what happned to the Swedish couple who wanted to nake their kid:
“00100100200”?
Well, the problem isn’t so much a lack of ideas… we’re just having trouble finding names that speak to us. I like all of those names, and we’ve considered them, but none of them really resonate with us, emotionally. That, or the names we love are either really trendy or they rhyme with our last name. Or one of us likes it and the other doesn’t.
So, really, we’re the pains in the ass, not the kid. 
Funny you say that, because if Josh had been a girl, he would have been Sophia, and my mother commented that it sounded ethnic. I had the same reaction as you…it never occurred to me that it did, and even if it did, so what? So I was a little annoyed at her for saying it. I thought that maybe it sounded ethnic to her with our last name, which is Spanish. This annoyed me even more. Mom isn’t the type to make comments like that, so I’m sure she didn’t mean it to be a criticism, but it did seem a little insensitive.
I love the name Ella, and considered calling our daughter Gabriella, Ella for short. But I didn’t want her to be called “Gabby” so we went with “Sophia”.
We also get the ethnic comments - mainly people asking if we are Italian or Greek? (Our last name starts with Mc, so … no.)
To me it is just a pretty name and goes well with her middle name. We thought we might call her Sophie but Sophia just seems to fit her better.
It IS a more popular name than we realized but at least it’s not Ava, which seems to be the number 1 name in our town for little girls under 2.
My daughter’s name is Georgia. She’s the only Georgia in her school. When we named her we didn’t think it was so unique.
My sons have several friends named Jordan, both boys and girls. That name really spiked in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
My mom’s name was Cinderella but she went by Cindy.
My kids are named Hannah and David. Not rare, but not really popular enough to be a problem either. Except for the summer when we sent them to day camp at the Jewish Community Center.
Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams went with Matilda but that makes sense with him be an Aussie. I think her middle name is Rose, which has come up relatively common in recent years. I know too much about celebrities :smack:
Hannah got crazy-popular there for a while, and it was still #7 in 2005.
I recall when my daughter’s father and I were considering names, we wanted to pick a name that wouldn’t be odd and also not held by half the girls in her class. We narrowed it down to two.
Anna and Mary.
To date, there has not been a classmate nor friend with either of those names. Not many chose the classics anymore.
Pretty much off-topic but on the topic of naming kids:
I’m reading a bio of Benedict Arnold. He wasn’t even the only kid in his family with the same name.
According to this book, it was pretty common back then if a child died, to give the same name to a subsequently born kid. So Benedict’s dad was BA II, his older brother who died in infancy was BA III, and he was BA IV.
We named our son Alex John (not Alexander) last summer. We go by the name of AJ.
I didn’t realize at the time how popular Alex was so I’m glad we stick with AJ.
Haven’t met any other AJs yet either.
Along those lines, it seems to me that one of the better ideas is to name your kid something that was popular when you were growing up. There were a total about forty kids in my class in grade school–four of them were Jennifer and there were three Brians. From the Baby Name Wizard linked previously, I see that those names have dipped in popularity considerably, and so have most of the names of my other classmates (Susan, Mary, Melissa, Eric and others).
It’s a lot easier to be far behind the trends than out in front!
It’s worth noting that the really popular names right now aren’t really popular the way Jennifer was when I was a kid, or Mary when my parents were kids. In terms of sheer numbers, the most popular name now wouldn’t have cracked the top 10 in 1970.
That said, we consciously steered clear of names in the top 100, and I kept an eye on trends, as well. Baby Name Wizard’s really handy for that. We ended up with a daughter who’s got a familiar name that isn’t too popular, and doesn’t appear poised to skyrocket.
For doubled names, my paternal grandfather’s older brother was named “Ivan John”. John (and its variants) are very popular family names for us, so why not twice! From two ethnicities not ours!
Well, she’s only a month old today. So she’s still our little Jilly-bean.
Which I’m sure will haunt her days. 
I. Love. You.
See, my first name is Justin. So any time I hear my full name, it comes out in a singsongy rhyme. I hate that, My wife thinks I’m crazy, and insists that Justin Sexton doesn’t rhyme. I know it’s not a perfect rhyme, but it’s close enough that it grates.
And it made picking out names a nightmare. I feel your pain.
I get the same thing from my mom still, and I’m 20!
How about saying “Moose and Squirrel” for me?
Wow. I just squeed a little. That’s so cute. Now, where are our pics? :mad: 
JSexton, are you sick of people asking you if your middle name is “Case” yet? How 'bout “Time”?