BABY NAMES, what are your faves?

[joliebelle]

A friend at worked emailed this out today:
http://deadspin.com/5924827/american...ing-even-worse

I will say that all of my potential baby names (ex. Ava, Isabella, Ethan, Alexander) probably won't be used because they're really popular now.

[KSUViolet06]

I think it's silly/dumb when people say "Well, we liked *insert name here* but decided not to go with it because it's soooooooo popular now."

I really don't understand. If you like that name for your child, what does it matter if it's popular? Naming a kid isn't a "who can name their kid the most obscure thing" contest.

Any name you can come up with, like people have said in this thread, has already been done. I just think it's a very annoying hipster thing to say that you love a name but won't use it because you heard how popular it is. But then again, this is coming someone who likes common, simple names like Claire, Harper, etc.

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.

[Munchkin03]

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.

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