If you are avoiding popular names...

treble_clef · January 2012

What's your limit?[Poll]

happyhoopla · January 2012

We're not really focused on what is "popular", more what happens to be trendy right now. I'm not a huge fan of hearing someone's name and being able to tell right away what decade they were born, KWIM. If a name is classic and has always been popular we would consider it.

natalie7s19 · January 2012

Anything in the top 100 is out for us. We have a very common LN, so we're trying not to give our kids popular first names. Asher is just outside the top 100, though, and may well be in it for 2011. Oh well.

jolynn326 · January 2012

I voted for avoiding the top 100, but if we love a name, we'll use it regardless. Many of our girls names fall into the top 100, but oh well

TheWop · January 2012

It's different for boys and girls. Our top girl names aren't in the top 1000, but our top boy name is in the top 25. A popular boy name doesn't really bother me, but I try to avoid popular girl names. I'm a weirdo.

alliejo725 · January 2012

Eh, we didn't really go by numbers. Our top choices were all over the place, though we did rule out Sophia because it was just too damn popular.

When we decided on Monica, which is perched nicely in the 800's, I also looked at its popularity over the past 10 years. Not only is it not popular now (less than 1,000 girls were named Monica in 2010), but it's dropping like a rock.

That'll probably affect our next name choice, too. Sure, Scarlett hasn't cracked the top 100, but it's been soaring on up for a while, and could easily crack the top 25 in our children's generation.

AshleyC0117 · January 2012

I wanted to stay out of the top 100, but Violet is at about 92.

dairygirl19 · January 2012

TheWop:

It's different for boys and girls. Our top girl names aren't in the top 1000, but our top boy name is in the top 25. A popular boy name doesn't really bother me, but I try to avoid popular girl names. I'm a weirdo.

This! It's because there's about a million girl names I like but 4 boy names I'd use. Some of my boy names are in the top 10, but they're the classic, nontrendy, spelled right ones so I don't care.

m+j · January 2012

I wanted a classic name. I get more annoyed by all of the trendy and oddly spelled names than the classic names that may be "overused".

catmtl · January 2012

justAphase:
I would have liked to avoid top 100, but I'm pretty sure Maya is like sixty something. Maybe even a little higher up. Oh well I still love it

Maya is really popular right now. It's in the top 25. I was intent on Maya until I saw how popular it was so it's no longer in the running.

brooklynesque · January 2012

TheWop:
It's different for boys and girls. Our top girl names aren't in the top 1000, but our top boy name is in the top 25. A popular boy name doesn't really bother me, but I try to avoid popular girl names. I'm a weirdo.

This. All my favorite girls' names are 150+ but my boys' names are almost all top 100 -- I like very solid, classic boys' names like James, Charles, and Thomas.

LadyXaverian · January 2012

I purposely avoided the Top 10 (maybe even 25) even though I do love some of those names. Our first choices were no where near the top, though, so it didn't matter.

For a while, our top girl contender was Audrey and I think that was in the 40s.

Daisy41459 · January 2012

I agree there's a difference between boy and girl names, as well as whether a name in the top 50 is "trendy" or not. DS is Joseph, which happened to be #20 the year he was born, but it doesn't bother me that much because it's a timeless name and you'll never be able to pinpoint that he was born in 2010 because of his name (not like Brayden for example).

For this LO, the names we are considering are all over the place (most top 100), but again, are classic names (Anna, Elizabeth, Benjamin, Alexander, etc.)

colfr · January 2012

I would avoid top 100 as a rule, but really it'd be a judgment call. If there was a name that I loved that was in the top 100 and I'd not heard of anyone locally using it then I might go for it (:

guilletskichuk · January 2012

Daisy41459:
I agree there's a difference between boy and girl names, as well as whether a name in the top 50 is "trendy" or not. DS is Joseph, which happened to be #20 the year he was born, but it doesn't bother me that much because it's a timeless name and you'll never be able to pinpoint that he was born in 2010 because of his name (not like Brayden for example).
For this LO, the names we are considering are all over the place (most top 100), but again, are classic names (Anna, Elizabeth, Benjamin, Alexander, etc.)

I think this is so funny. I've known Braydens (spelled this way) my whole life....and I'm 30. I would never associate a child with this name as being born in 2010.

juniper19 · January 2012

alliejo725:
Eh, we didn't really go by numbers. Our top choices were all over the place, though we did rule out Sophia because it was just too damn popular.

When we decided on Monica, which is perched nicely in the 800's, I also looked at its popularity over the past 10 years. Not only is it not popular now (less than 1,000 girls were named Monica in 2010), but it's dropping like a rock.

That'll probably affect our next name choice, too. Sure, Scarlett hasn't cracked the top 100, but it's been soaring on up for a while, and could easily crack the top 25 in our children's generation.

Lol. Monica experienced a drop of almost 80 places between 1997 and 1999. I wonder why....

(By the way, it is at 363, not 800).

Etchylee · January 2012

TheWop:
It's different for boys and girls. Our top girl names aren't in the top 1000, but our top boy name is in the top 25. A popular boy name doesn't really bother me, but I try to avoid popular girl names. I'm a weirdo.

You're not. I'm the exact same way. If Miles shoots into the top 100 next year, we'll still use it. I still love Jack despite the popularity of it along with Jackson/Jaxson. Most of my boy names are hoovering right around 100-150 and it doesn't bother me (much).

I have a few girl names on my list that are popular like Emma and Sophie, but we'd never use them for that reason. All of my favorite girl names that stand a chance of being used for a phantom DD are somewhere between 500-1000. I don't know why I'm like that.

moonfaerie · January 2012

I used to not want to use popular names, but since DH and I do not like any of the same names, I have learned to settle for ANYTHING that we both sort of like.

MrsWiggles · January 2012

Our top boys names are family names that happen to be in the top 25 in my state and one of them is #6 nationally. We haven't narrowed down girls names yet and our preferences are all over the top 100 in our state. But since none of the girls names are in the top ten on the national list, I voted for "avoiding top ten."

Popularity isn't that important to me as long as I don't have a negative association with the name, which is easy to have since I've been teaching for 10 years. As long as it doesn't cause a nervous twitch, it doesn't really matter where it ranks.