Attention, expectant parents: Do your child a favor and don’t name him or her Jacob or Emily.
"A lot of kids must look up when teachers call out ‘Emily’ or ‘Jacob’ these days. Those were the most popular babies’ names last year — and have been every year since the 1990s.
"Emma and Madison were second and third for girls, just like the year before. Michael and Joshua for boys, like the year before.
"The biblical name Jacob, the most popular choice for boys for the sixth straight year, also was at the top in the first count of names given to twins. Parents like to pair it with Joshua."
Trust me. I know whereof I speak. I was born in the early-1970s, apparently during the heyday of naming baby girls Michelle. (The heyday was likely spawned by that teeth-grittingly awful Beatles’ song of the same name. I bless my parents everyday that they simply liked the name Michelle and did not name me after that song.)
Anyway, growing up, there was almost always someone else in my class named Michelle. When I graduated in 1990, I lost count of how many times the master of ceremonies said the name Michelle as a first or middle name, but I do know that there were four other girls named Michelle Lynn because I counted.
Now, I’m not telling you to go out and give your child some weird name. Just please, please, please give your child a name that hasn’t appeared on the Top Ten Baby Names List for at least the last five years. Your child will thank you.
Trust me.
This Jennifer agrees completely!
Papal names are always a good choice for boys — Leo, Benedict, Gregory, Sixtus (OK, I’m joking about that one), Boniface, etc.
Another option my parents did was to choose a relatively common name but use a not so common spelling. OTOH, I’ve spent my entire life correcting the spelling of my name.
Now I just say that my dad knocked the ‘h’ out of me at an early age.
You know, going too far in the other direction isn’t a bowl of cherries either. My pappy was one of five Roberts in his grade school class, and was determined that the same would never happen to any of his children. Needless to say, it hasn’t. But I’ve had to deal with tons of cockeyed looks, and with kids calling me “Fungus” (or worse, dropping the g). No name is perfect. Except Leonidas. That name is awesome!
The problem my husband and I had was that we were both public schools teachers when we began having children. I would say, “I like the name Garrett.” And he would say, “No way! I have a Garrett in fifth hour who is a pain in the neck! We couldn’t name our child THAT!” And on and on it would go. We finally came up with four names that nobody that we knew had at the time (but now, unfortunately we hear them a lot). What are they? Riley(our daughter), Parker, Carson and Connor(our sons).
Another way to remedy kids making fun of names or teachers using your name incorrectly…….HOMESCHOOL!
When our daughter was born, we wanted to name her Alexis. But it was too close in time to the TV show “Dynasty” and the Alexis Carrington character played by Joan Collins. So we named her Alexa instead. Good “power” name.
I’ve never understood Jacob as a modern English name. J-cob of corn. Jacob, hiccup. Jacob, barf up. There’s just too many silly or bad associations with the name in English.
Please avoid taking offense if your name is Jacob. 🙂
Apparently in some devoutly Catholic areas it is common to name girls (all of them) Mary (or Maria or Marie) and boys Joseph. People would then be called by their middle names. This used to be the custom in Quebec and I think it is the current custom in the Philipines. My wife recounts an amusing anecdote of attending an all-girls Catholic school and having a Filipina classmate named Maria (of course). She went by her middle name but for some reason the nuns refused to call her anything but Maria. They would call her house and ask for ‘Maria’ — but all of the young lady’s sisters were named Maria, too, and so was her mother. Ironically, many of the nuns who had kept their religious names through the tumult of the 1960s and 70s were named ‘Sr. Mary So-and-so’ or ‘Sr. Mary Such-and-such’ but went by ‘Sr. So-and-so’ and ‘Sr. Such-and-such’. Go figure.
To tease my Evangelical-former missionary aunt, I told her I liked the name Lucifer if it was a boy. She was happy when she learned his name was Jonathan.
