Is your kids name popular?

Traci Reed said:
We like unique (but not out there) names so it makes me happy!
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This is exactly us.

Of course, I was named Mary and went to a Catholic school. :blink: And now, in my closest group of about 12 women, 5 are named Mary (or with a second name), and only one other is Catholic.

We had certain criteria for names - names that were easy to spell and pronounce, names that could not be shortened, and names that were not popular, but not obscure.

I went back 20 years and the highest for Grant was 115 (166 when born), Wyatt is currently at it's most popular at 41 (was 197 when he was born), and Kent and Kurt are way out there - Kent hasn't been in the top1000 since 2003, was 772 when he was born (that's kind of an old-time name I think), and Kurt hasn't been in the top 1000 since 2005 and was 543 when born.

Given all of that, my boys have always gone to large public schools. Grant is really the only one that we ran across several others. Wyatt has been fairly unique. In high school there was one that graduated before Wyatt started. And with Kent and Kurt - none at all through all of grade school and middle school. And so far none in a 3000 student high school. Even with Kurt Warner (retired AZ Cardinals QB) being very popular here.

:thumbup:

ETA: Yes, we named our twins with the same starting initial! I come from a family of twins (my siblings are all twins) and that was the tradition. Wouldn't have it any other way.
 
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We have Sean, Ian, Raegan, and Kaylin. They are all English/Scottish/Irish names that end with an "n." None of them are names that are super popular, but they aren't super rare either. We do have a Reagan in our neighborhood . . . same name, just spelled differently. She and our Rae were born in the same calendar year, but will be in different grades in school, so I'm glad about that. I like that they probably won't run into tons of people in their lives that have the same name as they do. But, I also like that their names are common enough that they aren't confusing to people. I know Sean, Raegan, and Kaylin will have their names misspelled plenty of times, but that's not a big deal to me. I'm used to spelling my name for everyone. :)

I always liked having a name that was a little bit UNcommon, and I really didn't want my kids to have trendy names. So far, we've done pretty well. :)
 
On a national search Cheyanne is 970th in popularity and Cheyenne is 319th. What is really weird is that for 8 years we only ever knew one other girl with the same name (and she didn't even go by that name but used her middle name of Mackenzie) then when she entered her 4th grade there were 4 of them!!! In the SAME GRADE!!! Over the summer 2 new girls moved into our town and they were named Cheyenne.

We named her after her father's Native American heritage, as his family was Cheyenne Indian (but spelled it with an A to make it more feminine).
 
Matthew was number 3 in 1993 and 12 last year. Crystal was 41 in 1991 and number 384 in 2012. Nickolas was 261 in 1997 and 565 in 2012
 
Nicholas was 49 last year, but 17 the year he was born. Surprisingly enough, we rarely hear it on anyone and he's never had another in a class or anything with him. I didn't care about popularity for a boy name. For girls, I prefer less common names, but either way I like classic names. My name is very uncommon. I have only met a handful in my whole life. I like that its different and I can just say, its Mari and people know its me, but I hate that its never said or spelled right.
 
we just picked names we loved ... i've no idea where the names were popularity wise the year they were born or even now. my sweet three are Henry, Flynn and Gareth. we just recently met another Henry, but he's about 6 years older than ours. Never heard of or met another Flynn [though several Finns, Phinns & Quinns have crossed our path]. and never another Gareth until i met our lovely Miss Shawna! my poor Gareth though... he's only 2 and he already gets Garth & Garrett ALL. the. Time. bleh.

you can imagine how uncommon/unpopular Loni was/is. i grew up with upteen million Loni Anderson references... which was totally AWE. some. no one can ever spell it correctly and am forever being called Lori. but none of that bothers me. didn't meet another "Lani" until college... she was a lovely Hawaiian version.

Sheri... my sister is a Shari... [hysterical to everyone but her] she was named after Shari Lewis. which just makes me smile from ear to ear.
 
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We wanted a happy medium, names that were classic and familiar but also weren't going to be extremely common. Our rules were no names in the top 20, nothing easy to tease with (necessary since our last name is a food and I'm sure they'll get some teasing for it), and a name that we liked the nicknames for. (And we had to both like it, which was by far the hardest criteria to meet!) We've known a few other kids with these names, especially Ben, but no one in their classes.

Jason-42 the year he was born, 76 now
Benjamin-24 the year he was born, 16 now
Lauren-30 the year she was born, 72 now
 
Traci Reed said:
Karsten isn't even in the top 1000, love that!
Josiah was low 100s when he was born and now is in the low 90s...I can live with that
Finn is still mid 100s....yay!

