My mother loves my name. (As well she should. She picked it out. Or had input on it anyway.) "Tall letter, short letter, tall letter, short letter, tall letter, short letter, tall letter" she always says.
Well it may be an OCD girl's aesthetic dream but it's a nightmare to explain. "Hi, I'm Rebekah." Oh...Rebecca? "No. Rebekah. R-e-b-e-k-a-h." Interesting!
Interesting until you try to buy something personalized. And then it's NOT going to happen. Pair Rebekah with a last name like Freelan, which is always changed to either Freeman or Freeland and it's just a tough life for a kindergartener (through senior in high school).
A few days ago, I was talking to my friend Whitney about names (she has the best names for her kids...I love them!) and she told me about this name website, where you can look up all sorts of popularity stats.
So I just checked it out. If you can believe what you read on the internet, in 2010 there were 787 babies named Rebekah and 2250 named Rebecca. Sigh. We're so underpopulated...we Rebekahs.
In positive news, though, it's been half a dozen years since someone named her son Rebekah, whereas just a couple of years ago, five little boy Rebeccas entered the world. (Seriously??)
After the debacle of my tall letter/short letter name - I vowed with everything not in me to NOT do this to my kids, should I ever have them. I would not give them a name they couldn't find on a personalization kiosk.
So um...Braeya? Well, if you can believe what you read on the internet, and I quote, "No matches were found." Seriously? Since 1880 no one has thought of Braeya??
So if you need a little bit of a time waster this weekend...check out the site and find out all the stats on the popularity of your name. Fascinating info!
3 hours ago
10 comments:
If that site is credible, then there has been a drastic drop in "Kristin" in the past 10 years - from just over 1000, to roughly 250. However the "Kristen" spelling is still more popular.
Growing up everyone was an "Amy" and I hated it so I vowed to give my girls names that were a bit different. I love their names however you can't find them on personalized stuff either :) I'll have to check out how popular their names are sometime.
Amy
Kristin - ahh yes, my fellow "alternate spelling" friend. Are there boy Kristins like there are boy Rebekahs?
Amy - I eventually decided that being unique was better than being unable to find personalized stuff. (Hence...Braeya....) :)
I've always thought that "Kristin" looked prettier than "Kristen." :) I couldn't find personalized stuff, either, but that didn't stop me from looking for an uncommon name for my daughter! And now I need a boy's name, so I'll definitely be checking out this site, and if it's a popular name, it's out! :)
Um, there were TWENTY-SEVEN boys named Jenna in 2004. That's just wrong...
Jenna - I love the name you picked out for baby one - so I can't wait to see what you come up with for baby two. All my boy names are still on the table if you want any of them. :) And they're not very popular. I checked.
oh my word - 27 boy Jennas?????
The site pulls the names from info provided by the Social Security database. I always pray that the boy Jennifers and Rebeccas are foreigners who don't understand which names go with which gender. A friend of mine who had newly immigrated from Korea named her daughter Jinnifer because she couldn't recall how Jennifer was spelled and the nurses said they weren't allowed to give guidance on name spellings.
And if there have never been more than 4 kids with a name in any given year, it comes up with a match not found. So there's a chance there's been a Braeya somewhere in history.
I do think you'd like boys' names better if they were "Little" and "House." I did just remember that I loved the name Gable for a boy but my husband vetoed it. Perhaps I should have another girl and name her Avonlea?
I LOVE the name Avonlea for a girl. Eric and Leslie Ludy named their youngest daughter that, and I thought it was beautiful.
I think I could really like Gable for a boy. too bad it doesn't match my running "Br" theme... I could use it for a middle.
Why in the world did your husband veto Gable? I saw some of his choices! (which I also liked...but I'm just saying....)
My niece is named Robyn Rebekah...for years we would say "Robyn with a y & Rebekah with a kah"...kind of catchy, donchaknow...
Barb - I like that!! I worked with a Robyn in Financial Aid...I really like it spelled that way!
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