popular names for children in your geographic area

[Flynn]

We did lots of searches on the social security website to find out the "trends" and more common names before we named our children.

What are the popular names in your area??? I have a feeling there are geographic "favorites" depending on where you live?

GIRLS:

All of the E names: Emma, Emily, Ella, Elle, etc. (I think I know at least 4 of each)
Grace
Sydney
Olivia
Isabelle or Isabella
Katherine or Catherine

BOYS:

Aidan
Jack
Nathan
Nicholas
Ryan

I think boys are harder to name than girls...what do you think?

[Auspicious]

The Name Voyager is based on the same data as the SSA lists but is even more extensive (and an even easier way to waste a lot of time on the internet )

http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

New Yorkers are big on the "little old man/little old lady" trend. i.e., names that were very popular at the turn of the 20th century.

I do agree that boys names are harder to think of than girls names. I think it's because you get more leeway with girls names.

[Sheherezade]

OK, Julie. That just wasted 10 minutes of my time. Seems I have one of those names that peaked right after I was born and then disappeared. I also named my own kids au courant. (Zach - mid 90's and Annie - 2000) At least Annie last peaked at the turn of the century.

Names here that seem popular in my kids age brackets:

5 year olds: Daniel, Anna, Caroline

8 year olds: Ian (shocking number of those), Jessica, Kristen/Kiersten (3 in my son's class)

I think boys are harder to name because girls keep taking over boys names. Once a boy's name has gone feminine, it is hard to get it back. Also, my husband was a lot more fussy about our son's name. Definitely didn't want anything wierd for his son. He was more flexible in our daughter negotiations. His reserve was probably a good thing as I am one of those people that might end up with a "Festus Moonbeam" if not controlled.

That link is a little depressing....there we thought we were being somewhat unique....turns out everyone had our idea.
Drew-2000
Colton-2004

...at least they didn't end up Meshack and Cletus.

[Auspicious]

That link is a little depressing....there we thought we were being somewhat unique....turns out everyone had our idea.
Drew-2000
Cotlon-2004

...at least they didn't end up Meshack and Cletus.

They're still pretty unusual. Even though it's higher on the list than you might have thought, still only 0.1401% of boys that year were named Colton, for example. He's going to have to meet 700 boys his age before he runs into another Colton.

The Edwardian names are popular here too...

I have a Henry, but he is named after my grandpa who WAS born at the turn of the last century.

If we had a girl her name would have been Charlotte, my grandmother's name.

A neice was considering Addison for a girl. There are SEVEN generations of men with that middle name in our family.

[DCJenn]

I don't know if it's a regional thing or what but all of my cousins kids go by their middle names, especially the girls.

My nephew is a "fourth" which was a total no brainer. We liked Nikolai so decided to stick with it- and we changed his middle name to Daniel, which was my grandfather's name.

Jenn

Old school boy names are pretty popular in the South.....Joseph, Thomas, William. For girls....Emma, Hannah, Abbey seem to be the most popular. I have also heard some off-the-wall names, though...one of DH's pregnant patients said she was going to name her child Truck if it was a boy and Sparkles if it was a girl... And when I worked at a preschool we had a little boy named LeStat (after the character in Interview with a Vampire). :!

I agree with Angie about boys being harder to name than girls. I had read that, too, about boys names that have gone feminine...that they rarely turn back (Kelly, Ashley, Leslie). I have a (male) friend named Morgan who started going by his middle name because there was a girl in his class also named Morgan.

I think we have decided on Andrew Edward (Edward is a family name) for our son and we might end up calling him Drew for a nickname. One important factor for me in picking a name was that I wanted one that other people could spell without having to ask, "How do you spell that???" For some reason that always annoys me.

A friend named her horse Truck! Never thought of it for a human child, though.

Sigh, I just couldn't punish my kids with our family names though-Wilma, Barbara, Louise, June, Muriel, Edwin, Gerard, and the list goes on. Ugh!!

Both of my grandmothers and one of DH's are named Muriel. Somehow , despite haveing three great-grandma Muriels, we named our daughter Claire.

[DCJenn]

Great-grandmother: Anathia (pronounced Anna-thigh-a)

Grandmother: Ruthadell (pronounced Ruth Adelle)

Aunt: Anthia (Pronounced Anne-thee-a)

Father: Sperling

Son: Nikolai

Jenn

PS- My grandmother only answers to Ruth or Ruthie because she hates her name so much!

He's going to have to meet 700 boys his age before he runs into another Colton.

...or we could go to the circus and park next to a family whose son is named Colton!! So, I guess he beat those odds!....now if I could just get him to play the lottery....

[houseelf]

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

[Auspicious]

Sounds like the shelving aisle at IKEA.

Sounds like the shelving aisle at IKEA.

sure does!

Here (north east ohio) there are a TON of Kaitlyns (spelled all different ways) and Jacob (my oldest son is named Jacob, but he's named after my mom, whose maiden name was Jacobs).

DH's cousin who is 1/2 Indian (Asian) named his kid Tane Rajiv - clearly didn't avoid the Indian name for a first name to spare the kid teasing as we did.

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