Poll: Are Your Kids' Names Rising or Falling in Popularity?

[jewellsmommy]

Holy cow...I knew dd's name was popular but I had no idea it was that popular. It held the number #1 spot for 1996 - 2007!! Then it went to 3 in '08 and 6 in 2010. My mother suggested her first name because we knew her middle name would be Jewell (after my dad's mom) and it went well.

 

Ds's original name is not on the list, nor will it ever be I imagine. The name we allowed him to select (to go by, not legal yet) was one he had always loved and wanted to be called. We thought allowing the change would be good for a fresh start. It is a more...how to put this...normal, common name. That name is not in the top 25 though.

[enlarsh]

Both of mine are falling.

[Alice]

Oldest's name has been almost exactly the same for 11 years, around 200-225.

Middle son's name is increasing in popularity but still only something like 150.

Daughter is increasing in popularity, is now in the 30's.

 

My husband's name hasn't been in the top 1000 names ever. It was important to him to pick slightly unusual names. He thinks our daughter's name is too popular but I really wanted to use it.

[BakersDozen]

I am thrilled that out of our 18 names (first and middle) only one is on the top 25 list (Matthew)! Actually, even the names I've come up for the twins aren't on the list. I never wanted to use names that everyone and their cousin were using. :)

Edited May 6, 2011 by LuvnMySvn

[FO4UR]

My boys' names are in the top 50...and have been for a long while. Classic names, not trendy.

 

My dd's name has spiked in popularity recently. I hadn't heard her name used in anyone under the age of 80yo when I named her...in fact she was named after my g'ma who was named after her aunt...it's an old name that's made a come-back, I guess. I hear her name in little girls all-the-time now.:glare: (I wanted her to have a special name, by golly!!!)

[kalanamak]

"Karl" was in the 500ths when he was born, and has lost a lot of ground since. I got a catty comment about how it "wasn't a cute name for a boy" when he was born, and I replied, rather coldly, "no, but it is a fine name for a man."

[DawnM]

Middle son's name moved a whole space in the last 11 years.

 

The other 2 boys' names aren't even on the list.

 

Dawn

[Aquinas Academy]

DD 14's name is not in the top 1000. It was last on the list in 1953 when it ranked 965.

DD 13's name is decreasing. It was 160 the year she was born and is now at 245.

DS 9's name is on a steady decilne. It's gone from 3 when he was born to 16 now.

DD 7's name is currently ranked 2. It was 20 when she was born.

DS 5's name is not popular. It was 932 in 2002, but other than that it hasn't been in the top 1000 for the past 100 years.

DS 2's name is on a rise. It was 58 when he was born, it's 47 now.

[scrappyhappymama]

My boys names are all increasing in popularity, except for Samuel which is essentially the same as the year he was born.

 

My youngest two especially have surprised me. When we named our Ezra, we did not know of anyone else named Ezra (other than the few famous ones in history). Now, we personally know of at least three other babies named Ezra since he was born four years ago. And his name has increased from 339 to 243 on the list.

 

We had met one other Titus, more than a decade ago, before we named our Titus. Now we know or know of several other Titus babies as well. His name has moved from 442 to 397 in the last year.

[Jen in PA]

DD's name is not on the list at all, but DS's name has been climbing steadily and looks like it will likely make the top 100 by next year if the trend continues.

[tabrizia]

DS's name went up a few spots, probably about 50 - 100 more boys were named his name in 2010 then in 2009. So rising, but only slightly.

 

DD's name went from not on the list in 2008, to in the high 900s last year, to the 500s this year. So it is rising. On the other hand going from the 900s to the 500s means around 300 more girls were given her name this year from 2009. Her name is rising though.

 

DS2's name dropped 1 rank, so it is stable, I know it is a technical decline in rank, but it really is just staying steady.

[SonshineLearner]

The names I have are around 35 to 27.... (And the first one is a bit of a twist to how I spelled it...)

[Caitilin]

Dd1's name is not on the top 1000 list for the last 11 years, but all the others are slowly on the upswing. Ds1 and ds2 have the most common names of all my dc, though dd3 is ticking upward with her old fashioned name...:D

[chickadoodle3]

1st daughter-name going down

2nd daughter-name has not been in the top 1000 for 11 years

3rd daughter-name is slowly going up

[MrsBasil]

Increasing, but it's always been a fairly popular name. According to Baby Name Wizard it's never been out of the top 25, but was more popular in the 1880s than it is now. His name is currently in the top 10.

 

I didn't care about that though, it's a great name and a family name going back several generations.

[Impish]

Only 1 of 4 is on the list...but then again, does it count if I'm Canadian? :lol:

[chickadoodle3]

1st born-falling , 2nd-never been in top 1000 for 11 years, 3rd-rising:001_huh:

[LauraGB]

Wow. Interesting. Both of my kids are in the top 5. One always has been and might be until the end of eternity :tongue_smilie:, but the other fell out of fashion a long time ago.