Yeah . . . when I was a kid, I wanted a name like Christopher (mostly ‘cos of Winnie the Pooh) or something *normal* – anything other than Gene. Kids can make up all kindsa rude things using my name! (Remember Phil Hartman’s anal-retentive chef on Saturday Night Live, when it used to be a comedy show? At least it was funny.) And folks invariably spell it wrong: Jene, Jean, Gean, & others – even when I spell it for them. When I was a kid, I used to . . . dislike my name. Quite a lot. But after I found out it’s a form if Ian, I was totally cool with it! And alla my friends get to call me Gene-o, which is what my Dad called me – I’ve only run into 1 other Gene-o, ever. So I’ve overcome my childhoood name trauma & learned to embrace the name less travelled. Even if my Starbucks cups always seem to belong to some unfortunate fella named “Jene”! 😉
But my middle’s Michael . . . & it ain’t at all bad bein’ named after an archangel! I sorta have 2 patron saints that way; St Michael, & my confirmation saint! Love that.
Hi guys!
I was lucky in that my name is sufficiently unique that I haven’t really had to deal with a horde of other people using it. My younger brother, named “Matthew” can hardly say the same.
I tend to think that there might be a danger in trying to assess a child’s name for the likelihood that it will be made fun of by his peers. Children are ruthlessly inventive in these types of situations and it’s well nigh impossible to predict what humiliating variation on your child’s name they will come up with. Moreover, I’m not sure that’s it’s something that you could possibly insulate your child from unless you wanted to induce in him a particularly potent xenophobia.
Hee – there were 5 Jennifer’s in my grade alone at grade school (small Catholic school). There were another 5 Jennifer’s at my babysitter’s house (public schooled kids).
I was talking to a rental agent whose name was also Jennifer, and she correctly guessed my age based simply on my name.
My two girls names – Frances and Daphne. We’re trying to come up with a name for the baby on the way, and I was shattered to hear that Emily and Emma were so popular. Now I’m just hoping for a boy.
Thankfully, I knew only a few other Johns growing up.
Michelle – My wife has the same first and last name as you (only her middle name is spelled Lynne). It gets worse – her maiden name is Smith. There was even another girl she went to school with named Michelle Lynn Smith. They were known as ‘the one with an e’ and ‘the one without an e.’
I don’t mean to be judgemental, and I have had many of these types of conversations myself, but I think it is a bit petty to fuss over “how many other kids have the same name as me”. I also agree that “Other Eric” is right–there is no way to predict childhood humiliations.
It is my understanding that it is a pious Catholic custom to name children after saints. If someone wants to do this, there are only so many saints names available that are considered names in a particular culture. (See, for a counter example, the reference to “Sixtus” above. Not that it’s bad if a parent wants to use those kinds of names, but many will not.)
Therefore I don’t think we should say “hey parents out there–don’t name your kid Michael” if they have a devotion to St. Michael and want to name a child after him. For another example, there are a LOT of little “John-Paul”s out there from devout Catholic families, but it’s not fair to tell someone not to use that name just because it’s popular right now. There is a reason it’s popular right now.
Additionally, the parents might want to name their kid something that sounds good with their own last name which might further limit their choices of saints names, leading them to choose Michael, John, Mary, or another common name if it sounds good to them.
So I think it is really up to the parents to decide what is important to them. But there are clearly more things to consider when naming a child than just how many other people they are going to run into with their same name. And, personally, when I was naming my child, that consideration did not rank very highly for me.
I think there is something about a name that is very special, which I don’t fully understand yet. But it is the task of our parents to give us our names. We don’t get to pick, so I don’t see how it is productive to live our lives pining after a different kind of name. Did you read Jimmy’s post about changing his name back to his given name? I thought it was touching.
JohnH: I feel much better now. 🙂 When I was in school another Michelle and I solved the problem another way. She was “Mich” (pronounced “Mish”) and I was “Shell.” I still go by Shell with family but was weirded-out a few years ago when coworkers began calling me Mish. 😀
To the Jennifers: You have my complete sympathy. There were always far more girls with the name Jennifer than with Michelle. One year in elementary school there were three in the same class. One became Jennifer, another became Jenny, and the third became Jeffi. Jeffi tried to reclaim the dignity of Jennifer in high school, but to this day I can only think of her as Jeffi.
