We’re both very individualistic. We don’t generally try to do things the same way as everyone else. Indeed, we kind of avoid doing so, at least to a certain practical extent.
Ella. It’s a nice name. We like it. We went with it.*
Today my wife took Ella to the park in our apartment complex. Including Ella, there were four girls at the park.
The names of the four girls were: Emma, Ella, Ellie, and Ella.
:smack:
We keep encountering Jacobs as well. That’s our first kid’s name. :smack: :smack:
-FrL-
*Ella Sophia. And wouldn’t you know it, we’ve heard of several Sophies as well.
This is actually quite typical. Most of the people who give their child a name that is the same or quite similar to other children of the same age insist that they chose the name just because they liked it, not because it was popular. Often, even going out of your way to choose a name you’ve never heard of before doesn’t help. Apparently your name is actually being dictated by a collective overmind.
I have an Ella. Well, technically she’s an Elizabeth, and I personally call her El. Elle? L? She’s a bit older though. I always liked giving long extended names, gives them options when they become older.
A few years ago the NSW Under 19 Rugby League team (13 players) had 7 players named Jason. Now one could be called Jase but how to distinguish the rest?
that British habit of calling people by their last names, of course!
I named my daughter Laura. Love the name. Half her class is named Lauren-so we get “is that short for Lauren?” sometimes. (when has Laura been short for Lauren? :rolleyes: ).
Read the book, Freakonomics–it says a lot about child naming.
We named our son a name that was 395 on the name list for 2005 (he was born in August 2006). I know of two other Bennetts so far, one in my area, and apparently, the name is on the short list of several online acquaintances for their next babies. I don’t mind - I don’t think it’s ever going to be overly popular. But I had to laugh because every time I decide I like a name, within a year or two, I hear about more and more babies with that name, and I guess my own kid’s name is no exception.
My cousin, OTOH, just had a baby girl a week ago, and named her Ava (which, oddly enough, was strongly in the running for our son had he been a girl, but we set it aside due to popularity). I don’t think she realized how popular Ava is now because it’s one of those names that I hear ALL. THE. TIME. It’s a beautiful name, but it’s one of those names that’s absolutely shot to insane popularity in the last five years (when we decided we liked it, it was below 100 on the popularity lists).
I guess I’m lucky. Natasha doesn’t make an overall “popular” list in most areas that don’t have a high Slavic-descended population. I rarely run into other people with my name. I’m not likely to have kids, but I think if I did, the “ethnic name” game would keep any kids I had out of the “there are 9 Jennys in our class!” pool.
I decided to name any kid of mine Alexander when I was way back in kindergarten. Years later, I get myself knocked up, name the kid Alexandra (had to, she lacked a penis), and now half the kids in her class are Alex. Boys and girls. :smack:
This seems to have happened to us as well. We picked the name Sabina, a name I’d only read in one book. When we went looking for the name we found out it was the 1300 most popular name in the last few years.
Now in daycare there are two Sabinas. The funny thing is that the other kids all have more popular names and there are no two kids with the same name. Then the other night on Lost there was a character name Sabine, I guess I just can’t win.
If you look over at Baby Name Wizard you’ll see the name Ella shot up in popularity in the last two or three years. I suspect Sabina will be the same way. I like the name Isabella was well, but that name has taken off as well.
When I was born my name was ranked somewhere in the mid-200s in popularity. Last year it was in the top 5. Sometimes you just can’t win no matter what.
Yep. We did the same to our Kyle back in '93, while actively trying to avoid a popular name. It’s pretty much unavoidable. There’s “weird” or there’s “overused” or there’s “ethnic”. Nowadays, since the “classic” names are also “trendy”, there’s just no options left.
13 years later with the second one, we decided not to even consider popularity, and just go with what we liked. We were discussing Firefly and how much we liked the character of Kaylee when it just clicked. Of course, we have to do something to make her life difficult, so her father insisted on the more-Irish-than-the-Irish spelling of Caileigh.
What we never foresaw was all the grandparents mushing the names of the two kids together, calling her “Kylie” by mistake and then getting all flustered. :smack:
Same thing happened to me. I wanted a normal-but-not-too-popular name 6 years ago, so we went with Joshua. Yep. We are on the cutting egde of child naming individuality.
For the second kid, though, we threw the book out and made a cool name that is highly unusual.
See, that’s why you have two. You can either use the second one to make up for all the mistakes you made with the first, or you can torture it with a crazy name because the first one turned out so normal. Well, that and all the extra kidneys laying around.
Named our 19-year-old Allison after the Elvis tune (though did not check the record and ignorantly added an extra ‘L’). Throughout elem and high school I believe it was pretty standard for there to be at least 3-4 Allison/Alison/Allyson/etc.s in every one of her classes.
She pretty much took to being called Al.
Doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem with our other 2 kids, Calvin and Melanie. Of course, we no more tried to pick unusual names for them than we tried to pick a familiar name for Al.
(Our only regret at all with the names we chose is that all of the short forms, Al, Cal, and Mel, sound so similar. Didn’t think of that at all.)