We like unique (but not out there) names so it makes me happy!
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Same here. :)
 
lingovise said:
Sheri... my sister is a Shari... [hysterical to everyone but her] she was named after Shari Lewis. which just makes me smile from ear to ear.
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:D That's funny. My mom has never said why she named me Sheri. I don't dislike my name, but there are way too many ways to spell it, so I wanted to make sure and name my kids something people wouldn't get right at least part of the time, lol.
 
AmaG said:
I wanted to name my son Sawyer since it is a family name. But people kept asking if I was naming him that after the Lost character, a show I've never even seen. Also, I read somewhere that people are now calling girls sawyer. So we went with Samuel Sawyer. Samuel is still relatively popular (25-30), but being a teacher, I have never had a Samuel. Teaching can be tough for baby naming because inevitably you associate certain names to with kids, whether good or bad.

I love my son's name but we DO avoid just calling him Sam. He is always Samuel or Sammy. Seems like that helps with the number of "Sam"s out there.
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I really loved the name Sawyer too! I actually tried to get DH to name Harper that, but he said we couldn't because we each pronounced it differently! LOL! But my southern accent kind of draws it out and I pronounce it more like Saw-yer, and he doesn't LOL!
 
Traci Reed said:
I've never met another Traci ever, except online!
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I knew like 3 male Tracey's growing up, but never any female ones until you girls here. ;)

I wonder if that's southern? Guys being named Tracey & Stacey, I knew a couple guys named Stacey too.
 
I have known a couple female Staci/Stacy and one male Stacey who I dated for a little while before I met my husband

nesser1981 said:
I knew like 3 male Tracey's growing up, but never any female ones until you girls here. ;)

I wonder if that's southern? Guys being named Tracey & Stacey, I knew a couple guys named Stacey too.
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Kennedy is not very popular and hasn't been. It was only ranked 83rd for 2012. I know of 1 other Kennedy.

As for my name Holly it's very unpopular it appears...424 for 2012. It has fallen in popularity since 2000 when it was 189. Yet I know a lot of Hollys with various spellings. I graduated with 3 other Hollys.
Just checked it for the last 30 yrs....in 1985 when I was born it was ranked 56th. So I guess it was pretty popular then.
 
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hollyxann said:
Kennedy is not very popular and hasn't been. It was only ranked 83rd for 2012. I know of 1 other Kennedy.

As for my name Holly it's very unpopular it appears...424 for 2012. It has fallen in popularity since 2000 when it was 189. Yet I know a lot of Hollys with various spellings. I graduated with 3 other Hollys.
Just checked it for the last 30 yrs....in 1985 when I was born it was ranked 56th. So I guess it was pretty popular then.
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That's funny you say that, I have 2 girls I regularly photograph that are named Kennedy. One is about 2 and the other is going to be a Senior in High School, otherwise I'd never heard it as a first name before.
 
Mya, spelled like she does isn't popular, but if you combine the various spellings Maya/Myah/Mya, it seems to be growing in popularity.

Benjamin has been in top 20 for years, but we never use his full name and we've never run into anyone with Jamin for a name or nickname.
 
MamaBee said:
Jacob - Number 1 boy spot for the last 14 years - baby!!! :w00t:

Kiddo is 6 and has been in a number of Y classes, church things and last year homeschooling events and has never been with another Jacob until this year at the a homeschooling convention. It doesn't bother me that it's popular... with the last name Kuchenbecker, you want a very short and common name - and spelling has to be common. :D I love the nickname Jake... also I have a thing about having names that are in the bible.
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My nephew is named Jacob. His sister is Amber. SIL purposely chose popular, common names. :)
 
nesser1981 said:
We liked other names, like Ethan & Owen, but we tried to stay out of the top 100 for popularity. With Keira, I loved Kaitlyn, but Sean said people would call her Katie & I hated that.
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I only know one Kaitlyn that gets called Katie. However, I love the name Katie. :) My Caitrin has never been called by Caity other than by family members and that's because we started it. :)
 
Nope, no popular names for my kids. We purposely went with names that were more uncommon yet not made up or too archaic, etc. We wanted names that fit in with more popular names but still stand out as being different, if that makes sense. No Apple for us. ;)

We wanted Irish first names to go with our Irish last name and the Irish heritage on both our sides. We didn't want anything super common like Erin, but we wanted something easy for our redneck friends and family to pronounce (even though they still can't spell either! :D)

Caitrin's name has never been on the top 1000 in the US. From what I've heard it is a relatively common name in Ireland.

