The new Social Security baby names update is here! The new update is here! Now things will start happening to us!
Today's discussion question: What happened this year to your kids' names, or to names you've been considering, or to any name you've been keeping an eye on for whatever the reason? (You don't have to say the actual names if you don't want to.)
Are you happy about it, or sad? It can go either way, I've found. There have been names I liked that seemed too uncommon to use, so then I was happy they went up. Or names I liked because they were A Little Different and then felt a little disappointed that everyone else felt the same way. Or names I was happy to see dip down a bit, because it meant they probably weren't headed for the Top 10 after all. Or names I was sorry to see go down because it meant that other people weren't liking my child's name as much as they used to. And so on.
Of my kids' non-pseudonym names:
One boy name is plummeting, which is a little disappointing. I like common names for boys, so I'm sorry it went up to where I liked it, and then dropped out of that range as if people are thinking they're sick of it.
The other four names stayed about the same. But what I was worried about with one of the boy names is that it would go up for GIRLS, because there have been many predictions that it would---or people saying it was used almost as much for girls as for boys, or that they hear it all the time for girls, or that they think of it as a girl name. Perceptions/claims are one thing, statistics are another: it's still barely used for girls, and going down, while continuing to be common for boys.
