Popularity

When factoring in popularity to names you like for potential kids, what do you think most about: how many people your child will grow up knowing with his/her name, or how many people you have known with his/her name?

I honestly do not worry about either. People come and go. A person cannot predict who will be around their child for the child’s lifetime. My son’s name is not that high on the charts and we have had at least one other on every street we have lived on until our last move. The boys never cared, the parents never cared. Actually the boys always found it fun to have another (or others) with their name on the same street.

I have known or met less people with the top few names, combined, than boys and men named [name_m]Carl[/name_m]. I have known/met a few Ottos. I live in the states.

The most important thing about naming a child is that you (and your significant other) absolutely adore the name. The special tug, pull. You love that name so much that you cannot imagine not using the name. When dealing with another person’s likes and dislikes it is a roller coaster of a ride to find those special names. I would not give them up because some chart lists them high or I have known a few. That name becomes your child’s name. It becomes very special.

The later. If I know too many then it may lose its charm in my eyes.

I can’t decide about it! Lately I’ve been wondering if I should choose a more popular name so my child fits in better, but my gut tells me I want something really unique. So far in my area, I don’t know of any children named [name_m]Casper[/name_m] or [name_f]Winifred[/name_f], so those will most likely be the names we go with! We also happen to love those best. I work in the childcare industry so I get to hear different names everyday. I’ve heard [name_f]Daisy[/name_f] and [name_m]George[/name_m] most often!

And to answer your question, not sure I did above, I would prefer to choose a name that doesn’t belong to anyone I’ve known or anyone my child will know.

Mostly the former. Personally I’d be more bothered if I knew loads of people with my name, so I take current popularity lists and trends into account. But at the same time, there are some names that aren’t that popular anymore, but I’ve heard so much I just don’t like them anymore as a result. In that case it’s more that because they were so popular, they’ve become very boring and dull to me, and they just don’t have that spark or personality that draws me to a name. I wouldn’t like or use those names anyway, and if I did like or love them enough, their former popularity wouldn’t have been enough to put me off.

This.

Several of my favourites rank highly as of late, but the popularity only starts to bug me if I see the name too often. So while [name_f]Scarlet/name_f falls within the top 25 names in the US, I don’t know any personally, so the popularity doesn’t bother me.

Ooh, I don’t know! I’m not super torn on popularity, but I cannot deny that it is still something that I at least acknowledge when finding names for our future children. It’s not so much that I hear a name that I like and think “Oh my gosh, everyone is using that name now!” or “Dang, my kid will probably grow up with so many kids by that same name!” It’s moreso, “Huh…hearing it this many times sort of makes it lose its luster, to me.”

It’s weird, though. Names like [name_f]Emma[/name_f] and [name_m]Jacob[/name_m] are super popular but I still find them great names…the popularity doesn’t impact my opinion on them. However, if parents in my town starting using my favorite name, [name_f]Ada[/name_f], then it would seem tarnished to me.

When I was hypothetically coming up with names for children popularity was a huge downside for me. Now that I find myself working towards naming an actual human it’s still something I consider but not as highly. Having to agree with my husband pushes me that way too, he is a [name_m]Jason[/name_m] from the 80s and never had a problem with sharing his name with 3 other children, and these days it feels like 50% of the adult men we meet are named [name_m]Jason[/name_m]. I would prefer a name not in the top 100, and it can’t be a name of someone we know who is living. The only real absolute though is nothing in the top 10, and he agrees with me on this now.

For me it’s because I don’t want my child to share a name with someone (or many) people in their class. While theres no way to guarantee this, choosing a less popular name is a start. When we were looking at daycare the current children’s names were all on the wall, and I was surprised and a little disheartened to see many of the names I love there, though they are not really what I thought were popular names. So you never know in the end anyway. Ideally I’d love for my child to have a name that they don’t share with anyone, and I try to use my own name as a ‘probability comparison’. Mine was about #250 the year I was born, and I have never met someone of my generation with the same name. So I figure going below 250 should be quite safe in that respect, though it’s not something that will prevent me from using names more popular than that if I really love them.

Personally, I do not enjoy common names ([name_u]Michael[/name_u], [name_m]John[/name_m], [name_m]Robert[/name_m], etc). However, I do enjoy some of the current popular names. I won’t choose a name if the name carries a negative connotation through personal association, and I am not big on family names. I guess the only other important factor is how the name sounds with my last name, honestly. If I name my kids [name_f]Scarlett[/name_f] and [name_m]Oliver[/name_m], they will probably know some kids with names similar to theirs, of course. I don’t really mind unique names, but I do think some parents try too hard to make their children’s names stand out, and the children can sometimes face ridicule over those choices. One of my only concerns with names lately has been if one of my close friends has a baby before me, and they use the same baby name I had planned on using.