Declan's name has become more popular since he came along. He was not very old when the show Kyle XY came out. I was so upset that there was a character named Declan because I just knew it would increase the popularity of his name. LOL When he was born it ranked 352. Last year it ranked 143.

Fortunately for us (or maybe not so much!) we live in an area where his name is still really unique. We always have to spell it for people and we get asked several times a month if we made it up. I'd almost like to be in an area where people were at least familiar enough with the name to know that it really IS a name. LOL Funny that we never get asked if we made up Caitrin's name. You'd think that would be questioned since hers is even less popular.
 
As far as MY name goes... I met a few people named Cheri or Sherry or even Sheri growing up, but never had classes with someone whose name sounded like mine. I had never even MET someone who spelled theirs identical to mine until 16 years ago or so when we started bowling with a friend of mine from work and his girlfriend's name was Sherri. Now there are THREE of us at work named SHERRI with the identical spelling (one of them, coincidentally, the same Sherri from bowling all those years ago). It is pretty funny when we all end up in a room together and someone calls our name. LOL
 
maryinaz said:
This is exactly us.

Of course, I was named Mary and went to a Catholic school. :blink: And now, in my closest group of about 12 women, 5 are named Mary (or with a second name), and only one other is Catholic.

We had certain criteria for names - names that were easy to spell and pronounce, names that could not be shortened, and names that were not popular, but not obscure.

I went back 20 years and the highest for Grant was 115 (166 when born), Wyatt is currently at it's most popular at 41 (was 197 when he was born), and Kent and Kurt are way out there - Kent hasn't been in the top1000 since 2003, was 772 when he was born (that's kind of an old-time name I think), and Kurt hasn't been in the top 1000 since 2005 and was 543 when born.

Given all of that, my boys have always gone to large public schools. Grant is really the only one that we ran across several others. Wyatt has been fairly unique. In high school there was one that graduated before Wyatt started. And with Kent and Kurt - none at all through all of grade school and middle school. And so far none in a 3000 student high school. Even with Kurt Warner (retired AZ Cardinals QB) being very popular here.

:thumbup:

ETA: Yes, we named our twins with the same starting initial! I come from a family of twins (my siblings are all twins) and that was the tradition. Wouldn't have it any other way.
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At work (well, working in our district) we have a principal named Kurt and a tech aide named Kent. I remember thinking when I met both of them that those are names you just don't hear very often. Kent is in his late 50's and Kurt is in his mid 40's.
 
Traci Reed said:
I've never met another Traci ever, except online!
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My best friend since 5th grade is named Traci :) I also know about 6 other girls named Tracey, Tracie or Tracy. I also know a guy named Tracey. You are younger than all of them by at least 10 years so that could say something about the popularity of the name then vs. when you were born.
 
I keep thinking of more to say. LOL

Mary, in reference to your twins having the same first initial... we have a set of twins at school named Mia and Mya. THAT gets confusing. They also are nearly identical. One is taller, otherwise you can't tell them apart.
 
Sherri Tierney said:
At work (well, working in our district) we have a principal named Kurt and a tech aide named Kent. I remember thinking when I met both of them that those are names you just don't hear very often. Kent is in his late 50's and Kurt is in his mid 40's.
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Oh, that reminds me. Last year when I met K&K's math teacher, she was so excited when she met them. Her husband's name is Kent and he has a twin brother named Kurt. :) And yep, they are kind of old-time names and I love that. Of course, if DH had his way, Kurt would have been named Clark so they would have been Clark and Kent. Then he tried to talk me into using Russell as Kurt's middle name. :blink: Men.

Sherri Tierney said:
I keep thinking of more to say. LOL

Mary, in reference to your twins having the same first initial... we have a set of twins at school named Mia and Mya. THAT gets confusing. They also are nearly identical. One is taller, otherwise you can't tell them apart.
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My twins not only don't look ANYthing alike, they are also very independent. Having names that started with different letters would have made absolutely no difference in their lives. My brother also has a set of twins boys named Nathan and Nolan, so yes, it's very traditional in my family to do that. :)
 
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Clark and Kent or Kurt Russell - LOL Love them both!

The Mia and Mya at school not only look alike, but they sound alike when they speak too and they are very similar in their learning styles and academics and interests. One is a little more athletic than the other but that doesn't always stand out at the grade school level.
 
Back in the 80's when I had my kids we didn't have the technology that we have now. That's probably a good thing because it was hard enough to find names we both agreed on.

