
The effects of growing up with an extremely common name - pmcpinto
https://qz.com/978760/popular-baby-names-the-psychology-of-growing-up-with-an-extremely-common-name/
======
GotAnyMegadeth
Slightly uncommon perspective: As a trans woman I recently had to pick a new
first name.

I think my previous first name was well chosen by my parents. It was a name
that was more common in the generation before me. That meant everyone knew the
name, I didn't get asked how to spell it and no one looked confused when I
said it, but also I was always the only Y in the room. I have literally never
met another Y my age in my life.

I didn't actually spend a very long time picking a new name. I wanted one that
fitted a few pretty precise criteria and there wasn't many left to choose
from. It has however ended up that my new name is quite common for women my
age. Last weekend I was at a party and there were 3 other Ys out of 20 people.

I've thought about the change from a well known but rare name, to a well known
and common name quite a lot. I have noticed that often trans people go one of
two ways; pick a super common name because they want to fit in with their
peers as much as possible, or they choose a really super unique name as as way
of expressing themselves.

Being called my new name is still relatively new to me (coming up to one year
full time, three part time). I still am alerted a lot more by people saying my
old name than my new one. I wonder if this will ever change as the only time I
hear my old name now is when talking about my past, which means that label is
still exclusively for me. Whereas I hear my new name being used to refer to
loads of different people all the time.

Lots of my friends have said they find it odd to think what name they would
pick if they were to pick one of the opposite gender.

Interesting anyway :-)

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
Another point: I used to be ungoogleable as I shared my full name with a
fairly well known celebrity. I am now at the top of Google's results if I
google my new name. Not quite sure what to make of that...

~~~
squozzer
It wasn't Michael Bolton, was it?

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
No it wasn't! :-)

Michael is a common boy's first name for my generation where I'm from. There
was two in my primary school class, two in my secondary school year and I was
once in a band with two at the same time!

~~~
madcaptenor
My name is Michael. There's always at least one other Michael in any large
enough group of people.

Usually that guy goes by "Mike", though, so I try to insist on being called
"Michael". I honestly don't recognize "Mike" as being my name, which is
confusing when people who want to seem friendly shorten my name.

------
dagenleg
People obsess too much about telling the world how unique they are. I think
that uniqueness only really counts when something stands behind it and does
not work as a thing in itself. That's why having a relatively uncommon foreign
name is a conversation starter - it signifies a difference in background,
upbringing, experiences. At the same time a unique name chosen by the parents
for the sole purpose of being different does not carry much with it, does it
now? "Oh, your name is SpecialSnowflake2005 because you parents wanted to give
you a uniquely identifiable name? That's nice I guess."

~~~
thwarted
_People obsess too much about telling the world how unique they are._

People also obsess too much about telling the world which groups they are a
member of.

~~~
dplgk
Yep - I don't care about the frat or college sticker on the back of a car.

------
cathalkilleen
I experience the opposite. I have the Irish name 'Cathal' which isn't very
well known outside of Ireland. I've spent the past year in the US and every
time I'm introducing myself to someone I hesitate and mentally prepare for the
'wait what?' after I tell them my name.

It's common here for restaurants and cafes to ask for your name when ordering,
and often I'll make up a more common name for myself to avoid the hassle
spelling out and explaining 'Cathal' to the cashier.

