Popular (Overused) Names

[Arduinna]

ok, I hope no one will take this personally. I'm sure all the names are beautiful. But, I'm wondering if we all could share what names are used over and over again in your school, parenting group or family.

I know when I named dd I didn't have many friends with kids, so I didn't realize that her name was really popular. So, what are the popular (and overused) names now?

[BathrobeGoddess]

Humm....

Let me see,
Ashley
Christopher
Kyle
Julia
Madison
Maggie
Rachel
Austin
Zach
Grace
Kate
Taylor
Lauren
Hannah
Ian
Ben
Simon

[Elphaba]

i know about a dozen toddler and baby girls EACH named brianna and alexis. also makenna and kailey and all their variations are very popular.
tons of dylans.

[Tigerchild]

I think this is extremely geographically/neighborhood dependant!

In my toddler classes, there were tons of kids/sibs named:

Griffin
Taylor (both sexes)
Riley (both sexes)
Jordan (both sexes)
Jaden (both sexes)
Zachary
Emma
Isabel
Siobhan (believe it or not)
Grace
Ben/jamin
Tyler
Emmet

Now, I know that Dylan is very popular elsewhere, but except for my son, I don't know any and there aren't any in either school I used to teach at! I don't think that Griffin or Siobhan are very popular in other parts of the country, but I know 4 Griffins and 5 Siobhans here. I've also heard that Fiona is very popular in certain parts of the US, and as common as Jennifer is here in certain parts of the UK, but once again we don't know any locals other than our girl.

I don't think that you can avoid 'popular' names anymore, to be honest. Maybe if you were isolated to your own community. But now that we're constantly in contact with people across the country and world, I think alot of our innocence about how 'original' we are when naming our kids has been stolen.

We just picked family names or Names of Significance for our kids. I figure that if they really really hate it, they can pay the $50 when they're 18 and change it, or ask us to call them by the nickname/middle name of their choice.

I tend to feel sorry for kids who have overly unusual spellings of their names than 'popular' names. Esp. if it's an weird spelling of an extremely popular name. ;>

[Arduinna]

Thanks for the lists you guys, Sarah seems to be quite popular here, but these are kids around 10 I don't know many people with babies right now.

Anyone noticed alot of boys named Jack? Maybe it's just famous people but I seem to hear alot of that name.

[USAmma]

some of the more unusual names are getting popular. I know at least 4 Annikas and a mom who wants to use that name on her future daughter.

Darshani (who has a very unusual name!)

[PumpkinSeeds]

tons of Jacksons shortened to Jack.

[boobykinmamma]

Our kids have Sanskrit names, and we aren't Indian, but I actually do know 2 other Leelas (spelled Lela, and Leyla), also not Indian. Apparently, Leela, spelled Lela, was popular in the US earlier in the 20th century. We found out after naming her that dh's great-grandma's name was Lela.

I've never met another Shankar in the US, but in India I'm sure we'd meet many.

Oops, I'm off topic. Let's see, popular names:

Jaden
Kayla/Kyla
Hannah
Dylan
Madison
Emma
Emily
Jackson
Peyton

[GruppieGirl]

I agree that names can be regional. In the RI and MA area there are a few names that are always called on the playground...

Sam
Jack
Ryan
Nathan

Olivia
Sarah
Emily
Emma
Hannah

My poor little dd gets confused when it seems like all of her friends have the same names. :

[sillypants]

I have a Jack and it's RIDICULOUS. you go to the park and call Jack and 10 boys come running !! I really wanted to name him Max but my DH won !!

My daughter's name is Dagny which 6.5 years ago unheard of. I keep meeting more and more or people know a dagny, etc. I am pretty possesive of the name so I always get a little irked when I hear someone else with it ( ridiculous I know )


OK, so overused name around me (sunny old Portland Oregon)

Boys

Spencer
Jack
Luke
Sam


Girls

Natalie
Madison
Hannah

[applejuice]

Howz about-

Michael
Jason
NIcholas
Zachary
Jose
Jorge
David
Andrew


Jennifer
Nicole
Ashley
Taylor
Katrina
Madeleine
Sara
Andrea
Maria

[padomi]

This was an issue for us, because dh wanted desperately to name our baby Dylan - regardless of the sex - because he is a freak about Bob Dylan (to use the word fan is to understate it by far). I thought for a girl it would be cute but a little overused for a boy. I thought it was so difficult to find any boy names that aren't overused - there just don't seem to be that many boy names available - we struggled with it. (Had a girl, so didn't matter in the end). Overused names in my neck of the woods:

Brianna
Madison
Madeline
Katelyn
Kate
Rachel

Connor
Sean
Benjamin (Ben)
Zachary (Zach)
Jackson (Jack)
Dylan

[Susana]

Around my neck of the woods there are a lot of kids named---

Jacob
Rachel
Brittany
Ashley
Alex (boy and girl)
Hannah
Evan
Zack
and finally, I have heard Riley so many times it is crazy!

[meg]

Here are a few from the central KY area:

Jacob
Taylor (boy or girl anymore)
Madison
MaKenzie
Cole
Jordan
Riley

[beccaboo]

These are interesting to read!

Here's what occurs to me without much contemplation (north side of Chicago):

Jake
Jack (sorry, Kathleen!)
Josh
Sam
Max
Zack

Emma
Emily
Madeleine
Hannah
Anna
Grace

Looks like one-syllable boy names and old-fashioned girl names are the rage around here, eh?

[chrissy]

Near me,

Jack
Max
Ben
Will

Anna
Olivia
Maggie
Maddie (Madison, Madeline)

My son is Noah and now that is seeming to get popular too, much to my dismay.

My mom and dad named me Christine, called me Chrissy, and said they knew no one named that but in my Kindergarten class there were 5. All my life I've known tons of other Chris variations and hated it.

[famousmockngbrd]

The other day I was watching a Little League practice. It seemed like there were a couple of Kyles, at least one Dylan... one kid was named Mason. I thought it was interesting that nobody seemed to have a name like John or Jim... which were *very* common names when I was growing up in Boston in the 70s.

[Friendlymama]

Around here...

Grace Grace Grace

And Sydney.

[mcimom]

Olivia, Haley (Hailey, Hayley), Emma, Isabella

Alexander, Jacob, Jordan

Totally NOT popular, but heard at Gymboree the other day and just loved...

Daphne and Cordelia

[its_our_family]

i've lived in the midwest and now I'm on the East Coast and it seems that Emma and Emily are running rampant! Both names i like but would never name my daughter them because there are so many!

Emma
Emily
Megan (which is my name and growing up there were very fwe os us..ts weird to here yelled "Megan do NOT put that in your mouth!"_
Sarah
Suvannah

Gavin
Taylor
Tyler
Nathan
Micheal

(None of the names we have chosen are on any of these lists...which makes me happy )