Hubby and I are seriously considering making [name]Eleanor[/name], nn [name]Nora[/name] our #1 choice for a baby girl. So, I started doing some research on it’s level of popularity, and I must be honest, I’m fairly alarmed. [name]Eleanor[/name] is around the #135-#150, depending on where you check. [name]Nora[/name] is even higher, around the #110 mark. I haven’t even looked up [name]Nell[/name]/[name]Nellie[/name]/[name]Ellie[/name] yet. My general rule has always been no names from the top 100 list. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? (I tried looking up by state, but could only find info on the top 100 names, so no luck for [name]Eleanor[/name].)
I think that if popularity really concerns you and you don’t have any family/emotional ties to the name, you might not want to. For me, [name]Eleanor[/name] is a family name and I’m not too concerned about popularity, so I’d be okay with it. If it feels right, use it. If you’re really worried about popularity, don’t.
Some names below the top 1000:
[name]Antonia[/name]
[name]Antonina[/name]
[name]Aurelia[/name]
[name]Clementine[/name]
[name]Cordelia[/name]
[name]Harriet[/name]
[name]India[/name] (though as I learned, this name causes big fights on Nameberry due to history between [name]England[/name] and [name]India[/name])
[name]Louisa[/name]
[name]Lucinda[/name]
[name]Mabel[/name]
[name]Marcella[/name]
[name]Margo[/name]
[name]Marion[/name]
[name]Mercy[/name]
[name]Susannah[/name]
[name]Eleanor[/name] is rising in popularity, but I’ve yet to met one. According to parentsconnect.com (and I’m not sure how accurate their information is) there were about 2600 Eleanors born in 2012, compared to about 18000 Isabellas (is that still the number one name?)
So while [name]Elanor[/name] is in the top 100, it’s not nearly as popular as it seems.
[name]Hope[/name] that helps!