Quote:
Originally posted by tmdiva
Avoidance of popular names is a topic on which the SFC and I differ. I've never met anyone with my name. The SFC, on the other hand, pretty much always had at least one other boy in his class with the same name. I place a pretty high value on unusualness, the SFC not so much.
And even avoiding the nationally-common is not a guarantee of unusualness, especially in places like Stumptown proper where literacy is above-average and the weird is prized. There are two little boys in our neighborhood named Solomon. And while neither Magnus's real name nor a current leading contender for No. 2's are in the top 1000, friends have friends with kids with those names. Sigh.
tm
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I always had at least one and usually two other girls in my class with my name. It blew, because, with my last name, I was never the first one who was asked what I wanted to be called, and therefore frequently got stuck with some stupid teacher-chosen nickname to "distinguish" me.
My three favorite girls names not only do not appear in the top 1000, I have not been able to discover anyone currently living in the US with any of them. Of two of those, so far as I can tell, one has been given to about 40 girls in France over the last century, the other to about 15. The third, I haven't found anyone who's used it since about the year 700 (though, given the name, I admit there's a reason for that, love it though I do).
Freakonomics has a pretty amusing section on baby naming, socio-economic status and naming trends, actually. (And I recommend it again.)