Having a unique name does however create an interesting talking point when
talking to a new person, and it seamlessly opens up a discussion about my
background and origins after introducing myself.

~~~
amyjess
I grew up with an extremely rare _last_ name. According to forebears.io, only
156 people in the world have my original last name. It's an obscure variant of
a surname that's only slightly more common (forebears.io tells me that just
over 19k people have it, which is still pretty low), and both are variant
forms of an ethnic slur.

To say it affected me negatively is an understatement. Nobody could spell it
right, and nobody could pronounce it right. It made me feel like a freak
because I was the only person I knew who had to spell their last name when
giving it to people. And they _still_ got it wrong. I've had my name
misspelled on important documents, such as my lease and my electric bill. I
hated the last name I was born with with the fury of a thousand exploding
suns.

Before I accepted that I was both trans and aromantic, I used to fantasize
about getting married to a woman with a common last name like "Smith", taking
my wife's last name, and giving the finger to anyone who tells me that a man
shouldn't take his wife's name.

Of course, I eventually came to accept the fact that a) I'd be much happier as
a woman and really don't want to be a man and b) the idea of getting married
or even being in any kind of romantic relationship actively disgusts me, so
that fantasy went away and was replaced by a newer, more plausible fantasy,
one that I eventually fulfilled: transitioning to female and legally changing
my entire name.

One of the hardest parts of my transition was choosing a new last name. My
first name came easy, and while it took me a while to settle on a middle name,
I was solely concerned with aesthetics for that one. But my new last name had
to be _perfect_. It needed to have no variant spellings or variant
pronunciations, it needed to be monosyllabic, it couldn't give away my
ethnicity (I was sensitive about my old surname being a slur), it needed to be
common, and I needed to like the sound of my initials (my initials were the
only thing I ever liked about my deadname). It took me ages to find one. I
even considered Korean surnames (particularly "Park"), because Korean was a
language isolate (cognates are the biggest sources of variant spellings, and
language isolates have no cognates), all Korean surnames are monosyllabic, and
I liked that it would totally mislead people as to my ethnicity, but I
eventually rejected them. Eventually, I relaxed my definition of "common":
instead of requiring it be common as a last name, I'd also accept names of
common household objects. And then I stumbled on the perfect surname, which
also happened to be the literal English translation of my mother's maiden
name, so I still had some kind of family connection without being obviously
ethnic. While it's not super common as a last name (only 24k people according
to forebears.io), it has an advantage in that it's one of the most common
household objects you can think of: Book. If someone _does_ mishear my name
(and I _have_ had people mishear it as "Brook", "Brooks", or "Buck"), all I
have to say is "it's like the thing you read".

You have no idea how happy I am now that I'm not saddled with that awful last
name I was born with. All those awful feelings went away as soon as I walked
out of the courtroom with the signed court order for my name change. I'm
actually proud of my last name now.

My name is Amy Jessica Book, and I _love_ my name, which was something I was
never able to say before mid-2014.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of my first and middle names: my old and new
first names were roughly as common for my birth year in the US (two places
apart) and both in the top 20, and my new middle name is _much_ more common
than my old one ("Jessica" is the 2nd most common girls' name for my birth
year, and my old middle name didn't even crack the top 200 boys' names). Funny
thing is that my old middle name is technically gender-neutral, but I've only
ever even _heard_ of one woman with that name, and she's a famous actress.
It's also more common as a last name than as a first name, thanks to a certain
astronaut. I like having common first and middle names. I don't want to stand
out, and I like the anonymity that having very common first and middle names
give me. I have to admit that I _did_ consider "Sunset" as my middle name,
because I liked the dichotomy of having a really common first name and an
ultra-rare middle name, but I'm glad I made the choice I did (if only because
AJB looks much nicer than ASB; I can even write the former as a ligature).
"Amy Book" is even ungooglable, since googling it returns a ton of results for
"Amy's book".

~~~
cjslep
I too have a very rare last name. It doesn't even register in forebears.io
(just using the simple search bar).

Having to explain it's "sleep without one 'e'" and instruct people how to
pronounce it every time is something that got annoying, but am used to it now.

On the flip side, it's very easy to pick out relatives in a sea of names.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
I've got a last name with about 900 people on forebears, the problem with mine
though is that there are three groups(maybe families? I'm not sure) who all
pronounce it differently(I happen to be in the least common basket).
Correcting people on the pronounciation has been heavily ingrained in me but
every once in a while I run into someone who is quite certain I'm saying my
name incorrectly. Grar!

Sidenote, how do you say slep?

------
ldd
I like to think that everyone thinks that the grass is greener on the other
side.

