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Answers / Parenting / Baby Names
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How important is name popularity to you?

I like a few names Caroline and Evelyn for girls and Logan for a boy but since they are so popular we are not sure whether to go ahead and use them. I had a popular name as did my husband and daughter. My sons is less common. The affect his name has on people has a bit more of a wow factor, the name is nothing made up or too weird just underused and I think it comes of refreshing to people because its heard less. My daughters is a top ten name and while I adore it and it fits her it gets less of that response. We do like uncommon names or underused I would say but these three before mentioned stick with us a bit.

What are your opinions, does popularity weigh on your decision? Either way really be it to popular or too unique ?

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Anonymous

Asked by Anonymous at 12:15 PM on Mar. 29, 2013 in Baby Names

Answers (25)
  • being a Jennifer born in 1981 (it was BAD, they wrote special books on the subject.) I'd never choose a name even in the top 50!

    what happens is you're labeled other than names. my classes always had:
    the tall jennifer
    the smelly jennifer
    the rich jennifer
    the math stupid jennifer
    the jennifer with the ugly mom, etc etc etc
    hibbingmom

    Answer by hibbingmom at 3:30 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • I didn't even think about it with my kids. I know that 2 of the 3 will never be popular in the US but aren't completely unheard of or made up. That is just fine with us. The other one is somewhat popular but not obnoxiously so.
    balagan_imma

    Answer by balagan_imma at 12:35 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • i did b/c growing up my name was super popular...like top 5 of the 80s popular. i was never the only Amanda and always had to use my last initial. im serious here EVERY class i was in growing up i was one of two Amandas. my high school basketball team had 3 Amandas, my jROTC flight had 4! it was annoying!

    so i picked names that are normal but arent in the top 10. both my kids names are between 50 and 100. but i rarely ever hear of other kids with their names. DD's the only kid in the school district in her grade with her name...i LOVE it haha.
    okmanders

    Answer by okmanders at 2:11 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • Yes, I considered popularity when naming my kids. If a name was too common or too popular I wouldn't use it. Also if a name was very uncommon I wouldn't use it.
    HHx5

    Answer by HHx5 at 12:23 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • DH and I both wanted our kids to have names that were fairly common. I'm named Ginger, his name was Sonny. While not nearly as bizarre as some of the names out there now because ours are just uncommon, not made up, they were still on the 'too different' side for us growing up and there was a lot of teasing going on. My tastes tend to lead towards the classical anyway, so it was a no brainer for us.

    Out of your name choices, I wouldn't call Caroline or Evelyn popular.
    Ginger0104

    Answer by Ginger0104 at 1:15 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • Doesn't affect me at all. My oldest is Michael, which most people would say is a really common name but he has never had another Michael in his class, ever and he's 15. On the other hand, some of the names most people would say are less typical are becoming so overused now that they are more common than the "common" names. I simply picked names I liked, regardless of popularity.
    missanc

    Answer by missanc at 1:35 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • I didn't worry about it at the time, but in hindsight, I'm glad we used one that was somewhere around the 80's or 90's rather than the top thirty. There are so many kids at DS's school that have the same name, some of them cross-gender (I can think of 4 Jordan's off hand, 2 are boys, 2 are girls) and his school isn't even that big. If he's been a girl, there would be at least 2 others with the name we'd planned to use.
    NotPanicking

    Answer by NotPanicking at 3:20 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • It didn't bother me all that much.
    I did ant something recognizable an with strong meanings.
    Dardenella

    Answer by Dardenella at 12:41 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • No, I just have to like it.
    staciandababy

    Answer by staciandababy at 12:44 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

  • I name my kids what I wanted. It didn't matter if it was popular or not
    louise2

    Answer by louise2 at 12:59 PM on Mar. 29, 2013

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