I spent a long, long time obsessing over my kids' names. It was on my mind from the moment the line on the stick turned pink until Eddie and I finally came to a consensus we both could live with. Since I grew up with an unusual name ("how do you pronounce that?"), I wanted to give my kids names that were fairly easy to pronounce and spell, but uncommon enough that they wouldn't forever be known by their last initial in elementary school. We studied the Social Security administration website, and decided that we wouldn't be comfortable naming our kids anything in the top 50.
When Bryce started kindergarten, the first friend he made in his class was Bryce C., who was also in his class in first grade, and is now in his second grade class. Bryce was #90-something on the SSA list the year Bryce was born, but there are four Bryces in the seven second-grade classes at our elementary school. We just happen to live in an area with a large concentration of Bryces, I guess.
A couple of weeks ago, a new family moved into our ward. Their daughter, born within a month of our daughter, is also named Anne (which was about #300 on the SSA list in 2002). So my daughter is now Annie M. in her Primary class (with seven kids total). Today, Annie's kindergarten teacher called me to let me know that there's another Annie in the class, so she wanted to know if she'd prefer to be called Anne (definitely not), Annie M, or Annie Caroline. Now I'm 0-2 in picking unique enough names that my kids are the only one with that name in their elementary school class.
Ironically enough, Annie's teacher's name is Sheila. And when she got me on the phone, her first question was, "how do you pronounce your name?"
11 comments:
We also used #50 on the SSA list as our cut-off point for names. It always seems as soon as we name our kids anything I meet 10 million others with the same name.
Okay, I am LOL that you studied the Social Security administration website. Er, why didn't I think of that?
;)
lol at the "Sheila" question! And one of Kyle's close friend's names is Kyle. I call them Kyle squared.
ROFL at "she-la" too!
Interestingly, in 6 years of elementary school, Andrew was the only of his name (not sure about middle but I don't know of one). Also in 6 Kaitlyn had a Caitlin one year but otherwise has been an only. Matthew has 2 others that have followed him for 4. Carter has one other in kindergarten but not in his class. Jacob has been the only for 2 years of preschool.
I think those have all been top 10-25 SSA names. Could the trick be to go super popular/common??
Connor was Connor J. in kindergarten...because the other Connor's last name started with L too! And he was #50 that year too.
Totally figures.
I thought I picked original names too. But, I was wrong.
We haven't hit that problem yet, but it's coming with Animal, whose real name is one of the top 20 all time.
Laughing at the teacher not knowing how to pronounce Shelah.
Hilarious. I like familiar less common names too. I'm kind of disappointed that Henry and Lucy are becoming much more popular.
I love the name Annie. Even Annie M is cute.
wow-SSA list-never thought of that.
Margarita has a fairly unusual name but my boy's names are common, common, common. But, so far we've never ended up with a kid with the same name in church or school-you must just be lucky!
Ashley hasn't ever had another Ashley in her class-and her name was #1 of her birth year I think or the year before. Top ten at least (I can't remember now).
Megan has not been so lucky.
I've only ever met one other Annika (and she pronounced it differently) and one other Corinne.
Are you enjoying blogger? How long did it take you to transfer your stuff? How do you edit the top?
Amber-- I'm liking blogger. It took a whole weekend to transfer each post individually (sucked) but I'm glad now. I had a friend do the logo for me. I have no idea how she did it.
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