Fine: The post was intended to be more tongue-in-cheek than serious. However, I do think it important for parents to carefully consider their choices. Too many parents these days give their children names that I highly doubt that they themselves would ever have wanted to grow up with. Perhaps a good baby-naming rule would be to never name a child anything that you wouldn’t have wanted to carry to your own grave.
Here’s a cool online app that shows the popularity of names going back to 1900.
http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html
I haven’t checked the lists, but I think I’m probably safe: my sons name is Kephas.
pax,
scott
Besides Michelle and Jennifer, there used to be a lot of Stephanies, Renees, and Christines, but I just don’t run into them much anymore. Oh, and Amy is still around.
I think if I ever manage to get married and have children, the girls will be named either Mary-Catherine, Mary-Elizabeth, and Mary-Margaret or maybe I’ll just go with Daisy, Violet, and Ivy. The boys will be Augustine, Benedict, and John-Paul. I really like names that ooze “Catholic”.
We named our daughter Amy because we drew her name out of a hat after having some considerable difficulty choosing between the names that we liked most…also, we figured if the poor kid was a slow learner she wouldn’t have a hard time spelling it (we were laughing when we suggested that!)…my son is named Joseph Emilio, which is a reversal of his Father’s name, Emelio Joseph…note the spelling error that crept into the birth certificate registration and has, believe it or don’t, caused much confusion on many occassions.
I’m a Deborah…there were 5 of us in my year at primary school. Common as muck, as the saying goes.
God Bless
I think I must be considerably older than you, Michelle, even though my middle name is Michelle. But one of the most popular names in my school was Laura, or Lora, Lori, Laurie, however one spelled it!
And ukok–I don’t know why, but I have always thought you were a man! Sorry!
Suzanne, I know I haven’t shaved my hairy mole for a while, but it’s not got enough hair growth to be mistaken for a beard..yet 😉
Incidentaly, when I worked in a bake shop many moons ago, one of our customers was a young woman with a small beard…I found her fascinating to look at, she was an out of the closet beard wearing lesbian and when I served her sausage rolls I was just itching to lean over and pull the little beardy thing to see if it was really real!
God Bless.
My name is not all that common and I like it all right, but I’m not crazy about it. I’d rather be Catherine.
I don’t care for unisex names at all. I once heard a woman call out “Logan” and a cute little girl came over.
I was expected a short, hairy bad-tempered mutant with claws.
I also don’t care for the many creative ways parents come up with to spell names. Do you have any idea how many ways there are to spell Michaela? The mind boggles.
My mother tells me that if I had been a girl, then I would have been named Jennifer. Can you guess the year of my birth? LOL. My wife comes from a Catholic family and so her name is a bit more sensible.
I wonder if parents naming their daughters Jennifer or Stacy (another common 70s name) gave any thought to the names from which those names are derived (Guinevere and Anastasia, respectively).
A movie related note using that “Baby Name Wizard” Dave linked. I looked up the name “Jessica”, that being the name of the major toon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It seems that Jessica was the #1 girls’ name in the 1980’s, when RR was released…
…but in the 1940’s, when the movie was actually set, Jessica was all the way back in 536th place.
And it was on an upswing.
On a more personal note, my parents considered giving me Martin as my first name, but didn’t because I was born a couple years after the murder of MLK Jr. and they were afraid there would be a bunch of Martins. Instead they made it my middle name.
I punched in Martin and discovered that the popularity of that name actually decreased from the 1960’s to the 1970’s – from about 1,450 babies per million, to about 925 per mil.
“I was expected a short, hairy bad-tempered mutant with claws.”
Bwaa-haa-haaa! Thanks for the laugh, Ellen. Made my morning!
Well my last name is Jacobs so I am rather fond of the name Jacob. My poor grandfather’s name was John Jacobs – I am very glad that his name is not my name too. I named my son Phineas, albeit spelled differently. I named him before the actress, I forget her name, called her son Phineas. The fact that she did this frustrates me for two reasons, my son is close enough in age to hers that people think that I got the idea from her and those that thought I named my son an odd name at first now all the sudden think that it is a great name.
Either way I have read too many Science Fiction/Fantasy novels to have the responsibility of naming children.
