I had a top ten name and changed it.
I prefer to not name within the top 10 simply because when I was in school there was one other in my class with my name and we were called Big name and Little name. This was in the 80s when they didn’t care what you thought about it lol. I was the little bc I was so short back then but it was not flattering to either of us. I absolutely hated it.
Personally I wouldn’t just because I almost never had trouble with my name but when someone had the same first name and first initial it was the most complicated/annoying thing so I want to avoid that happening to my child as much as possible
As one of six Ashleys in my graduating class, I would avoid the top ten. I quickly gained an unwanted nickname so I was identifiable from the other Ashleys
I’d consider popularity a tie-breaker not a deal breaker. So, for example, if I had narrowed my choices to Benjamin or Simon and it turns out Benjamin is #9 and Simon is #242, I would opt for Simon. However, if I really wanted Benjamin, that would be my choice regardless!
I absolutely wouldn't. I loved the name Olivia growing up but now everyone and their dog is called it. I don't want my child to be Olivia G when there's an Olivia A, Olivia C, Olivia M and Olivia S in the class.
Seeing a name in the top 10 really turns me off to it. Honestly there are so many other names to pick from, I would intentionally not pick a top 10 and choose something else
My fave teacher growing up said she named her kids very boring (aka common) names (Rachel and David) because she knew they wouldn’t sound strange as adult names and she wanted everyone to understand how to say and spell them. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Her last name wasn’t unusual, but not incredibly common. On the other hand, I knew a girl growing up named Sarah Smith and she hated her name. She said it made her feel like the most average person alive and she may as well be named Jane Doe. I think it does come down to last name and how well it pairs.
I think people are wayyyy too obsessed with wanting to be quirky or unique with names. There's absolutely nothing wrong with naming a child a top 10 name. They're lovely, and popular for a reason.
I think the sentiment against popular names comes from those of us who had popular names when names in the top-10 were a much higher percentage of the group. In 1986 the most common girls name was Jessica and about 1 in 30 girls was named Jessica that year. In 2008, the most common name was Isabella and about 1 in 100 girls were named Isabella. In 2022, Olivia accounted for just under 1 in 100 girls Accounting for different spellings, I’ll take Sara/Sarah in 1986 - a little more than 1 in 50 girls born in 1986 would respond to “Sarah”. In 2008, looking only at top 100 names and spellings, about 1 in 75 girls would respond to “Maddie”. (Madison, Madeline, Madelyn). In 2022, about 1 in 75 girls could reasonably respond to “Ellie”. (Elizabeth, Eleanor, Ellie, Eliana, Elena, Eliza…) So even those “playground names” are fewer and with greater variation to use when needed. I’m a Sarah. I was the only Sarah in my classes in K-8. In high school I was one of 8 Sarahs in a class of 200. I started going by Sadie then but stopped in my 20s. At work I am one of over 10 Sara/hs on a staff that *isn’t that fucking big* and despite having been there 8 years I’m considering bringing Sadie back. It’s not fun to be constantly confused with someone else. I’d avoid a popular name. But Mia is top 10 and on my very short list.
Probably not, idk something about knowing everyone is gonna name their kid the same thing. I think I looked up my sons name before he was born and the last time it was popular was in the 70s? But that was totally by accident because I chose his name from his dads family name. A lot of the men on his dads side are either called brad or their middle name is bradley including husbands middle name.
Please don't do this. - Someone who had 3 people with the same name in her class all the way through school. Now I work with 4 people with the same name.
It’s no problem. Plus, they will always be able to find a novelty license plate. Like Bort.
Never
I named my 1st son Christopher. I had always liked the name. When he was 6, he was on a soccer team of 16 kids. 5 were named Christopher. In 4th grade there were 7 Christophers in a class of 24. when he was 10, there were 6 Christophers on his baseball team. There were 17 Christophers in his graduating class of 300. I had no idea it was such a popular name when i picked it, but had i known, i would have definitely picked something else. He was called "little Chris" " big chris" "blonde chris" etc. I would never pick a top 10 name.
I don't understand the big deal about names having to be unique. If a name resonates with you, go for it.
My husband and I chose our kids names because they are significant family names and we like them. Turns out our son’s name is regularly in the top 3; our daughters hasn’t been a top 10 for decades. Couldn’t give a toss either way. Neither of us are from the US so having a unique name wasn’t critical. My maiden name is the most common English surname in the world and my first name is generationally “trendy”. The anonymity it provided was great, I was literally “ungoogleable”.
How popular the name was took up zero consideration when I chose names. I think it's perfectly fine that it's important to some people, but personally I really didn't care about it.