How popular is too popular?

iLoveblueberries · October 2011

Hello! Long time lurker here....

How popular on the SSA list is too popular? Top 25? Top 50? Top 100? Top 200?

I prefer classic names that I guess you can say are considered "unique" (example: Olive)....but some of them are starting to creep towards the top 100 or 150...and a few of them are in that catagory. Are names in the 100-200 range too popular to use? I don't want my child being "Catie #4" in a class like I was growing up!

Thanks for the help....I look forward to posting here are we try to find the perfect name (which is NOT going well due to MH love for very trendy names *ekk* NMS!)

iLoveblueberries · October 2011

baconface:

Hmm, a couple thoughts.

1. How popular is too popular is really up to you? If you never want your child to meet another kid by that name, don't go with the top 100. If you are OK with the name being a name that people hear sometimes, I think you are safe going within 100.

2. I'd consider the region you are in (you can look at the rankings on the SS website by state), and consider the schools your child might attend. Then it will be a combo of the SS numbers and an educated guess.

3. I think boy or girl makes a big difference with this. I am sure there is a proper mathematical way to explain this, but I'll just do it my non-scientific way. People tend to get less creative with boys names, meaning that the further you go toward the top 20 or so, the more common the names are going to be in pure # of kids with that name. With girls, for some reason people have no problem stringing random letters together, changing spellings, etc etc. It's not to say they don't do it with boys (Kayden/Kaden/Kadyn is a good example) but I definitely think you see it more with girls. (Ex: Look at the SS name list for your state for 2010. You will see that the # of children named the top 20 names is vastly higher for boys than it is for girls. This means that if you have a girl and name her the #10 name, it is going to be less common than the #10 boy name would be.)

It is just going to come down to a judgment call and crossing your fingers that your name doesn't explode int he coming few years!

Good luck!

Thanks this is super helpful!
I wouldn't mind future LO to meet another "sarah" I just dont want them to be "sarah #12"--good point on that!

And SO true about the boys names! People do get less creative! I will keep that in mind!

NDA2011 · October 2011

Top 50

iLoveblueberries · October 2011

Scout2005:

TBTH, I wouldn't consider Olive unique right now. I know three baby Olives, and four baby Olivias.

If you like the name, go for it, but do so knowing it's a somewhat common name right now.

I was going off the SSA website where it is listed as 540 something last year....it is not a name I would use just an example of a style name I like.

frasey · October 2011

CabbageCabbage:
For me, popularity is a secondary concern to timeless style. I want them to have their own name at school. I also want their name/s to not scream, "I was born around 2012."

This exactly!! Like age, popularity is just a number.

BrittKav · October 2011

For me, "too popular" is top 100. But looking at the SSA list, a lot of the top names I've never seen on a baby born recently. I think unless you pick something in the top 25-ish, you probably won't see many others in your LOs class.

KtB0605 · October 2011

mj.reilly:
How popular is too popular?
Whatever you think is "too popular." People see popular in different ways. For some, it is Top 10. For others, it is Top 500. It all depends on you.
The only ones that will likely be _____ A, B, or C in the class is the Top 10-25. Or one of the popular nicknames (Ellie, Addie, Maddie...blech). There is a lot more variety in names now. Isabella is no where near as popular as the #1 name 20 years ago.

Absolutely agree with this.

Personally, I also take popularity by state into consideration. There are some names that are in the top 50 for the U.S. but don't reach the top 100 in my state.

I was also one of those Katie/Katy/Kate's that had another 3, 4, or 5 other people in my class with the same name, so using "unpopular" names are important to me.

Then again, if I love a name and if my future child fits that name when I meet him/her the popularity won't deter me from using it.

Keri Marie · October 2011

Too popular for me is top 1000.

mlf625 · October 2011

For me, anything in the top 100 was out. DS (Anderson) was in the high 300s and DD (Vivian) down near 200 when chosen. That said, you never know how it might change. I think Vivian will soon be in the top 100 (if it's not already), and there's another little Vivian in town who is her age that she'll likely go to school with - but I love the name so much it doesn't matter to me. I still wouldn't purposely choose something in the top 100, though.

fyziksgirl · October 2011

I'm no expert, but my personal feeling is I try to stay out of the top 200. I'd prefer to be out of the top 300 but would take something in the 200s if I liked it. Being below that pretty much rules it out for me. As I said on your post in May 2012 (hi, again!

my last name is common as mud, so I'm *really* trying for an "unpopular" first name. The hubby is not helping :-/

starrkitten89 · October 2011

I personally would try to stay away from anything in the top 100.However,if I really fell in love with a name that wouldn't sound trendy or dated later and it was higher on the list,I would still use it.But only if I absolutely,1000% loved it.

jmgcoggins · October 2011

KtB0605:

Personally, I also take popularity by state into consideration. There are some names that are in the top 50 for the U.S. but don't reach the top 100 in my state.

This! DS name is Gabriel. In the US it's ranked 21, but it's not even in the top 100 for our state. I've actually never met a Gabriel before, nor are there any kids around here that have the same name. I hope it stays that way because I love his name, and chose it because it isn't popular in our town/state.

ETA: If this one is a little girl her name will be Kellie.I think it's in the 500's for US and not ranked for our state. So it'll be pretty unique as well. We don't have a boy name, and really haven't discussed boy names yet.

slukd79 · October 2011

Top 100 is too popular for me, but everyone has their own standards with regards to number.