Shibboleth: The actress your thinking of is Julia Roberts.
Don’t get me started on the names Hollywood celebs give their kids — the two latest eye-rollers being Apple Paltrow and Coco Arquette. That’s a whole ‘nuther rant.
Doh! My baby boys name is Michael! Arrrrgh! Poor kid. We’ve been thinking of Elizabeth for a girls name. I want to get a Mary in there (Mae, Maria, Marie, etc.) The wife is leaning towards Mae. Elizabeth Mae Hanifan. That might work
as one of the many Laurens (i can remember a class where there were 4 of us all in a row. Lauren Ma.. (me), Lauren Mi…, Lauren Mi…, and Lauren N.
when I was born (march 1984) at my dad’s company – between March and December there were 7 other baby girls born with the first or middle name Lauren.
so yeah. normallish, but somewhat more unusual names are always good.
I have only talked to one person with my first name
When my mother had her second daughter, she decided that she didn’t care how many Marys there were, she wanted one of her own.
It was my sister Jennifer who was always running into children of the same name.
OTOH, my cousin Mary announced her engagement to me as, “Guess what! I’m giving you back your name!” And that Christmas we two discussed what we would have done to her brother had he named his daughter Mary instead of Rebecca.
Certain Jews have a custom of not naming people after living relatives. I can say that it has a practical aspect.
This is my third post on this subject! I apologize (but I am still going to post, so does that mean I’m not REALLY sorry?) I am sure that you’re aware about the Greek Orthodox tradition of naming the first born daughter Demetria. I only know about four Greek Orthodox Families, and I know four girls named Demee.
In my daughter’s class at her old Catholic school there was a Mary Beth, Mary Ann, Mary Taylor and Mary Claire. Not bad for a class of 24.
After looking over the list of names for our local high school graduating class, I would like to make one suggestion: Please, please, PLEASE – try to spell your child’s name as normally as possible.
Some names I have seen:
Rhanda
Britnay
Tawnia
Myshel
We don’t do this to boys, do we? Can you imagine:
Byl
Timithee
Krystifir
Airic
STOP THE INSANITY!!
Something I’ve noticed that that one reason girl names seem to become popular is that people know physically attractive or pretty girls or women who have those names. This is apparently why women used to be named Gertrude, Bertha, Fern, Fannie, etc. These days, we associate those names with grandmothers and/or women who are not particularly physically attractive — because the names became so popular, and then became yesteryear’s popular girl names.
What about we folks who try NOT to be trendy when naming our children, but are so far out of the culture we don’t realize we are “in”? We named our youngest Sophie, after my husband’s maiden aunt. So, here I am in Borders, with new baby Sophie, and I’m surrounded by mothers calling for their “Sophies”. I’m trendy! Argh!
My boys have relatively common saint names (Michael, Thomas, Anthony, Alexander, Luke…although, we chose Luke because it was my husband’s Confirmation name, but he was born when the new Star Wars movies came out…so in the SW-mania some people think we named him after Luke Skywalker). My girls, OTOH…my oldest, Amanda, named after my close childhood friend…turns out that it was a very popular name at the time I discovered later!…Catherine has a Katherine in her class, Cecilia…still not so common (yay!). My youngest is Isabella. We had such a hard time choosing her name, my husband and I have totally different taste in girl names, we finally picked Isabella out of the baby girl names book. I knew of no Isabellas when we named her, but now, when we tell people her name, they always say that they know someone else with the name! Oh well, we don’t try to pick popular names, it just happens!
I didn’t end up using Dominic but when it was first on my boys’-name long list for the Thomas eventually named in summer ’04, I thought it was still unusual even in the Catholic world. It had a Brooklyn-Italian-of-yesteryear association for me, if anything (I am from Brooklyn.) Now I’m aware of 2 not-seemingly-devout families naming their sons Dominic, and 3 Catholic blogworld Dominics, born in the past 2-3 years I think. No Brooklyn Italians among them to my knowledge. I used to not know how parents could still think Emma or Sophie or Madeline were fresh new rediscoveries for their own kids, but it almost happened to me.
My name is so common! There are 8 other Emilys in my grade…I hate it
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