Quote:
Originally Posted by KSUViolet06
Is that a generational attitude (wanting your kid's name to be unpopular/obscure?) I feel like my generation is full of Jessicas, Brittanys, etc. and our parents were fine with it.
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Nope, not at all. I think that uncommon names have always been popular among certain people, usually at either ends of society. I read some article which mentioned that variations of the "Orangejello/Lemonjello" urban legend have been bouncing around for ages--usually as a way to make fun of poor/immigrant/minority people; in that same article, the author mentioned that wealthier people tended to pick names that made reference to literature or their travels. Also, celebrities have been naming their kids "crazy" names for years; maybe it's the rise of celebrity culture that has caused this trend to explode?
My parents are in their 60s and they don't have names that were common in the 40s/50s; their siblings all have relatively uncommon but respectable* names. I know that my mother did not want us to be one of many people in our class/generation with the same name. I think it worked out a little bit better for me than for my sister, though--I blame the late 60s/early 70s for that.
*i.e., potentially unemployable