Popularity?

Name Advice
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Curious - has anyone else found that some names seem super popular on here and in NB stats, but not in your real life?

Is it as simple as location?

[name_u]Or[/name_u] are people interested in the same names for NB purposes, but not actually using for naming?

I’ve noticed this for boys, girls, and neutral names. For example, [name_u]Avery[/name_u] is Top 10 on stats, but I know of none under age 25 for boys or girls.

Many others…. [name_f]Ada[/name_f], [name_u]Asher[/name_u], [name_u]Jude[/name_u], [name_f]Mabel[/name_f], [name_f]Maeve[/name_f], [name_m]Silas[/name_m], [name_m]Theodore[/name_m], etc etc etc.

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I have seen this pattern as well, especially with literary names. Names like [name_m]Atticus[/name_m], [name_m]Caspian[/name_m], [name_u]Auden[/name_u], and [name_f]Bronte[/name_f].

As for the names you list, I know at least 1 young [name_m]Theodore[/name_m], [name_u]Jude[/name_u], [name_m]Silas[/name_m], and [name_u]Asher[/name_u]. I do not know of any Mabels, Maeves, or [name_m]Adas[/name_m], but [name_f]Ada[/name_f] is a name I was heavily considering for my own daughter (top 3 choices), but ultimately I did not use it.

I think that part of the reason for this phenomenon is that the people on nameberry are not a random sample of young parents. The people here spend a lot more time thinking about names, and are skewed towards certain types of names that are not as common among the general public.

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All but [name_f]Mabel[/name_f] and [name_f]Maeve[/name_f] are common in my life, especially [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] and [name_u]Avery[/name_u].

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That makes so much sense about the population on Nameberry!

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I think here on NB people tend to go for names that are less popular in real life, or just spend longer looking for names that you don’t hear everyday?

Also, I think when a name comes along on the forums and one person talks about it, then other users add it to their lists and start talking about it, suggesting it to others etc - so we end up passing around names between a much smaller group of people that you might not hear out in the ‘real world’ so often, but become NB staples??

But location definitely plays a part. I haven’t met a single [name_u]Avery[/name_u], but where I am, I’ve encountered several [name_f]Ada[/name_f] and Judes and quite a few Theodores

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Somewhat! When I was looking to name my son (and we didn’t know gender) I would look up the most popular names in my state via the recent census and go by that rather letting myself overthink too much via nameberry. I doubt that nameberry is off the mark but the popularity of names by area is most likely less dense than we think…frankly that’d almost be a cool map or map graphs to see! What areas popular names are ACTUALLY the most popular

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Agreed! That would be a very telling map!!

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Agreed! That would be a very telling map!!

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I think @namer_gamer is right about Nameberry users. Also, some names, as the authors like to note, become popular here first, with the name nerds, and then they catch on among the more general public (an example might be Juniper.)

I hear [name_u]Asher[/name_u] and [name_m]Silas[/name_m] pretty often (I have 1-year-old nephews–different sides of the family–with those names, plus Asher’s dad is [name_m]Silas[/name_m] :smile:) and am starting to hear [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] more often.

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