are popular names not as popular as we think?

“Compared with decades ago, parents are choosing less common names for kids, which could suggest an emphasis on uniqueness and individualism, according to new research. Essentially, today’s kids (and later adults) will stand out from classmates. For instance, in the 1950s, the average first-grade class of 30 children would have had at least one boy named [name]James[/name] (top name in 1950), while in 2013, six classes will be necessary to find only one [name]Jacob[/name], even though that was the most common boys’ name in 2007.”

This quote came from the article above. Interesting. As a teacher myself, I do notice that even ten years ago I had more kids that had the same name in my classroom than I do now (I had 4 [name]Sara[/name]/[name]Sarah[/name]'s in one class). The only “duplicate” name I have this year is [name]Andrew[/name] (just 2). Does this make a name’s popularity less of a factor for you when choosing a name?

Verrrrrrry very interesting. Food for thought definitely!

I think this is a very important point. I always look at popularity in percentage rather than rank because I think it gives a clearer picture. But I don’t really believe in discounting names because of popularity. In my (fairly small) elementary school, there were two kids named [name]Osias[/name] and two Lismari’s, but not a single [name]Jessica[/name] (a popular name in my time). So I guess all popularity is relative. You could name your kid anything and there’s still a chance they’ll share it.

Our daughter’s name is [name]Maya[/name] (#62) and our next kid will probably be [name]Jacob[/name] or [name]Julia[/name] ([name]Jacob[/name] being number 1!) so we really don’t care about popularity either. I would never discount a name because of it’s so-called popularity…but a name that is used by many (or even just one) that I know personally can cause me to discount it as it begins to take on such a strong association to someone else.