Mostly the first. I have more issues with people my age sharing my name than I do sharing my name with people older than me. I think both would make the name lose its charm though. I also take into account trends and those around me, because I really want to make sure my kids don’t have to share their name with tons of others.

my biggest popularity fear is that the name I choose will become uber popular a few years after I name my child. For example I know a pre-frozen [name_f]Elsa[/name_f] who is ashamed of her name because it is “trendy.” [name_f]Elsa[/name_f] is a great name and who could have foreseen it’s rise? I don’t worry so much about past or current popularity but I do look at trends and think about the future.

I think I get this fear from my mom who was named [name_f]Jennifer[/name_f] in 1954 and was the only one she knew until the 70’s.

I think about both. I wouldn’t not name my child something if I really loved it just because it’s popular.

For me it’s definitely about how many people you know with the name. For example, most people would consider the name [name_f]Allegra[/name_f] very unusual, but I’ve known at least 5, and I’ve known 3 girls named [name_f]Apolline[/name_f] or [name_f]Apollonia[/name_f] (all nicknamed [name_f]Apple[/name_f]!), but I’ve never met anyone called [name_f]Chloe[/name_f] or [name_u]Shannon[/name_u], which were both common names the year I was born (in the UK).
So I think it’s important to look more at what’s around you than at what is considered common/popular, because your social class can have a huge impact on the naming patterns of the people you meet.

This is so hard for me. I think about a bunch of different things when I read your question.

When naming this bun:

  1. Perceived “trendiness” is way more important to me than rank in popularity. I believe that [name_u]Harper[/name_u] will stay high for the next little while, but 20 years from now I am so sure it will look like a giant stalagmite on the popularity over time graphs. I like [name_u]Harper[/name_u] much more than I like [name_f]Amelia[/name_f], but I would be more inclined to name my child [name_f]Amelia[/name_f] than [name_u]Harper[/name_u] because while [name_f]Amelia[/name_f] is super high, I don’t think it will be a giant timestamp on my child’s forehead for the rest of her life in the same way that [name_u]Harper[/name_u] strikes me as having the potential to be.

  2. I think about whom my child will interact with, but I also live in a community that is very ethnically different from my own background or my husband’s background, and I take this into account as well.

Our neighborhood, where my child will attend public schools, is almost exclusively African-American. I know from visiting the school and community events and the like that it is much more likely for my child to grow up in a class with two children called [name_m]Xavier[/name_m] or [name_m]Malik[/name_m] or [name_f]Aida[/name_f] or [name_f]Diamond[/name_f] or [name_f]Hailey[/name_f] than it is that they know even one [name_u]Harper[/name_u] or [name_f]Penelope[/name_f] at their school. It is conversely just as unlikely that the children from their school will know a [name_f]Mathilda[/name_f]/[name_f]Matilda[/name_f] as it is that they will know a [name_f]Chrysanthemum[/name_f]. These are BOTH names that just don’t show up where we live, despite the fact that [name_f]Matilda[/name_f] on a whole in this country is VASTLY more popular than [name_f]Chrysanthemum[/name_f].

But I also take into account how trendy or popular a name is among my own cohort, which is different depending on how I look at it and define different intersectionalities in my life. [name_m]Just[/name_m] taking into account the one example of the community where I grew up (which was like 97% white with 2% latinx and 1% native american, mostly lower to middle-class, and very crunchy granola), versus the community where my husband grew up (50% white, 30% east asian, 15% south asian, and maybe 5% latinx, upper-class, and very trendy) – there are huge discrepancies between the types of names my husband and I were both exposed to, and we both attended colleges with very different demographics from either community of origin that were on the opposite side of the country from where we both grew up, and 1000 miles from where we live now.

And then I think about what communities my child will be a part of that are outside our usual radius. Our church is about half white and half black. Drive 10 minutes to the nearest suburb from where we are now and you’ll see almost entirely white children with some south [name_f]Asian[/name_f] kids mixed in. I’m certain that [name_f]Matilda[/name_f] is not so unusual there. So I have to take into account that the community we call home is certainly far from the only community we will interact with, even in the next few years, let alone where my child will go to college or travel or adventure or settle on his/her own. I try to take into account the ease of my child’s entry into any number of new communities that they may be a part of, and the list changes to adjust for those things.

  1. The future popularity of a name. [name_f]Lillian[/name_f] was ranked #348 in the year I was born and my spelling, [name_f]Lilian[/name_f], was #1307. I have never met another [name_f]Lillian[/name_f] or [name_f]Lilian[/name_f] of my age plus or minus 10 years. But when I was young, I met a few 80 year olds with my name, most of whom I assume have since passed. And in the past 5 years, I’ve met 5 Lillians aged 10 and under. I love having a name that was before the trend. It makes me feel young. But of course there’s very little we can do to predict whether a name will rise or by how much or for how long. Or under what circumstances. Like @opella’s example of the pre-Frozen [name_f]Elsa[/name_f]. I have met a few pre-[name_f]Princess[/name_f] Tianas in my community, and they all have different reactions to the rise of popularity following [name_f]Princess[/name_f] and the Frog.

