How Popular is your name?

TheTamedShrew · February 2016

So, in light of the FFFC and name thread, I thought I would see how many of us have popular/unique names. Did you like or dislike it growing up?

vampirina · February 2016

I voted for the first one, but my opinions on my name have changed over time. My name is an extremely popular 80's name, and when I was little I hated that I knew others that shared my name.

But once I was older (like beyond fifth grade) I thought it was cool or fun. I love that I had like 8 sorority sisters that shared my name (it made for some creative nicknames, that's for sure!). I have no issues naming my future child a popular name and have less desire to name him/her something unique!

PSUBecky23 · February 2016

Rebecca - I was named after my great grandmother and that is super special to me. Didn't matter that there were four Rebeccas/Beckys on my field hockey team in high school because I don't need a name to make me unique

Shiva14 · February 2016

I voted "other" because my first name was in the top 1 name for 10 years (!) In a row in the country I grew up in. I hated that it was so popular growing up because I always had to go by my last name (there was always at least 1 or 2 other girls in my class with my name). Now, in America it's pretty unique but also easy to pronounce and I kind of love it now. If I hadn't moved I'm not sure how I'd feel.

ETA my name is Camilla

Sarafuss · February 2016

My name is Sara and there have always been a lot of Sara(h)'s in school and at work through the years. At my old job I worked with in a department with a lot of women in their 20's and early 30's and there were 5 Sara's and we all had cubicles right next to each other. We had to go by our last names so it was less confusing. It's never really bothered me to have a popular name but I wouldn't say I enjoyed having a popular name either. Pretty much every time would go to the RE for an appt they would call out "Sara!" and I, and at least one other woman, would stand up. It was crazy.

backoffunicorn · February 2016

I also have a really popular name and over time my opinion has changed on it. The one thing I do love is that my mom spelled it differently so it's not identical (I only knew 2 other girls with the same spelling growing up). It gets annoying that people spell it wrong all the time but all-in-all I still really like it.

fiorip · February 2016

My name is not unique where I come from but it is an old name. My husband always jokes that I'm probably the youngest person named "Fior". All other's I've met with the same name are over 50.

ETA I like my name, not popular or unique.

sareej521 · February 2016

Saree
99% of people comment on how different my name is and pretty, haven't really run into anyone who knows anyone with the same name. I did have one person ask me if I ever got teased for it growing up which confused me and I actually have a lot of friends named Sara so I love throwing a wrench in things when we all introduce ourselves to people!

Alyeena · February 2016

I have a really unique name and I have always loved it. Yes you have to explain to people how to spell it and pronounce it because they confuse it 99% of the time but I don't mind. It is a french name so it is even harder for people who speak English.

I did meet one other person with my name once, it was fun. If I lived in France I would of met more because the name is more popular there.

I also don't want to give my kids a popular name, partly because I liked the experience of something unique and because I just don't like all the popular names (probably because I am tired of hearing them all over?)

camichael84 · February 2016

My name is Christina, which isn't overly popular, nor is it unique. Just somewhere in the middle, and I like it that way. I've known women with the same name, but not a ton. You can also get several different nicknames out of it, which probably contributes to not knowing an abundance of women that go by the same name.

TNgoldengirl · February 2016

Mine is Hannah. I chose option 1 because I usually ended up being good friends with others named Hannah, and there wasn't TOO many. But growing up, I always wanted to change it, not necessarily to something more popular or more unique, just different.

CRich15 · February 2016

My first name is Cami- that's it, not short for anything just 4 letters long. I hated it growing up because I wanted to personalized pencils and what not but now that I'm older I absolutely love it and have insisted on giving my kids not overly popular names. Skyler and Greyson (both boys) not sure what this one will be.

AnnaS930 · February 2016

My name is Anna (duh). It was popular in the 1900s, but not nearly as much in the late 80s when I was born. There was only 1 other Anna in my school and she was a biatch - so I decided very early on in life that I don't like other people with my name.
Since then, I've met a few other Annas and Anas, but I'm happy that it hasn't been incredibly popular. I like that my name is classic and has worked well at all ages/stages of my life

reesaXden · February 2016

My name is Marissa. Not really popular as I have only met like 5 others in my life. I like it okay I guess. Never really hated my name or went by a nickname.
People always spelt it wrong but never mispronounced it.

KarenBeth714 · February 2016

I always wished my name was more unique - but it wasn't that popular when I was growing up - never any other Karens in my class.

