My first name is Jennifer, and I was born in 1971. I don’t think there was a single class in elementary or middle school where there weren’t at least two other Jennifers other than myself. I had three friends in my little group named Jennifer. I think we ended up with Jen, Jenny, Jennifer B. and Jennifer F. The clincher, though, was in eighth grade, when I was walking down the hall to class and heard someone call my name. I turned around, and the girl who’d said it looked at me with a squinched up expression of disgust and said “euw! Not YOU!”
So, that was enough. At the end of eighth grade, when I would be starting at a brand new high school, I decided to change to my middle name. It took a little while, but eventually, I got myself, my friends, and my family trained to it. My mom actually kind of liked it, since she went by her middle name as well. Through all of high school, there was maybe one other girl with my name. I didn’t meet a single namesake through college or for the last ten years since.
Until now. At the church I’m visiting, there are two other women by my name, both of them fairly active. Someone calls our name, and all three of us look up, completely puzzled.
I have a coworker named Joan. Where I work, we have a lot of loud machinery, and she works on two pieces of equipment. One of them is a slipsheet cleaner, which is very old and jams often. When it does, sometimes me or my other coworkers yell out her name. When they do, sometimes I have to listen carefully to see if they’re yelling at me (Joel) or her, because, trying to yell over the machine noise, both names sometimes sound the same to me.
My own name is dwindling in popularity, so I’m going to chime in with stories about other people
My cousins have a cousin named Michaela(mi-KAY-la), born in the late 70’s. That was a very, very uncommon name around here and growing up she hated the fact that everyone commented on how unusual her name is. In fact, as a child she always vowed to change her name when she grew up. Now, the name Michaela has been reborn as Mikayla and McKayla and is rapidly gaining in popularity every day. I haven’t heard from or seen Michaela in years, but I wonder if she’s grown more comfortable with her name as it has become more popular.
Another of my cousins has McKenzie as his middle name, as it was his grandfather’s given name. As previously noted by Miller, McKenzie is becoming very popular as a girl’s name. That will never work for me, McKenzie is too masculine to be a girl’s name!
There was usually one other Jocelyn, but I can live with that.
Working one summer for a theatre company there were two guys named Josh and me (most people call me “Joss”) All three of us would inevitably answer any shouted questions.
Growing up, I never knew another Adrienne, then in college I met some Adrians (boys), and I worked at a place with an Adrienne and an Adrian, and me (Adrienne). haha.
Still, it’s not overwhelmingly popular and I kinda like it that way.
I’m a Charlotte, born in 1970. I’ve never met anyone with my name, but I found out recently that two people I work with have daughters named Charlotte. I wondered if its use as a character name in Sex in the City and Lost in Translation would cause it to become more popular.
A friend in grad school found out my second name was Dolores and took to calling me Lolita.
I recalled this thread on Saturday whilst I was in a charity shop and overheard a mum shouting at her wee boy, ‘Damien! Damien, you stop that! Put that teddy bear back!’
