Common Names

I find the names that are very common here to be interesting...more so for female names than male names. Probably because the popular males names tend to be the same as in the U.S. (Andy, Mike, Chris), but the female names are a bit different. The names Emma, Claire/Clare, Helen, Nicola, and Gemma/Jemma are incredibly popular here. There's also not a great variety in last names, so there end up being quite a few Nicola Adams, Helen Jones and Claire Edwards for example. I come across this everyday at work when researching information on students. Many times so many students share the same names that the only way to differentiate them is by their birthdates (middle names are less common here).

Perhaps one of the reasons I find this so fascinating is because my name is so unique. I've personally met only two other women named Karis. I worked at Famous Footwear with one, which was really weird because she not only shared my same name, but she was born one day before me. The name Karis is more popular here, although often spelled Charis, which I'm certainly glad is not the spelling of my name, as people already get me and Chris' names confused.

When talking about names for our kids, we've decided that we don't want to name our children anything that's too common, to avoid having them differentiated by a last initial...but also nothing too strange, because I can tell you it's a pain to have to constantly spell your first and last name. As you all know, switching from my maiden to married name didn't help with this either :) Of course, you never know what names will become common. I like the Social Security baby name website http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ which tells you the most popular names for each year, that way you can ensure you're not giving your child a newly popular name.