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.