The year they were born
Andrea # 27
Candice # 84
Jason # 11
Aaron # 31
 
I have two Top 10's - Andrew and Emily and a Top 40 - Katherine. So my kiddos definitely have popular names. I really love them and wanted classic, traditional names. I think they got those.
 
I don't know how it would be in the US, but here in Germany, my kids' names are not popular.
They are called Romy, Thea, Levi and Nathan. Levi has been getting more popular lately, but I have yet to meet another one ;D. I'm sure Nathan is fairly popular in English-speaking countries, here in Germany, it's very rare (unlike Jonathan, which is very popular here and I know several... but my son is really called Nathan, without the Jo). I'm fairly sure no one of my kids has ever met a child with the same name as hers/his.
 
Luke #41 the year he was born and in 2012 it's up to #37.

Popularity isn't an issue for me. It's having kids in my class (or in the school) with a reputation that will ruin the name for me. In the 14 years I've been teaching, I've never had a Luke in my class or even in the 2nd grade as a whole (we usually have about 100 2nd graders each year). So I felt pretty safe using it.
 
My oldest, Taryn, hasnt ranked higher than 400+ for the last 10+ years. I also just searched girls and I know there are some boy variations of this name too.

My youngest, Ellyce (I searched Elise, because my spelling is much more unique, I think!), was 150th last year, but lower in all the other years. This surprises me a bit because in our small town there are at least 3 or 4 under the age of 6!

I love that their names are unique, but not weird! :)
 
Well I didn't even think about popularity when my first two kids were born (1998 & 2002), I picked my oldest name because I heard a mother call her little girl that at the store I worked at so I knew there was at least one other kid in the area with her name. However I had never heard it before and we didn't run into anyone else with that name until we moved to PA and both of those girls are younger then my DD - by about 4 years. Her birth year isn't listed on the SS website bit in 2000 it was #23 and last year it was #78. Her name is unisex and the male version was #595 in 2000 and last year was #921.

DD's was listed at #886 in 2002 and last year it was #128. Her name is unisex but I only know of one other girl with her name and it's a friend of my sister in laws.....the little girl is about 7 years younger then my DD. The male version was #418 her birth year and last year was #549.

Oldest DS #112 in 2004 and last year was in the to ten!!! :( However I don't know any other kids with his name!!!

Middle DS #322 in 2008 and last year #215. I have a cousin that has a son by the same name (he's in his late teens) but know of no one else with this name.

Youngest DS was not in the top 1000 name in 2009 and last year was #875.
 
Never really thought about it, but I looked up Sam's name for 1993 (Samantha) and it was ranked #4...but never met another Sam yet!!!!...funny that until 2011 it was ranked $20 or under! We call her Sam for short....

2. Benjamin #27 in 2001 and #16 in 2012 (still haven';t come across another Ben his age or in his school of friends)

3. Abigail #6 in 2006 and has been#6-#8 since then! but we call her Abby

4. Peyton #125 in 207 (thought it would have been more popular).....now it is #183......

funny story my BIL married a Samantha so we have 2 Sam Miller's in the family and they BOTH go by Sam LOL~! so we call them little Sam and Big Sam!!! of coarse my little Sam is now actually taller than Big Sam LOL!
 
omg......after reading this there are alot of Ben/Benjamin's in this group :)

I have met one other Darcy (one of my DD's BFF's) and my DD also went to school with a girl named Cheyanne :) they were all born in 1993!

eta: my name on the other hand, Angela, was in the top 20 between 1970 and 1983, it was #6 in 1970!!!!
 
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Connor (and variations conor/conner/konnor/whatever other way you can spell that) is supposedly popular but we mostly run into other connors online :p There are no others in his grade at school, and only 3 in the entire school (pre-k-5th) so.. *shrugs* no bigs to me :]

I didn't care about the popularity of the name anyway, I just really liked the name connor :p

my name.. lauren.. is probably the most annoying name on the planet. and I know 325253252352523590233 laurens :p
 
nun69 said:
funny story my BIL married a Samantha so we have 2 Sam Miller's in the family and they BOTH go by Sam LOL~! so we call them little Sam and Big Sam!!! of coarse my little Sam is now actually taller than Big Sam LOL!
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There are 2 Bens in our family (though both were named before the 2 families were related by marriage), so they're Big Ben and Little Ben. Funny thing is, they were also born on the same day 5 years apart.
 
I have an Aiden which is 10th, and I hear it a lot when we are out and about when there are little ones. I also have a Dylan and Drew which are not super popular but we still run into other kids by the same name in sports groups and classrooms. I grew up in the 80's with the millions of other Jennifers so I am used to being one of many...theirs don't seem so popular in comparison ;)
 
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