Katie8687 · February 2016

Starting in kinder I was one of three girls with the name Katie. Get to college, and what's my new roommate's name? Katy! I don't mind it though.

owlcup · February 2016

My name isn't very popular or unique. It does pin me as an 80s baby though! Growing up I only knew a few with my name. It does have a unique spelling though. Ja.i.m.i.e (On the off change someone googles my name! It doesn't actually have all the periods in it).

@Karenbeth714 - My sister's name is Karen and she always said the other Karens she met were always moms. Haha.

KarenBeth714 · February 2016

actually @owlcup same here - one of my best friends moms was Karen!

PJpeppercorn · February 2016

I'm a Jessica from the 80's and I loved having a popular name. I thought it was fun to meet people with my same name and have friends that had the same name. It seems like so many parents are super concerned about their child sharing a name with someone in their class-- but my personal experience and my experience working in schools says that usually, the kids are just fine with it. Id rather go with popular than something that is hard for people to pronounce or spell. Kids seem to have a harder time with this than a popular name.

Knottie1456280733 · February 2016

My first name is Kaitlyn. It wasn't really common when I was growing up (only one other girl in my HS class of 750 and a different spelling. However, about 10 years ago everyone was naming their kid Caitlyn, Caitlin, Katelynn, or one of the other 500 spellings. I'd get so confused in public and realize a mom was calling her LO haha. Made me grateful to not deal with that growing up.

faeriem · February 2016

My name is Maria and wasn't really popular or unique, and I never met many people my age with my name. I was named after my grandma and love that. People always assume I'm Hispanic if they haven't seen me, even though it's one of the most popular Nordic names. Whenever I travel to Sweden I meet a ton of Maria's. I've always loved my name.

kcl219 · February 2016

KarenBeth714 said:

I always wished my name was more unique - but it wasn't that popular when I was growing up - never any other Karens in my class.

I'm a Karyn and also don't know any other Karen's my age. Most are older! I did always like the uniqueness of the spelling variation but everyone spells it wrong.

618mom22boys · February 2016

My name was popular in the 80's. I didn't have any other kids in my class with the same name, granted our graduation class was only around 150. There were other kids in other grades with the same name.

JennM205 · February 2016

I'm surprised we haven't heard from any Jennifer's yet. I know there are at least a couple others in this BMB. Growing up, one of my best friends was also named Jennifer. I didn't really mind that we shared the same name. The thing that bugged me was constantly hearing the name Jennifer only to turn around and realize the person was calling out for a different Jennifer. It was also always kind of annoying that anytime anyone told a story about a Jennifer, it had to be interrupted to clarify "which one?" And this isn't just between me and my childhood friend. Every school I've attended, every place I've worked. It doesn't bug me as much now but I'm definitely aiming for less popular names for my children (not necessarily unique or different, just not so common).

mamajen10414 · February 2016

JennM205 said:

I'm surprised we haven't heard from any Jennifer's yet. I know there are at least a couple others in this BMB. Growing up, one of my best friends was also named Jennifer. I didn't really mind that we shared the same name. The thing that bugged me was constantly hearing the name Jennifer only to turn around and realize the person was calling out for a different Jennifer. It was also always kind of annoying that anytime anyone told a story about a Jennifer, it had to be interrupted to clarify "which one?" And this isn't just between me and my childhood friend. Every school I've attended, every place I've worked. It doesn't bug me as much now but I'm definitely aiming for less popular names for my children (not necessarily unique or different, just not so common).

I'm a Jennifer. Growing up I knew quite a few so it did get annoying. I had a lot of nicknames growing up, I think mostly to avoid confusion with other Jennifer's. Now I'm use to it and don't really care. Except there's been a couple times at the doctor they'll call me by my first name and there's a couple of us in the waiting room.

LizC216 · February 2016

I'm an Elizabeth. I feel like it's a common name but not overly popular. In grade school, I had two other Elizabeth's in my class of roughly 100. The one went by Beth, the other by Elizabeth and I went by Liz, so it never really bothered me.