In my case, I have never been 'average' or 'normal', and I always envied the
Sarahs and Johns of the world. Then I realized that often 'normal' people
really want to be unique, and those born 'unique' really want to be average.

Besides my mom, nobody really uses my real name - Leonardo - and I am very
vocal to correct everyone to use the more natural "Leo". As for my last name,
which has two parts separated with a space due to how Spanish last names work,
I usually avoid writing the accents and provide only the first one.

All of that doesn't mean that I am ashamed of my name, which I adore. I just
want to assimilate and make other people comfortable. In the words of Abed,
from community:

"When you know who you are and what you like about yourself, changing for
other people isn't such a big deal."

~~~
ikeyany
At least people can pronounce your name.

There are, I'm sure, many brown/Asian HN users reading this thread, cringing
at the days when teachers would do roll call, or on a daily basis annoyed at
introductions taking 5 minutes longer than they would with a "normal" sounding
name.

------
ryandrake
I am eternally grateful that googling my first and last name returns pages and
pages of links _not_ about me.

~~~
zellyn
:-(

    
    
      - Zellyn

------
drewg123
I have a moderately uncommon last name (1400 in the world, according to
forebears.io.)

By having my lastname @gmail.com, I've met lots of people with the same name
who erroneously give out my gmail address as their contact information. At
first this was kind of annoying, but now its become just amusing. I've gotten
people's internet / cell / rv / NRA membership info sent to the address, and
they are normally grateful when I reach out to them to ask them to correct it.

~~~
macNchz
I also have lastname@gmail.com and get a fair amount of email intended for
firstinitial.lastname@gmail.com addresses. Quite amusing sometimes, though
sometimes annoying if it's a reply-all thread whose participants can't figure
out how to remove me from.

Having a very rare/globally unique name makes for a very different experience
of online exposure than most people. If your name is shared by even a few
dozen people, your identity online is at the very least muddled in a bit with
information about other people.

In my case, if you google my name I'm the only non-historical person you'll
find. This has been a pain point in the past with 'real name' policies in
online communities. For people named, say, Alex Smith, having their real name
attached to a post online allows them to remain pseudo-anonymous, whereas my
real name easily reveals much more about me. Mostly I've just embraced it and
just make sure that I control the first page of profiles you find if you
google my name, but it can be annoying.

------
ideonexus
I see our names as unique addresses for our identities and I feel lucky that I
share my name with only one other person in the United States. I want people
to find me when they google my name and not that other person. I enjoy
googling my name and finding nothing but search results referring to myself.

My brother, a choreographer and filmmaker, has the same first+last name as a
lawyer in DC and they compete for search results. In recent years, my brother
has begun branding himself as first+middle+last name to distinguish himself
from that lawyer.

If you are concerned about privacy, then having a common name may provide you
some benefit, but if you are concerned about your own personal brand, then
having a unique first+last name identifier is hugely beneficial.

~~~
le-mark
I like this idea of name as a unique identifier, but it really breaks down
given the limited number of names. For example if there are 1,000 possible
names, then a naming system with first, middle, last would only account for 1
billion people. Certainly there may be more than 1,000 names, one could simply
include the dictionary as possible names which would drastically increase the
pool of addressable names. Or add a fourth name. Etc.

I feel like there's a social network concept here.

~~~
accountyaccount
I think your underestimation is vast.

According to census data in the US alone we're looking at 5,000 unique first
names (at least).

So even if we throw out the fact that there are probably upwards of 100k
unique last names... combining 5,000 first middle and last name variations
puts us in the range of 125 billion unique combinations _in English alone_.

------
amelius
In this day and age of online user tracking, I'd be glad to have an extremely
common name!

~~~
accountyaccount
Yes and no, this also makes it more difficult to stand out when you want to.

I have a few friends with common names: One has to tell people that the first
google result regarding a drug arrest isn't her. Another has to tell people to
not google her name because it's identical to some porn star.