[Amy loves Bud]

Luke was 75 the year he was born, now it's 41.

 

Peyton was 168 the year she was born, now it's 51.

 

Romy hasn't ever been in the top 1000.

[Satori]

Aw, neither was not a choice. Satori is not in the top 1000 in the past 11 years as a name. (I planned it that way.) Neither were any of the other names I planned to use with other children if we have more.

[8circles]

Either staying about the same or getting less popular.

[Matryoshka]

dd#1 is now in the 460's, from 470's the year she was born - but when she was two years old, it was in the 140's - odd uptick in the middle!

 

dd#2 is now in 870's, up from not on list the year she was born... but her nickname went from 170ish to top 25, so going up either way...

 

dd#3 is near 300, down from 150ish the year she was born, so going down.

[ereks mom]

My dd's name is (finally) decreasing in popularity. When I chose the name, I was a teenager (in the 70s), choosing a name for the little girl I hoped to have someday. At the time, the name I picked was not in style at all--it was "old-fashioned" sounding. But ten years later, that name had risen to the top 20; it reached the top 10 three years before my dd was born, and one year before she was born, the name reached the top 5--and stayed there for 16 years! (It's still in the top 10.)

 

My ds's name is also "old-fashioned", and it was way down on the list when we chose it, but now I see that over the past couple of years it has creeped into the top 20, and has begun to gain popularity. :(

 

And I had purposely chosen unusual names...

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

I don't see any of my kids names on there... but the only one I am surprised about that is my oldests name. Our kids have unique names.. just like we wanted

 

 

 

Sierra (the one I am surprised is not on there)

 

Taryn

 

Brock

 

Jayce (like vase with a J)

 

 

ETA-- How do you see the top 1000 names? I just see 25

Edited May 6, 2011 by wy_kid_wrangler04

[Matryoshka]

Sierra (the one I am surprised is not on there)

 

Taryn

 

Brock

 

Jayce (like vase with a J)

 

Did you expand it to all 1000 names?

 

Sierra's on there at 215, Taryn's at 661, Brock's 306, Jayce is 298.

 

(I only checked 'cause I couldn't believe Sierra wasn't on there either :tongue_smilie:)

[ElizabethB]

The whole family, including all grandparents, is getting less popular.

 

My daughter, my Mom, and I were wildly popular in 1880 but have gone downhill since then. My husband and my Dad and his folks were all popular spiking around the times of their births, climbing to that and then a decline. My son was popular spiking around the 1950s.

 

The baby wizard website graphs are fun! Too bad you can't make one big graph of the whole family.

[Matryoshka]

I just checked my own name - right now it's right back around where it was the year of my birth in the 200's - but it had a meteoric rise in the middle and got all the way up into the top 20's when I was about 15yo - as recently as 2000 it was around 60.

 

I'm kind of happy it's fading - when I was young it was so uncommon, it's still weird to me to have my name called and have it be someone else...

[BeautifulLife]

Both. Hunter has continued to decrease in popularity the past 10 years, while Jocelyn has slowly increased. But neither are in the top 50, which is what I was going for. Growing up, I disliked having to go by Jennifer [Last Initial] because there were always several other girls with the same name. I think Jennifer was the #1 name many years of my childhood!

[IlluminatedAttic]

My children's names are not now nor have ever been on the lists. My mother gripes about this because she can't buy cute things for them from those spin around kiosks at the mall. Of course my name has never been on the lists either and she named me so... :glare:

[twoxcell]

My boys names are both in the top 25(my younger boys is not spelled the way the one is in the top 25 though), but neither of my girls names are.

[Amy1k]

Funny. I have 3 boys. 2 of them have names in the top 25. The other one, Austin, is the one who always ends up with friends/teammates/classmates who share his name. He is one of 3 Austin's on his baseball team right now. One year there were 5 Austins on his football team. There's ALWAYS been at least 2. Alex, whose name is 4th on the list, doesn't have any friends/teammates/classmates named Alex. I can think of one boy that he played baseball with 3 years ago who was named Alex. :D

[caayenne]

DS9's name has gotten more popular (Top 5), although his real name is the nickname, not the long version that's on the list. DS5's name remains in the Top 100, but has actually fallen a little in the rankings. This doesn't surprise me, as I have still never met anyone with his name in real life.

[Amy1k]

Well, that explains it. It's not on the list now, but in 1996 it was #9.

[mazakaal]

Three dc's names have increased in popularity, and one has decreased, but the one that decreased dropped from 16th and is still in the top 100. It would have been tough for it to rise from 16th. :001_smile:

[silliness7]

Well...both. :D

 

My oldest was at #19 the year he was born and is now #5

My second oldest was at #9 the year he was born and is now #14

My third son will never make the chart. :001_smile:

I'm surprised my Kathryn didn't make the chart. I thought that was a very common name.

My 2nd daughter was not on the chart the year she was born and is now at #17

My 3rd daughter will probably never make the chart.

