{"id":15115,"date":"2020-12-22T10:58:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T14:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15115"},"modified":"2020-12-27T19:24:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T23:24:58","slug":"baby-boy-merrick-brother-to-paxton-and-isla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2020\/12\/22\/baby-boy-merrick-brother-to-paxton-and-isla\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Merrick, Brother to Paxton and Isla"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi there! Hoping you can help!<\/p>\n

Just realized all of my top name choices for a baby boy are in the top 5 or so names. I\u2019m worried to have a kiddo with lots of kids in their class someday having the same name.<\/p>\n

Important info:
\nSurname Merrick
\nBig Brother- Paxton Robert
\nBig sister- Isla Mae
\nDue in early June 2021<\/p>\n

Names we like- Theo, Jude, Levi, Ezra, Oakley
\nMiddle name- Silas or George (both family names).<\/p>\n

Thank you so much!
\nDanielle Merrick<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can start with some good news, which is that if you’re in the U.S., none of those names are in the Top Five, or even in the Top Ten. According to the Social Security Administration<\/a>, here are the 2019 rankings of each name:<\/p>\n

Theo: #195 (Theodore, which would add to the total Theos, is #36)
\nJude: #153
\nLevi: #25
\nEzra: #49
\nOakley: #441 (it’s #348 for girls, which would add to the total Oakleys-per-classroom)<\/p>\n

More good news is that it’s rarer now than in previous generations for kids to have a lot of kids in their class with the same name: even the very most popular names are used at a rate that statistically ought to mean no duplicates. (Though of course there are going to be geographical hot spots and abundant anomalies, such as zero Liams in nine of the ten kindergarten classes and then three in the tenth class; or not a single Olivia in the entire 1st grade, but three Olives. These things happen, and are not avoidable.) More common are clusters of similar name-sounds: one classroom might have an Eleanor, an Ella, an Elizabeth, an Elijah, and an Eli.<\/p>\n

So any of your choices COULD result in having more than one kid with that same name in a classroom—but none of them are LIKELY to. And I can say from both personal experience and parental experience that when duplicates aren’t at the level of the Lindas of the grandmother generation or the Jennifers of the mom generation, the occasional coincidental duplicate can be fun rather than exhausting: I double-checked with William, who had a fluke of two other Williams in his classroom for several of his years in school, and they STILL call themselves The Williams and greet each other with “Hey, Will C.!” and so on. And I had another Kristen in my classroom once or twice, and that’s why some of my oldest acquaintances still sometimes slip and call me Kristy, and that’s just fine.<\/p>\n

I think all of your options go well with your surname. The only one I wouldn’t choose with the sibling names is Levi, because it shares so many sounds with Isla.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi there! Hoping you can help! Just realized all of my top name choices for a baby boy are in the top 5 or so names. I\u2019m worried to have a kiddo with lots of kids in their class someday having the same name. Important info: Surname Merrick Big Brother- Paxton Robert Big sister- Isla […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3VN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15119,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115\/revisions\/15119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}