{"id":15834,"date":"2022-03-30T08:50:04","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T12:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15834"},"modified":"2022-03-30T08:50:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T12:50:04","slug":"baby-name-discussion-examples-of-name-popularity-playing-out-unexpectedly-in-the-real-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2022\/03\/30\/baby-name-discussion-examples-of-name-popularity-playing-out-unexpectedly-in-the-real-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Name Discussion: Examples of Name Popularity Playing Out Unexpectedly in the Real World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I know you sometimes use your baby name blog to have discussions, which I always enjoy. I was thinking recently that it might be fun to have a post on real-life examples of name popularity not playing out as expected. I’m specifically thinking about times when a rare name turned out to be not-so-rare in a particular social circle, but it could also be interesting to hear about the opposite (cases where a child has a name that you know from Social Security stats is very popular and yet said child has ended up being the only person in school\/town\/etc. with that name). I know people who write to you for advice are often very concerned with the impact of a name’s popularity (myself included!), so it would be fun to hear some examples of how popularity plays out unexpectedly in the real world.<\/p>\n

The thing that brought this to mind for me recently is my daughter’s preschool class. There are only 9 children in the class and two are named Emilia, spelled like that, with an E instead of an A. I’m wondering whether one or both Emilias’ parents specifically used that spelling because they were concerned about the popularity of Amelia. And now here they are, with two Emilia-With-An-“E”s.<\/p>\n

I’m also thinking about my other daughter’s preschool class, which had 4 boys in it, two of whom were named Gary. I never would have imagined that I’d meet one 3-year-old Gary, much less two in the same very small preschool. The boys loved being “The Garys” and it was so cute, but I know the moms were very surprised that their boys had to be Gary Last Initial.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I think it could be fun to hear more examples along those lines.<\/p>\n

~Ashley<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh, I AGREE!!<\/p>\n

One type of story I am hoping we can avoid is the “We used Isabella in 2002 when NO ONE was using it, and then it got SO popular and now she’s always Isabella M.!” We all know about the phenomenon of noticing something everywhere AFTER it becomes significant to us. And we all know how common it is for parents, especially first-time parents, to use a name with no idea how common it is, for various perfectly understandable reasons (not knowing any babies yet; not thinking to look it up on the Social Security site<\/a> and\/or not knowing that information even exists; etc.). And we all know how name popularity can swoop up abruptly\/unexpectedly as everyone seemingly discovers a name at the same time. Those stories, while worth telling, are not what we’re looking for today.<\/p>\n

What we are looking for today is stories where there was an interesting difference between a name’s national\/statistical popularity and its local\/specific usage. Two Garys in one class, as Ashley mentions, or two Emilias. Two families both attempting to avoid the popularity of Isabella by both choosing Isadora, and the two Isadoras end up in the same classroom (with no Isabellas). Three Joeys in the same classroom, and two of them have the same middle name. Giving up on favorite name Olivia because it is too common, and using second-favorite Stella instead, and then there are two Stellas in that grade and no Olivias. Using the name John because it’s an important namesake name but feeling a little sad because it is just SO POPULAR, and then there isn’t a single other John in the entire school system. Etc.<\/p>\n

Oh! And let’s talk about a vocab issue, before we get started: sometimes the word “class” can refer to a classroom, and sometimes to a whole grade, i.e. graduating class. I suggest we use the terms “classroom,” and “graduating class” or “grade.” (And of course if you happen to know the number of people in the classroom\/grade, that is very good\/fun to know, too.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I know you sometimes use your baby name blog to have discussions, which I always enjoy. I was thinking recently that it might be fun to have a post on real-life examples of name popularity not playing out as expected. I’m specifically thinking about times when a rare name turned out to be […]<\/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-15834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-47o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15834","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=15834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15835,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15834\/revisions\/15835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}