We picked a lovely name for our daughter, not sure how we came about it but perhaps it was because it was the name of my best friend’s big sister when I was a kid. Anyway, it wasn’t a name either of us heard in our social circles at all. So we went along to the registers, and there was a chart on the wall with the most popular baby names of the year on it, and our choice was right at the top.

Still she’s our Sophie.

Though we’d be much cooler if my first name choice hadn’t been over-ruled – I wanted to call her Minnie.

US site, but fun, nevetheless.

And it’s DaRen as in KaRen, not Darren – easier to spell, or so my mother tells me now. Should have changed it when I went to University 😆 .

EDIT: and an epidemic of Olivers!

GCHQ (maybe o_O) and I have a wagging tail 😉

I have a friend who named her kid Jinx, it’s pretty rare and suits her – she’s the most confident 9 year old ever.

I know a Grainne.

It’s pronouced Gronyur

Weirder than weird

Me too!
She doesn’t work in a factory in Hertfordshire does she?

The popularity of Mohammed would be explained by the fact that quite a lot of people are followers of that imaginary character, whereas there isn’t really a female equivalent for them to idolise, so Muslim girls’ names are a lot more varied.

Mahamuda is the female version of Mohammed.

One of the problems with these surveys is they count all the spelling of Mohammad together but don’t take account of many traditional UK/ European names as also being different spellings of the same name.

For instance Jack, John, Ian, Iain, Evan, Shawn, Sean, Eoin, Ifan, Ivan, Jean, Juan, Hans, Yann, Johan, Giovanni, Gino, Joan, Joanna, Joanne, Jane, Jayne, Janet, Janice, Janis, Jean, Jeane, Jeanne, Jeannie, Hanna, Ivana, Sinead, Seona, Siobhan, Sian are all different spellings of the same name – ?????????? – which is hebrew for ‘God is Gracious’

And while Gods might be imaginary (although that very much depends on what you understand the word God to mean) Mohammad was very definitely a real living, breathing, walking, talking bloke. In no sense imaginary and in no sense imagined to be anything other than long dead by even his most devout followers.

There’s a difference between names with a common root and names with different spellings.

Sinéad is sufficiently different from John to be considered a different name. Whereas Mohammed and Muhammad are clearly different spellings of the same name. Now if we were talking Jon vs John, they may be counted together (perhaps they are, I dunno). Or Sophie and Sofie, etc etc. I’m happy for common sense to prevail and for Janice to appear in the girls’ list and Ivan to appear in the boys’.

We have mates whose surname begins with’E’ who were thinking of calling their kid Aoife.

At school I was one of many Michaels and my wife was one of many Sarahs, and now our eldest is one of many Ellies.

Hercules and Apollo where they not the Dobermans from magnum pi.

Whilst backpacking in Rome along time ago I met an American called CJ,
Stood for Charles junior, his dad was Charles senior and his younger brother was also called Charles but was known in the family by his second name which escapes me.

I understood Charles senior and junior but why would you call both your children charles.

He said his dad was an accountant , he was studying to be an accountant and his brother was studying law and his parents decided Charles was a good trustworthy name for business.

I have never met another man with my name but have met a few women.

My sister thought that gabriel would be a unique name for her son. I hated to point out that two of my friends had already had that idea.

Which meant she tried even harder for her second. He is still the only otis I know.

Have recently acquired an Isaiah for a nephew, I think it sounds like one of the dingles,
No one agrees.

At school I was one of many Michaels and my wife was one of many Sarahs, and now our eldest is one of many Ellies.

Our parents generation fished in a much smaller pool for names for kids – It seemed like my class at primary school only had 4 or 5 of boys and girls names to share between everyone – Steven, Mark, Andrew, Michael covered most of the lads Joanne, Julie, Sarah and Nichola covered pretty much all of the girls. And we were a big year group 50 or so split between two classes and very few exceptions to that set of names

One of the reasons we can have short-lived fads for names now people are much more varied in the choices they make with names so it only takes a small bump in popularity to get into the top 10, but a ‘popular’ name is nowhere near as popular as names were in the past.

By comparison to my own school years I worked with a class of primary kids recently. 40 in the group – no two shared a first name, but no weird, wacky, foreign or made up names either.

Growing up in a certain African country, for boys first names I remember an Elastic (Banda was the surname), Penis and Wireless amongst many others from weird uses of heard or written English. Can’t see them catching on here somehow