As someone who has to spell out her first and last name every time I give it, ie. making a reservation over the phone, I’d love a name like Jane Smith. Simple, no spelling problems. Would not want Jayne Smythe, either.
My grandmother’s name was Adelaide, and she forbid any of us grandkids from naming our children after her. She said she always hated her name and did not wish to punish anyone else with it! She really felt strongly about it, She also disliked the nickname Addie even more, so she was really stuck I guess.
As it turns out I did not have any girls anyway, but we still wanted to pay tribute to her somehow with our 3rd and last child. My grandmother had done a family tree way back to the mother country and we picked the name of one of her (relatively recent,early 1800s, I think) ancestors instead.
None of our kids has a terribly common name (not on the top 25 for year of birth at any rate). One is pretty classic but falls in and out of favor; one is mentioned above and can be a first name or a last name, and the last is perhaps the most uncommon; there might be another one in the grade, or maybe just in the school. All are spelled tradtionally.
My name on the other hand is a classic spelling but unpopular enough that most people spell it wrong anyway.
Funny – I have a friend who just named her new baby Margaret, with nickname Peggy. She is hip Hollywood writer, so I assume it is on its way back in style.
I wanted a relatively unusual name for my daughter, so I selected a beautiful and classic name that wasn’t used much. I has a lot people questioning my choice of such an unusual name. Then, ten tears later, it skyrocketed to the top of the popularity charts. It really bummed me out that it became so popular. At least it will be a younger sounding name when she’s middle-aged.
I know more than a few mothers in my age range that had children the years that I did. Some of them also thought they had chosen unique names, but the school children told another story …countless identical unique names.
My daughter and I joked about some names that she saw frequently when she was substitute teaching kindergartners …and we knew who watched popular TV shows. Sex in the city seemed pretty popular, based on all of the Aidens 
We didn’t know our DD, now a young adult, would have significant learning issues when we picked her name.
There were several contenders that were longer and some with unusual spellings. She probably wouldn’t have been able to reliably write her name until age 10.
We are grateful that somehow we got a hint that shorter would be better and its worked out pretty well.
The only problem is when some office worker insists her legal name should be ‘Elizabeth’ when ‘Beth’ really IS her legal name. She used to kind of go along until she learned better self advocacy!
I gave both S & D very classic traditional names, but both have gone by nicknames almost since birth. They could always choose to use their formal names or other nicknames if they chose, but so far they haven’t.
Names are fascinating to me so I look love reading the popular name lists. The girls names that are popular now are very pretty, but I find most of the boy’s names are dreadful.
Names which resemble insulting words in any language may not be good names.
I assume that most people know that the Social Security Administration makes available detailed stats on first names:
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/babynames/
My favorite tool is this one, which allows you to chart the popularity of a name over the last century (so long as the name is in the top 1000):
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/#ht=2
Edited to fix the link and to add: Scroll all the way down and select “1900 and after” from the date drop-down menu.
My kids names couldn’t be made into nicknames. I thought my son’s name was off the beaten track, and for his year it is, but a year or two later it became very popular.
My bil’s name is something along the lines of john st john. He’s always hated it and people always snicker when they hear it.
Now I love old fashioned sounding names. My husbands grandmothers name was Isabelle, which is so pretty, but she disliked it so much she always went by a very bizarre nick name for a woman.
I dislike names that sound common but are spelled oddly and not often phonetically. I also dislike cutesy names. I know a set of twins- Cleo and Cloe. The mom even admitted that she didn’t know what she was thinking. And I do like the names Cleo and Chloe (spelled that way). My mom’s name was Cleo; but I didn’t name my girls after her.
What was the bizarre nickname for Isabelle that your husband’s grandmother went by?
When we picked names we avoided those that could be shortened to nicknames. We didn’t name our son after my DH because we didn’t want him to be saddled with “Junior” or a child’s nickname as an adult (like Davey or Billy instead of David or William to avoid family confusion). We avoided girl names that may be cute at 5 but are less so at 30. And I made sure the initials wouldn’t spell out anything goofy. We avoided names on the 10 most popular names’ lists (not only for the year they were born but several years before).
Names I like: family names that honor previous generations, names whose meanings mean something to the parents, names that will wear well for a variety of careers, and gender neutral names for girls.
S1’s gf is pregnant. They jokingly refer to the baby as LeBron because son really likes LeBron James. They better not name him that if it’s a boy!
I like names with nickname choices, so your child isn’t stuck with the name you picked if they don’t like it. I sort of like Christina because of all the nicknames possible, Chris, Chrissy, Christy, Tina. S2 had long ago told me he like the name Brooklyn, I never knew if he meant one name or two, Brooke Lynn. When I asked S1’s gf what name she liked she said Brooklyn! I laughed and told her that S2 already had dibs on it. I bet she had thought he was joking when he told her that was his choice. He said it’s ok, he thinks he like Bailey as a name now. (he is still in college, no baby plans anytimes soon!–not that S1 had planned for it either…)
I do think you should name the non-nickname version so you don’t have pizzagirl’s problem. For example, Catherine sounds more professional and grown up than Cathy (imo) so I wouldn’t same a girl Cathy, I’d name her Catherine so she could use which name she liked. These days I go by the nickname version of my name, but until 6th grade my parents called me the full name. In 6th grade I told them I would only answer to the nickname and have used it until this very day.
Interesting that Cathy sounds like a little girl to you; to me it sounds middle-aged, probably because the popular nicknames for Catherine/ Katherine have been Kate and Katie for quite a while now. But I agree with your basic point.
I don’t like names with “alternative” spellings. We gave the kids names that couldn’t be shortened into nick names. My favorite “girl” name is Lydia…both H’s and my families had Lydia back a generation.
@nottelling - it wasn’t short for isabelle - she went by Dick. And I can’t wait to see if it gets past the censors.
FWIW, my name is one of those that’s been mentioned as a nickname on this page. It has not be a detriment to my career, etc
We went with classic first and middle names for our boys. I have since done the family genealogy and somewhat wish I had given them an older and more unique family name as a middle name.
My great-grandmother had a name that I absolutely adore. However, she was a downright evil woman. Pretty sure my mother would kill me if I used it. Oh well.
I don’t think anyone is saying that it would be a detriment to anyone’s career to have a nickname as his/ her full given name; It is just a matter of preference. That’s what is so interesting about names; they are purely a matter of taste and preference, and, unlike most other taste markers, all names are equally accessible to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status.