All in all… I over-analyze every little bit from every angle I can think of. But in the end, the decision I make won’t be based on popularity but rather how much I love the name. Popularity may be a factor in which names I tend to gravitate towards, but it really has very little to do with the complete infatuation I have with any given name.

I’d say how popular the name is at the time you’re naming your child. In my year group at high school we had so many girls named [name_f]Georgia[/name_f], 3 of these [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]'s were/are in my group of closest friends so we always have to use a nickname or use their last name to distinguish them. In primary school, of less than 20 boys in my year group we had 3 [name_m]Jack[/name_m]'s, 2 [name_m]Tom[/name_m]'s and 2 [name_u]Nick[/name_u]'s. I currently work at an out of school care centre and we always have at least 5 [name_m]Jack[/name_m]'s that attend.
I guess it depends on the parent though. I’m all for if you love the name then use it. [name_m]Just[/name_m] be aware that if the name is super common at the time of your child’s birth, it’s likely they’ll be nicknamed or called [name_m]Jack[/name_m] M, [name_m]Jack[/name_m] W etc. during school. I’ve never met anyone else with my name which I really like, it feels like my name is more unique to me as it’s my name, not the name of 10 other people I know.

If you had asked this a year ago, before I began seeing my fiancé, I would have said that popularity literally meant nothing to me, and as long as I didn’t have a negative association, I would happily use the #1 name in the world, however, meeting him has changed my mind.

My fiancé was born in 1990 and his name was only #20 when he was born. He goes exclusively by his nickname, however, growing up, he was NEVER the only one with his name in his classes at school. In his grade 8 graduating class alone (so approximately 50 kids), he was one of 5 with the same name. This doesn’t necessarily bother him, but it certainly impacts how he feels about popular names.

However, I was born in 1995, and my name ranked about the same as his did, yet I have only ever met one other [name_u]Haley[/name_u] my age in my life. Popularity kind of depends on a lot of individual factors - the top names for my province show [name_f]Charlotte[/name_f] ranking at #3, below [name_f]Emma[/name_f] and [name_f]Olivia[/name_f], yet in my city, I can rattle off close to a dozen Charlottes under 4, but no Emmas and few Olivias.

We love the name [name_f]Ava[/name_f], and it’s at #4 in the US ([name_f]Canada[/name_f] doesn’t have nationwide official stats unfortunately), and at #4 in [name_m]Ontario[/name_m] too. However, I only know 3 little [name_f]Ava[/name_f]'s, all under age 10. I can’t really go by who I know for names that my children may grow up with, and neither can my fiancé, so we’re forced to go by how many we each know with the name.

For a while, it seemed that every baby girl in my city was named [name_f]Charlotte[/name_f], [name_f]Isabelle[/name_f] or [name_f]Scarlett[/name_f], and because of that, I personally don’t favour them as much as I do say, [name_f]Kayla[/name_f], [name_u]Madison[/name_u] or [name_f]Emma[/name_f] - I know a lot fewer people with those names, and, the majority I do know are my own age. It’s much easier to gauge the popularity based off personal experiences imo than it is to guess what names will be in your children’s classrooms.

Sorry for rambling! It might be the answer you intended to look for, but that’s my outlook on it! :slight_smile:

For me it’s the former. I was actually thinking about this recently because a lot of people seem to write off names because they know a lot of adults with them, but your child will have a totally different experience with most names so if you love a name I don’t think that should be a big factor.

When I was in school the names of my classmates that I really liked were the ones that our parents would have considered “dated” because they grew up with lots of girls named [name_f]Lori[/name_f] and [name_f]Cynthia[/name_f], but for my generation those were unique and I only knew that one girl. So, basically, if I was deciding between 2 names I loved and one name was common on babies and the other was common on adults, I’d go with the one common on adults.

This. I couldn’t agree more.

[name_f]Tiny[/name_f] bit of both, I suppose, although I don’t really care that much about popularity. My daughter’s name is top 20. I know it’s pretty much a fact that she will meet other girls with her name and it’s not so unlikely that she won’t be the only one in the class. She might be, though - you never really know how national statistics will correspond to your actual neighbourhood and your child’s school until you get there. I suppose I avoid names I’ve personally heard on little children, especially ones used on children of people I know. Mostly because it just seems like copying.

I also feel leery about using names of adults that I know and see somewhat regularly. It just seems a bit awkward, like you’re naming your kid after them even though obviously you wouldn’t be naming your child after your boss or that friend of a friend you see at parties.

Both, actually
For example I grew up knowing like 12 [name_f]Maria[/name_f]'s so the name has lost its charm for me
I hate hate hate names that are popular now as well ([name_f]Olivia[/name_f] and [name_m]Oliver[/name_m] on my signature are honor names) and would never use them as a first name, no matter how much I love them