popular names for children in your geographic area

[Rapunzel]

I had never met another Sophia until we moved here to Boston and suddenly every other little girl seems to be a Sophia! ARGH!

Popular names for the Boston area seem to be the same as those for the Dallas area, otherwise:

Ethan
Morgan
Madison
Zach
etc, etc, etc

Some really unique names I've seen in the last few years:

Emerson
Ainsley
India

Jennifer

[Phoebe]

I love the name Emerson for a girl. DH vetoed it last time. I also like the name Hadley. That seems to be gaining popularity though. Our top choice for a boy has been Chase Alexander. I never met another Avery until we moved here. There are also a lot of Ella's around. Other names we hear:

Emma, Ethan, Jacob, Luke, Chloe, Maddie, Anna, Ben and some form of Katie.

One family name for both of us is Robert. Grandmothers are Betty Sue, Ruth, Myrtle, Caroline and Rosella. Not much to chose from!

DH has come across some whopper baby names where they have almost involved social services. What are people thinking?

[Sheherezade]

DH has come across some whopper baby names where they have almost involved social services.

Social services? They must be really bad names!!

My neighbor's kid when I live in Pasadena was named Seven.

Is that Seinfeld inspired?

I think we have many of the same popular names in the midwest that are already listed. Kaitlyn, Jacob, Sophie, Madison, Emma. Two of my cousins who are either always pregnant or just delivered, are all using them, but spelling them in different ways. Like Emaly or Mayghan or Grayce or Catlin. They all pronounce them in the traditional ways. I think its great to be orriginal, but these kids are going to forever have their names misspelled.

As far as more uncommon names go, our neighbors just had a baby girl they named Laken I recently heard of a girl named Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backwards). I also know sisters Remi and Rainy. And in a grade school classroom I worked in, there was a girl named Dagmar.

[fluffhead]

a FOAF was working in the ER one night and heard a mother admonishing her child: "Spatula! I've got two words for you: Be Haive!"

[PrincessFiona]

Sounds like the shelving aisle at IKEA.

[PrincessFiona]

True names that we have come across with some frequency up here in the hinter land (don't even ask me how to spell these):

Tove
Sten
Hawken
Solvye
Eaken
Soryke
Rikka
Juegar

I know that we are back woods rednecks and all, but when we pause and ask for a re-pronounciation, people are like "Duh, it is Sorkye!"

Kelly

Yesterday at Burger King I ran into a woman with a little boy Aidan's age.....She heard me call him Aidan and said "what is his name?" I said Aidan and she smiled....so I said "Is that your little boy's name too?" "No, it's similar...this is Aidak". Aidak???? I can't even figure out how someone would come up with that? What's up with the names here?
People are trying to make new combinations but they really sound...odd!

Please forgive me if any of you are planning on naming your son Aidak... :!

[Phoebe]

My BIL and SIL just had a baby boy named Avan Quin. I keep thinking of a bird or water or Aidan Quin the actor. I guess we'll get used to it.

[Amiens]

So we have a little girl named Emma. Thought we were being really original on her name- using a family (my grandmother's name). I actually blame the TV show "Friends" for the influx of Emma's born that year. Emma was about a year old when a stranger asked me if I named her after the baby Rachel had on Friends. I said "No if anything they named their baby after mine- their's was born in June, mine- January"

Needless to say when we were pregnant with our son, we knew we would not be choosing anything remotely in the top 50. His name is Brigham, and according to that program it has not been in the top 1000 in any decade.

We are doing ok with names but won't start seriously discussing them until my u/s in 1 1/2 weeks. (Should've had it this week but was behind the 8-ball in getting scheduled) I will 21 weeks when I have it done.

Crystal

[pstone]

our Son

We named our little boy and first child Phoenix. No, not after the city, after the mythological bird of fire. Anyway, grand parents hate it, but we like it and have not met another one, was like 900th on the SS name list.