Well, while we're on the name thing, I have to throw out this story. My girls graduated from HS in 2005 & 2007 and at our school the class above the oldest had literally 50 girls named Katie in it. There are plenty of Katies spread out throughout the grades, but that particular class was just overrun with them. Everytime you thought you'd named them all, you'd think of five more. Anyway, our school is also majority minority made up of African Americans, Hispanics, lots of mixed and whites. One day one of my daughter's friends (named Katie) was walking down the hall and somebody behind her said, "Hey Katie" so she turned around. There were two AA guys standing there laughing and one said to the other, "See, I told you every white girl in this school is named Katie!"

And back to the Marys....two of my favorites are Mary Melissa (she's 18) and Mary Cobb (she's 5). MC gets called "Cobbie" which is kind of cute. When you're 5 anyway.;)

Yep, I named the daughter Mary, after both me and her great-grandmother, and my maiden name for her middle. But she goes by a nickname...so none of her friends know her real name!

I think Mary Mary Yubuggin would be amusing as well.

i had wanted to name our daughter mary(after my mother) and to use the mil's name as the middle name, until i found out that "kitty" was her actual name-mary kitty just didn't cut it-lol! so we took a different tack and named her kathryn and my maiden name.

carnation-how about mary claire? i grew up with a girl whose name was that, but she went by claire. mary margaret, mary kathryn, mary grace, mary elizabeth or mary(insert mother's maiden name or old family name)are popular names down south.

there were bunches of mary whatevers in my daughters chapter. one girl was mary austin last name. i thought that was kind of cool.

Yeah, you have to call them by both names here...Mary whatever. No shortening allowed! (maybe that's a pun, too!)

She might use that! One of our girls has the middle name Claire (all 9 of them have a C middle name). You know that ZetaDaughter won't use our last name for a middle name though, yuck!

no, mary carnations last name doesn't quite flow.

My maiden name wouldn't work either.....actually I don't think anyone's maiden name in my family would work. German last names can be kind of harsh!!!

I know my sister's name is Virginia. Up until high school she was the only Virginia. There were two other Virginias in her class! Then she thought for sure she would never meet another Virginia in college. In her pledge class was another Virginia! And they all went by Virginia, not Ginny, Ginger, GinGin, etc.!

I'm home sick today but the school newspaper hasn't update the online edtion yet. I'll check later to see if there are anymore new member ads.

My older daughter's name was a popular name the year she was born, but not so much in the South, I guess, because the entire time she was in high school there was never another girl with the same name. However, in the midwest where we grew up, a lot of our friends had girls with her name and when she went to ballet summer programs in the northeast there were tons of girls with the same name....as well as in her first job, two others in her training class (they were from all over the US).

On the other hand, second daughter's first name is my middle name which is a recurring family middle name (my dad's grandmother, favorite aunt and sister) and is plain and old as the hills. I always thought she'd be the only one with that name, but there were 6 in her high school and three of them played with her on the varsity softball team (with only 12 members). I guess it all depends on where you live. When second daughter went to summer camp in Northern Minnesota, nobody would believe that her best friend's name was Mary Ann. Seems perfectly normal to me. ;)

More names in the paper today. Glad I emailed the online editor, she had forgotten to upload the new issue last night!
http://issuu.com/dailymississippian/...pian10292010/9

You can also see the entire paper this way
http://issuu.com/dailymississippian/...010/9?mode=a_p

Looks like Theta, Phi Mu, and Pi Phi have ads today!

When I was a pledge, we were the second largest sorority at 62. Of those 62, ten were Mary Somethings. One of our first pledge assignments was to learn the Greek Alphabet and the different Marys:

Mary Alice
Mary Ann
Mary Bernadette (Mary B)
Mary Claire
Mary Elizabeth (Mary Liz)
Mary Grace
Mary Katherine (Mary Kat)
Mary Lynn
Mary Patrice (she now goes by just Patrice)
and
Mary Lee, who went by Merrilee.

In my pledge class, we only had two:
Mary Collins (Mary C)
Mary Marie (seriously!)

Just checked out the Theta list and they don't appear to have a single Mary Something in the bunch! I got a kick out of "Kitty", "Tabby" and "Farrah", though.

ETA: The size of these pledge classes is absolutely staggering!

I love the name Mary Charlotte.

In my family it was tradition to name the oldest daughter Mary Something. My mom is Mary Ellen. She broke the tradition with me.

Two of our three founders are Mary.

You jest, but I know 3 Mary Magdalenes. Two go by Mary Mag and the other just Mag.

For my daughter, we went the French route. Thought about MIL's maiden name but it didn't really work. It's German and would lead to many a joke. Not quite to the extent of the Lear children, Chanda and King, but up there.