last name and popularity issues

twinmommy13

Does your last name affect whether or not you stay away from top 20 names or not? My ln is Wood and I was determined to come up w/ a name that would be more unique. Just wondering for those of you w/ more obscure last names, are you more willing to go w/ a popular name or common spelling?

starsmaycollide

We have an uncommon last name, and DH's name is Christopher Michael. (literally the #1 and #2 names the year he was born). He doesn't like how common his name is at all. We'll be choosing names that are not as popular. The fact that our last name is uncommon doesn't change that.

JnJHud

My maiden name is pretty uncommon, but my married name is really common. Neither has had a bearing on the level of popularity of the first names we're considering. I'm more concerned with how names sound with our last name. I've had to rule out a lot of my faves just b/c they sound awkward (e.g, last name ends in -son, so I'm shying away from first names with that ending.. Madison, Anderson, etc).

Mike&Care

We don't have a common last name, but that didn't affect our decision. I suppose if I was a Smith, I wouldn't name my kid Jane or John. My husband is a Michael and he hates being one of many... I mean millions. We meet a Mike everywhere we go. That played a role in our kids names.

bunintheoven76

We have a very common last name (Williams), but I have always liked names that aren't as common for my kids... granted, I had a very unique last name for my first two kids from my first marraige, so my son has a common name, but that is also because he is named after his grandfather.

i think that it is common to try to find a unusual name to spice up a common last name, at least here where I am from.

Leap08

Our last name is pretty common (Brown), and, yes, it does make us want to use something a little more unusual for a firstname. This has actually been a real challenge for us as far as boy names are concerned. I really like classic boy names (like William), but my husband thinks almost all of them sound too common.

aubie96

I think it's more of what goes with our last name than what is popular, but personally I'm not a fan of most of the popular names and I don't want my child to be one in 10 of the same name.  Then again, I like classic, not made up/unique names.  So we'll see!!!

lovesazzie

We have a really unusual last name and we are going with Reid for our child. The popularity of our last name didn't weigh in our decision on naming the baby.

broomy

Our baby will be a Smith, so yeah we DEFINITELY want a unique first name!  We have a favorite girl name that's not on the top 20 list, but sounds a lot like one of the top 10, and we've been going back and forth on whether or not we want to use it.... It's the only name we can agree on, but we're so paranoid that once people get tired of ____, they'll switch over to the name we love (sort of like how Emma got so big that people started opting for Emily or Ella, you know?). And we wouldn't want the equivalent of an Emma Smith -- there will be millions of them, lol.

 My favorite boy name has ALWAYS been Kevin, but I just can't name my kid Kevin Smith (because of the famous director...whom I love, but I don't want to subject my kid to being asked if his parents were big fans his entire life! lol). But we found something more unique, which we're sticking with (and keeping a secret, hehe). It's not a weird name by any means, but it's also just not very common at all. Did that just make sense?

Mrs.Biela2be

Our last name is one of a kind and will not play a factor in us picking a first name.  The only thing that will is the fact that we do not want a name that is in the 100 most popular first name ... if I can help it I am going for a name that is not in the top 1000.

TheNextWest

Our last name just makes some names sounds like a street name, a location on a map or an airline. We try to stay away from those

tamedshrew

I grew up with a very common last name and a top 10 first name and I hated it. Even though my married name is fairly uncommon, we are still avoiding top ten names because it stinks when there are six other kids in the class that have the same name as you do (my husband also had a top 10 name).

erinms

Yes, we felt like we could get away with a classic/popular first name because our last name is rare/difficult to pronounce, etc.