When choosing a name for your child, or even just a favourite name, do you care a lot about popularity, or not at all? Have you ever vetoed any names you loved simply because they were too popular? What about future popularty? You love a name and right now it’s not THAT popular, but it’s rising quickly?
So what do you think?
Bounce 
Well, the popularity of girls’ names is much more important to me than that of boys’ names. For a girl, I would probably never choose a name in the top 200. In fact, I am considering veto-ing all of my names that end in -a, and even more so, -ia, because I feel like almost every little girl I know is [name]Anna[/name], [name]Julia[/name], [name]Cecelia[/name], etc. I will carefully look at the recent trending of any name I choose before I pull the trigger to make sure I don’t end up with the Next Big Thing.
As for boys, it doesn’t matter nearly as much for some reason. I prefer classic, strong male names that have lots of history and lots of role models. That said, I guess I do try for a BIT of a surprise-I like [name]Tom[/name], [name]George[/name], and [name]Roger[/name] as opposed to [name]Michael[/name] and [name]William[/name]. But I would probably draw the line at only Top Ten or so for boys.
My mother named me [name]Sarah[/name] fully knowing it was a hugely popular name (One of 5 in my grade school class…) For that reason I am aware of names that tend to be really popular. I probably wouldn’t name a child a name that is on the top 10 or has been in the last few years.
I would like my child to have an identity that is all their own, not just the third [name]Sarah[/name] S. in the class.
Saying that, if I absolutely loved a name (ie [name]Evelyn[/name] or [name]Elliott[/name]) I would risk it and then give them a more unique middle name to fall back on.
Who wants to be one of a bunch? But then who wants to be the only one ever? My sister is named [name]Bridget[/name] and she has never run into another [name]Bridget[/name] ever… she says it is lonely!
I definitely care about popularity, but ultimately if I love the name, that’s how I would make a final decision. I love having a “unique” name (atleast in the US. [name]Freya[/name] is super popular in the UK!) and I would want that for my someday kids too, but I don’t want to make them feel singled out for having a made up or really bizarre name. I would generally choose a less popular name for a girl and not care as much about popularity for a guy, but I wouldn’t give them a top 20 name. I think “happy medium” area is a name that’s familiar but not too widely used, maybe something top 1000 but not top 200.
I’ve been thinking, does popularity even matter? My favorite boys name is [name]Finn[/name]. I love it, not because it’s “cool”, but just because I love it! It’s in the mid-300s, but it’s one of those names that everyone acts like it’s getting so popular. So i looked through the list from the year i was born and guess what? I knew one kid with about a third of the names in the 300s, a couple I knew 2 of, but so what? So even if there’s one per school, its not Like they’ll have to share their name with everyone they know. [name]Even[/name] the top ten names, there was usually not more than 2 in a particular circle of friends.
My son’s name is not in the top 1000. My fave boys name is in the mid 300s, and my favorite girls name is #55! And I hope to use them all, and I don’t care about popularity.
The only thing that bothers me is if i know there are tons of variations that make it actually a lot more popular than the numbers say. On 4th of [name]July[/name] i went to a BBQ where there was a [name]Kayla[/name], [name]Kaelyn[/name], and [name]Kaitlyn[/name], [name]Brandon[/name] and [name]Brendan[/name]! That was confusing!
We named our daughter [name]Emily[/name], knowing it was number one. The popularity of the name bothered me, BUT both my husband and I loved the name, because of its historical connections and the way it sounded with our last name.
[name]Emily[/name] is also a derivative of [name]Amelia[/name], which is a family name on my side.
It turns out that [name]Emily[/name] is one of only of 2 in her grade, which she thinks is great, as there are way too many Emmas her age!
Top 1-50, yes, it would keep me from using the name. Beyond that, I don’t think it matters so much. And as [name]Pam[/name], [name]Linda[/name], and guest bloggers often mention, name trends are much more local than national. We named our son [name]Luca[/name], knowing that it would get a bit more popular (it’s around 280) but we’ve already met one his age. At our neighborhood pediatrician’s office. They may even be in the same kindergarten class one day. So there you go I would love a giant supercomputer-like popularity matrix, where you could enter your location, musical tastes, etc. I bet you’d find the top 10-20 names would look very different from the national list!
I don’t really care if a name is that popular on a Top 100 names list. But if I hear a lot of a certain name in my area, or know more than one person with a name, I would definitely not use it. I don’t usually like popular names anyway, so it doesn’t matter too much to me.