I guess I am one of the few that does not look at the state statistics. We have moved from St. Louis to Denver to DC and now Chicago. If I based her name on where we lived at the time, that could have changed quickly. Plus I am hoping to be geographically diverse for where we (our family) travel and where she goes to college.

cndmexbaby · October 2011

Who cares? Just name your kid what you want to.

evaazalea · October 2011

cndmexbaby:
Who cares? Just name your kid what you want to.

I do.

ObLaDi · October 2011

What I did, and recommend you try, is to look at the SSA top 100 list for a couple years around when I was born (e.g. 1982-86). This gave me an idea for where the names that I consider "too popular" from my generation (Sarah, Amanda, Laura, Jennifer, Matthew, Michael, Benjamin, Christopher, etc) fell in the rankings. Based on this, I'm absolutely ruling out anything in the top 50.

I'd also recommend looking at the recent trends around any name you like--if it's had a major increase in popularity in the past few years, odds are it may become a "dated" name that I would want to steer clear of.

ashunt279 · October 2011

I can totally understand the who popular thing. I tend to like more classic names too. But I also have given consideration to what the name will be like at the different ages they will be. For instance, I have a friend who named his son Cody. Cute for a little boy and maybe throughout highschool but I don't think it's appropriate for a 45 year old man (just my opinion). I also don't see Cody being the CEO of a major company (again, just my opinion).

I agree that boys names are less creative than girls names. GL.

stahlop · October 2011

The thing about the names on the SSA list is that they don't take into account all the alternative spellings. Here is a good site to go to that ranks the name and all it's alternative spellings: https://www.namenerds.com/uucn/pop.html (sorry, I don't know how to make it linky).

Another thing to think about is how different the most popular names are now. On the SSA list you can look it up by percentage. The number 1 name is only 1% of the babies born, whereas, when Jennifer was the number 1 name, it was around 30% of the babies born. There are so many more name choices now.

ryry1977 · October 2011

I don't want to name my kids a popular name so I stay away from any name in the top 200. But I think that is the extreme for most people. My DS name is Cedric Donovan. Baby girl is still nameless.

Puppylove*85 · October 2011

This is such a personal decision. For me personally, I would much rather choose a popular name that I love than a less common name that like less. Popularity just means that a lot of people like the name, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

Regardless of what name that you choose, it's still possible that your child will have another in his or her class at some point. There is also no guarantee that the name won't skyrocket in popularity in a few years.

MrsWindyCity · October 2011

mj.reilly:
How popular is too popular?
Whatever you think is "too popular." People see popular in different ways. For some, it is Top 10. For others, it is Top 500. It all depends on you.
The only ones that will likely be _____ A, B, or C in the class is the Top 10-25. Or one of the popular nicknames (Ellie, Addie, Maddie...blech). There is a lot more variety in names now. Isabella is no where near as popular as the #1 name 20 years ago.

ITA.

Originally, I didn't want to stay in the top 100. We were Team green and our girl name was like 340 or something like that. But, it turns out our boy name was about 50.

That said, like pp mentioned, there is so much variation with names now that the top names aren't nearly as popular as they used to be. Even though it was #51, there were only 320 Zacharys born in the entire state of IL in 2010. Considering the population of Chicago alone is over 2.5 million, I'm not very concerned he is going to be Zachary #5.

plus, you can't predict future trends. As I said, our girl name was something like 340 but even the very next year it shot up to < 300.

robynlesley · October 2011

It's so funny because I didn't want top 10 but was OK with it being popular. That being said, I don't think my son will be around too many Aaron's but it's possible (I think it was ranked at 52 when he was born).

I'm one and done but had I had a girl, the name I had chosen (Hannah) was in the top 20 and pretty popular. But I loved it and would have used it regardless.

Smootchy · October 2011

I'd say just go with what you like.

When we were looking into names for DS, I swear I've never heard ppl talk about Elijah... It happen to be the only name we agreed on.. and so it is DS's name... Now everyone thinks we "named him elijah cause it's popular"

Glendi2.0 · October 2011

The SSA list ends up being pretty useless when all is said and done. Names that rank in the top 10 may seem totally unpopular to you if you don't happen to meet any children with that name, while a statistically more obscure name could suddenly become hot in your neck of the woods, KWIM?

In my case, I tried to avoid going with names I thought would be crazy popular (like Olivia) with varying degrees of success- DD#1's name is Amelia, which has flown up the SSA rankings in the 5 years since I picked it- yet only this year when she began kindergarten did I meet another Amelia. Meanwhile, DD#2- her name is Sylvie, and I've already met 3 Sylvies in our town alone. You just never know!

RoninSirPuppyPup · October 2011

Definitely out- Top 25 and their variants. Anything in the top ten within the last, oh, 20 years. That seems a bit silly probably but top 10 names are generally very dated. Even though LO wasn't born 15 years ago I don't want their name to sound like it was ?

Anything in the top 100 that seems to be rapidly rising is out.

Anything in the top 200 that seems to be rapidly rising would be taken into serious consideration.

Anything that is so unpopular that it has never appeared on any charts because it was used so infrequently.

So basically, top 100 is ok if we LOVE the name, and it's not trendy 100. Based on how long it's been in top 100. Some names will probably always be in top 100. So I'd always be willing to consider them KWIM?

That being said, LO's name is Landon. Yep. It was the ONLY name H and I could remotely agree on and at the time I just didn't give a sh!t anymore. I wish we could change it but H would probably think I'd lost my mind.