And my baby boy was #18 the year he was born and is now #19.

 

I have a James and a Lilly and didn't even become a Harry Potter fan until 6 mos. after all of my children had been born. James and Lilly Potter. :001_smile: Anyway, in 2008 James & Lilly were both #18 on the chart. Interesting.

[Laura Corin]

Both of mine have names that are going down in the ranking. They are traditional names but not highly biblical, so they are not 'hot'.

 

Laura

[Mom0012]

My daughter's is rising to the top and my son's has fallen off the top 25 list. Interestingly, both my son's and daughter's names were #17 for the year my son was born. I'm kind of surprised my son was all the way down at 17, because every time I called his name at the pool when he was younger, 10 boys would turn my way.

 

The funny thing is, I had no idea that either of their names were popular when I picked them. I really thought I was picking something different with my daughter.

 

Lisa

[FaithManor]

None of my children's names show up in the top ten and one boy's name shows up in the top 25. Dd's name and middle ds don't show up even in the top 100. As a matter of fact, none of my children have ever met another person with their first name. We didn't do trendy names or odd spellings, but we did choose older, classic names.

 

My niece Sophia's name is near the top. My sister in law is furious because she thought when she chose it that she was choosing something "unusual".

 

Faith

[mom2att]

Dd's first and middle names were in the top 10 for a long time. We had no idea when we named her that the rest of the country had the same idea!

 

The names for both of our boys are falling as well. Older ds's name was in the 900's for a few years, but hasn't been in the top 1,000 since 2007. Younger ds is in the 900's and has been for several years, but his name was as wildly popular as the 700's a couple of years before he was born.

 

We have encountered only a couple of kids IRL with their names, but we know loads of kids with dd's name, or some variation of it.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

DS1's name was never on the top 100 list. He was named after dh's grandfather.

 

DS2's name was pretty close to the top the year he was born, but has recently fallen to 14-16. We chose that name because we both know very nice people with that name.

[KidsHappen]

My son's name is rising. None of my dd's names were even mentioned which is the way I like it.

[PentecostalMom]

Dd's are rising and dh is falling.

[happypamama]

I'm surprised my Kathryn didn't make the chart. I thought that was a very common name.

 

I was surprised by that too, because I lovelovelove the name, but I am thinking it's because it has multiple common spellings, all of which get counted separately. Like, Emily can be spelled different ways but is most often Emily, whereas Kathryn, Katherine, and Catherine are all fairly common spellings. I think the same with Sarah/Sara; it's a common name but with two equally common spellings, it gets split up and counted separately.

[lionfamily1999]

Middle ds, named after his dad, is the only one on the list and he dropped in popularity. Ironically, we only know two other people that share their name, but there are two boys the same age as my youngest who share his name and he's not even on the board for popular :glare: Dd's name is her own. It's not so unpopular that no one has ever heard of it, but not so popular that we run into a lot of people with her name.

[ChristusG]

I deliberately chose names for my girls that has never, ever been in the top 1000 names.

 

Then, in 2006, DD7's name entered the top 1000 at around 850. It has slowly risen and is now in the 200's. :glare: I had never heard the name in my entire life when I named her that.

 

DD4's name is still nowhere in the top 1000, so I have no idea if it's rising or declining since they only keep information in the top 1000.

[Lady Florida.]

Dss was part of the Jennifer/Jason explosion, and though there was a backlash for a while against those names, his is still in the top 100.

 

Ds went from 252 to 391 (Dennis). I don't know what it was in 1997 when he was born. I don't care about his name's popularity though. He was named after my dad, who died when I was 14.

[HayesW]

William and Samuel are sbecoming slightly more popular, but I expect that. Joseph is falling in popularity. Isaac isn't on the top 20, and neither are either of my girls, Lydia and Celeste.

[Haiku]

We only named one of our three kids (the other two we just refer to as, "Hey you!") :D Her name traveled from the 800s to the 400s in the past ten years but has started migrating toward less popular again and is currently in the 500s. Fine by me! I wanted an uncommon name.

 

Our oldest daughter's name started out in the 600s and has traveled backward to the 800s. The English variant of my son's name hovers around the 200s, but I have only ever met one other child who has my son's version of the name.

 

Tara

[TXMomof4]

Two are increasing in popularity, two stayed just about the same. None of them are top 10 though!

[TravelingChris]

My son's name went from top 25 to top 10 in 22 years. My older daughter fell from about 140's to now nearly 600. My youngest is the one I am surprised by- it has now broken 100. Older dd has met many females with her name. Younger has only met one person around her age with the same name and one adult when she was living in Europe. Though I did get a delicious cake from a bakery last week called ______'s Elegant Creations.

 

I am actually not surprised that I don't see some names that often and I do see others, like child three's. Child three has a name that is used more commonly in Russian, Italian and Spanish speaking communities. I am sure we have greater numbers of both Russians and Spanish speakers now than we did when she was born.