I have a unique name, and I'm aware of this so I only use my real name in
situations where I'd be ok with it showing up on the first page of my google
results. I've gained freelance clients through word of mouth and being easy to
find on Google.

------
Asooka
I wonder how the statistics would be for Eastern Europe. Orthodox Christians
celebrate name days, it's a tradition that even the non-practicing Christians
and atheists usually follow, i.e. the day associated with the saint whose name
you have, or just somehow associated with your name. If you give your child a
unique first name, then they don't have a name day, so it's really uncommon to
give them names outside the list of several hundred traditional ones (might be
even a few thousand, given all variants). On the other hand, last names have
much more variation. I would say at least half of the people I know are
usually called by their last name.

------
le-mark
My first name was a very common male name in my age group. I have a nephew who
at one point had 3 uncles named as me; my other sisters husband, his dads
brother, and myself (my other sister divorced her husband after some years). I
never considered having a common name to be a thing, there are lots of common
names after all, or more specifically, few names and many people.

Nowadays, Sarah is supposedly an uncommon name, we named our daughter Sarah
partly because of this. I didn't realize it was so common previously, I only
ever met a few Sarahs in my life.

~~~
phjesusthatguy3
Now you've done it!

My 11 year old daughter is named Sarah, but we just liked it. Her mother is
Jennifer, and frequently tells me about how ridiculous it was to be named
Jennifer in the 1970s.

------
squozzer
I feel a bit sorry for people whose name is TOO common. My first name is
neither common (e.g. Bob) nor unique (e.g. Attila), so when I hear someone say
it, chances are good that they want to talk to me.

In fact, when I meet someone who shares the same name, I almost always say,
"Hello, me!" and they seem to get the joke.

My first name does have some (humorous) baggage however, which was a bit
damaging psychologically growing up. Said baggage probably contributed to the
name becoming rather unpopular after the mid 1960s.

~~~
fjdlwlv
Sorry, Ringo :-(

~~~
le-mark
Lee? Harvey? Oswald?

~~~
squozzer
I gave a big hint in another comment. FWIW, I'm quite happy my middle name is
not Wayne or Duane.

------
JoeAltmaier
I'm a 'Joe'. Never been a problem. At work there were at most two Joe's - me
an another guy. Curiously, we worked three different jobs at the same time. He
must have thought I was shadowing him.

The only time I even had a Joe issue was, when working another startup with a
Joe, and my son Joseph joined, we all sat in a row in one room. Folks had to
say JoeC, JoeA or Joseph to get the right one!

~~~
jcranmer
From 3rd grade on till graduation of high school, I shared a class with a
Josh. Of course, since I preferred to be Joshua and he preferred to be Josh,
none of our classmates had any problems with keeping us apart. Teachers, on
the other hand... well, it was funny when the French teacher decided to put
the two of us next to each other and the substitute teacher got to us in roll
call.

------
kensai
I really love that Germany keeps a list of preferred given names since 1890.
Ahh, good old days when your kid had the name of a Monarch or, worse, a
Dictator... :D

[http://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/755-beliebte.htm](http://www.beliebte-
vornamen.de/755-beliebte.htm)

~~~
maxxxxx
Germany also has a list of allowed names. There are always some lawsuits
whether it's OK to give a child a certain name or not.

~~~
detaro
> _Germany also has a list of allowed names._

There are guidelines, and it's up to the official registering the name to
decide if they think it is acceptable or not, ask for additional proof, ... –
if they parents disagree with them, it ends up in court, which can override.

There is not an official list of "these are _the_ allowed names", although
"this name has been accepted before" is of course a strong positive signal.

------
nsxwolf
My name wasn't popular in the 70s but became one of the most popular baby
names sometime in the 90s. So I had the effect of not growing up with a common
name, but my name suddenly becoming common in adulthood and suddenly heard a
lot in crowds which is... disconcerting.

------
cphuntington97
Your name says more about your parents than it says about you.

~~~
accountyaccount
Sure, but that's not the point — the question is about how what you're called
impacts the growth of your personal outlook of life.

