Reminds me of a REAL Adolph Hitler, who lived in Iowa and said, “Let the other guy change it. I had it first.”
(signed) Michael, whose name is normally in the Top Ten.
You know, sometimes we parents try to be original, but find ourselves thwarted. When I named #1 son Austin, I had never met another person with that name. No one suggested it to me, I had never heard of any of my peer group naming their boys Austin. This was in 1987.
Every sports team and class he was in subsequently had at least one other Austin, and sometimes more than one.
You know what’s really weird? When I had my daughter in 1992, I knew exactly 1 person named Devin – her uncle for whom she was named – in the maternity ward the day she was born, 6 other little girls were born (none of whose mother I knew) and 3 of them named their kid Devin. She had 4 Devins in her class one year – both boys and girls. Luckily for her, we called her by one of her middle names from the get-go – a name that is still rather unique, we’ve only come across 2 boys with that name although it is a right proper Southern name 
With my son, who is 8, we picked Aedin – it just went with the other 2 names, no special reason. Right now, I know about 15 little boys in the 2-5 age group named Aiden. It’s just really weird. Again, though, he goes by one of his middle names, one that is much more common, Niq (well, the spelling might not be common, but y’know what I mean). The funny part about it is that although I consider Nick to be a pretty common name, he’s only ever had one other in his class, a kid that goes by Nicky – they’re best buds, which makes it funny for us, as we sometimes call our son “nicky the noodle.”
So, while I agree in principle, I will say that some of us did try to give our kids names that would differentiate them from the herd only to find out that the frickin herd was following us!
Jacob is #1 in the USA.
The most popular girls’ name is Emily.
If you’re American or Canadian, the government offers this information on the web. As a general rule of thumb, don’t name your kids anything in the top ten.
And as a corollary to the rule offered by the OP:
Please stop naming your daughters Madison!!
- As a girl’s name, it started out as a joke in a movie.
- The name “madison” means “SON of a soldier.”
This public service is brought to you by Sophie’s father. There were 4 “Sophie’s” in our daughter’s kindergarten class (40 kids in both classrooms, 10% were named “Sophie”).
My daughter’s sixth grade class is full of girls named Kayla (well, at least one of them is Cayla with a C.) I can’t even keep them straight as she talks about them–two or three of them are pretty good friends of hers, and then there are others–Kayla who plays trombone in band, Kayla from math class, Kayla who was in the YMCA program last summer, etc. If we see a friend of hers at Target, etc., chances are very, very good the girl’s name is Kayla.
When I was a kid, teachers would make all the multiples put their last name initial after their name on name tags, papers, etc.–we’d have Jennifer R. and Jennifer S. and so on, and that’s how we as students would refer to them, too. I asked my daughter if they did this at her school, and she looked at me like I had two heads. What do teachers do with a million papers that say “Kayla”? Maybe they all have weird different spellings I don’t know about.
My workplace is filled with Sharons and Lindas and Davids (or Daves). I’m the only one with my name, but I’m also about the only one my age. You can really tell that not as many people were born in the 70’s as other decades when you look at the ages of people at my company. Lots and lots of boomers and a decent smattering of people ten years younger than me.
Strangely enough, there used to be a Trig at work–it’s a Scandinavian name (his real name was Trygve, I think), and they’re not all that uncommon here in Minnesota. I went to high school with a Bjorn.
Former heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman has ten children. Five of his sons are named George. How’s that for a coincidence that defies all odds?
Yup, Trygve (also spelled Tryggve, Trygvi, or Tryggvi, depending on which country the boy is from) is a real Scandinavian name, though not at the moment particularly popular for babies. However, “Trig” is not now and never has been a Scandinavian name, and Trygve means nothing close to “true” or “brave victory”, no matter what certain press releases say :rolleyes: You know you’ve picked a weird name for your kid when you have to justify it on official press releases, is all I can say to that…
You Can’t Win Department: One of our sons is named Robert, which is not a particularly common name here in Troll Country, although I know it’s quite common in the English-speaking world. He prefers to be called Robert rather than by any nicknames, which is fine. Unfortunately, though we didn’t know it, the name Robin was sneaking up the popularity lists and just exploded later in the same year when he was born. The result is that many people who only hear his name once assume they heard Robin, and call him that in return, something he finds deeply annoying.
In 1990 I wanted an unusual name for my son. I’d never known a Caleb and figured it would be unique enough. In the hospital after he was born, my roommate had also named her son Caleb, and for the same reason.
For a while my bureau of seven people had three Erics and two Mikes. All five of them were well over six feet tall, as was our boss. It was a standing joke that you had to be tall and named Eric or Mike to be a viable job candidate.
I have about 23 co-workers. Before I left on maternity leave there was only one name duplicate - there were two of us Carols (only she’s a Carole - I don’t have an E).
Six months later I return to find we’ve added:
a second Melissa
a second Tania
a second Samantha
and two Ryans (although one of them left before I started back).
Even more confusingly, New Melissa is the daughter of Original Tania, and that’s way too much for my tiny brain to deal with. I usually end up calling her Tania. I have proposed that we all just call each other Tania and be done with it (I guess the male staff members can go by Bruce if they like).
I’m currently directing a show that has a cast of 23 people: a handful of children, some teens and some adults.
We have two Andrews, two Madeleines, two Marys and two Nicholases. This time, thankfully, we only have one Sophie. Usually, we have at least two.
There’s a reason we just go by character name after the readthrough… Plus, this time around, there’s something oddly satisfying about just calling people Hamnpork, Dangerous Beans, Sardines…
What happened to all the Coreys who were born in the early 90s? They should be littering the world by now.
As long as we’re getting away from Mikes I’m happy.
It seriously got so bad that one year my college roommate was Mike.
“Hello, Mike and Mike’s room. Mike speaking. Mike’s not in right now. May I take a message?”
I bet he’d be more insulted if he knew that almost every Robin his age in the States is a girl!
My daughter would have been named Robert if she had been a boy. She says she doesn’t know any Roberts (or Bobs or Robs) at her school, which really surprised me.
I have several friends with common first names as both first names and last names, such as Frank Michael, or Steven Mark (for example). It’s nuts.
In various contexts, I work with two Bills whose surnames differ by a single letter, a Bill Mark, and a Mark Jones (and yet another Bill with an unrelated last name).
I have always known a million Kates/Katherines (especially if you include Kathleens and Caitlyns) of all ages, even more so than Marys. My friend with such a name started a Facebook group for people who shared her first and last name. There were dozens.
I really want to slap one of my aunts for this. I have two cousins named Marcel–on the same side of the family:smack:
My mother went the opposite way, and ensured I had a unique name. Of course, that also means that no one I meet knows how to pronounce it.
My brother thought he was picking a nice, not-too-common name for his daughter a few years ago when he went with Olivia. The funniest thing was that two days after Olivia was born, another Olivia, with the same uncommon last name, was born in the same hospital. It’s just weird.
I’m a Julie from the seventies. Strangely enough, I never shared a class with another Julie (well, maybe at university, but I didn’t know most names there).
On my floor in first year university, out of 30 girls there were 6 Jennifers and 4 Amandas. Add to this that it was Nova Scotia, and most of the last names were some variation of Mc-Something/Mac-Something and it got very, very confusing.
I once worked in a department of about 40 people - three of them were named Mike Miller. Same first name, same last name.
I remember an epidemic of Jennifers, originating in the vicinity of 1968 and infesting college campuses in the late 80s.