Themaritimemama · February 2016

My name was not popular while I was growing up. I would get comments on it a lot (Madison) but now it's popular, so people always say "you're the oldest Madison I've met!"

lovelylauren86 · February 2016

I only knew 1 other Lauren growing up then had one in my graduating class of 989

Thscary · February 2016

My name is Theresa and I knew no one else with my name growing up (other than "old ladies"). Now I know maybe two other Theresas around my age

MojieJo · February 2016

There were at least three girls in the same year as me in middle school who had the same name (one in my class) and I absolutely hated it. Mainly because I couldn't stand any of them, so I didn't like having to share a name with them, but also because one was the "it girl" in our year and I was sort of a misfit outsider. Made things awkward.

I'm indifferent to my name now. I don't see too many people who share it these days (weird since it was all the rare in the 80's), but it wouldn't really bother me if I did. I wouldn't mind having something more unique, but I'm fine with things the way they are.

crispy11 · February 2016

I'm a little confused about the poll choices, but my name was in the high 80s the year I was born and I loved it. I have a normal name that everyone knows but I was always the only one in my grade or in my team with that name.

TheTamedShrew · February 2016

crispy11 said:

I'm a little confused about the poll choices, but my name was in the high 80s the year I was born and I loved it. I have a normal name that everyone knows but I was always the only one in my grade or in my team with that name.

I was trying to word the choices to clarify how everyone felt about the popularity of their name, rather than how they felt about it in general. As in, you could like your name a lot, but not necessarily how popular it was. Or if you didn't particularly like your name growing up, then that wasn't relevant to this poll. I thought it would help people decide for or against naming their child a popular or unique name, or if it would really matter in the long run. I have a couple of popular names that i love for this baby, and i can't decide if i want to really consider them. I don't know, polls are hard sometimes.

star18star · February 2016

My name is Rachel and I love it. It's common enough that everyone knows it but not so common that there were Rachel's everywhere. Occasionally over the years one or two have popped up in classes, but I've never worked with another Rachel or had other friends with my name. The only annoyance is people try to spell it the Hebrew way of Rachael or I get called Rachelle ALL the time. Like 3 people I've worked with for 5+ years still spell my name wrong in emails. Is it that hard???

on the other side of things, my husband is an 80's baby Michael and just in our close-knit group of friends there are multiple other mike's, and a few other mike's in his family. He usually goes by his last name to avoid confusion and has learned to ignore people yelling "Mike!" unless they use his last name. We will never have top 10 names for our babies.

spacedolphin11 · February 2016

My name is fairly rare to begin with, and also has a unique spelling (L.ae.ci, pronounced "Lacy", and yes I'm trying to make it less Google-able with random punctuation.) I actually really like it, despite having zero chance that anyone will spell it right (even family members forget) and the fact that if you Google just my first name you get me.

My husband's name was #1 the year he was born, and we have one of the most common last names in the U.S., so we've tried to give our kids less common names. (Unlike my name, though, they need no pronunciation guide!)

hjeanhill · February 2016

Growing up I had only met one person with my name although the spelling is way different. It's Haleigh (Haley). But I have noticed a lot of children at my kids school named Haley recently

noelani42 · February 2016

My name is Sabrina

Knottie25816533 · February 2016

CRich15 said:

My first name is Cami- that's it, not short for anything just 4 letters long. I hated it growing up because I wanted to personalized pencils and what not but now that I'm older I absolutely love it and have insisted on giving my kids not overly popular names. Skyler and Greyson (both boys) not sure what this one will be.

I totally agree about the whole personalized things! I'm Kami also! I've met a few others but usually with a "C" I love my name! I do always get asked what it's short for and like you nothing. I did go thru a phase where I was always having to spell it just because everyone hears "tami" when I say it for some reason. I work out with the public and am on the phone a lot and am over the phase of correcting people! It gets tiring.

pilotswifey · February 2016

My name is Kirsten, but everyone always thinks it is Kristen. Kristen was/is more popular, so people don't look closely.

I I love my name. But I totally judge people who don't take the time to notice the spelling.

RedMar · February 2016

@star18star I feel your pain!!!! I always think to myself, just go with the simplest way to spell it!!! Quit adding in the extra vowels

UnwritteN12 · February 2016

Jillian isn't very common which I like. But I'm always asked if it's spelled with a J or a G. Gillian is the English spelling and my parents specifically didn't use it because they knew it would be mispronounced.

Akiratani · February 2016

My name is not popular but not unique (Cheyenne) I've probably met about 8 others in my life. People have always complemented me on my name and I never know what to say haha. I wanted to give my children the same not popular, not unheard of names as well so I have a Dimitri and a Damien.

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