My name could never be confused with a male, so imagine my surprise when I moved to AZ and the DMV required me to hand over the MA license I’d had for ten years. How could I not have noticed in all that time that my license showed me as “M” instead of “F”? I was glad that the AZ DMV did not require any proof for the correction on the new license.
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Surprised they didn’t ask for medical record. LOL
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My name is a standard late fifties name too. But my pronunciation is only used by about ten percent of us ( the BEST ones 
). My H’s name is perennial top ten. Both of our kids have fairly common first names, though D’s is less so and definitely from her generation. It was my favorite name since I was sixteen. Their middle names are from my family since they have dad’s last name. Grandkids both have Irish first names. GD pretty common, GS less so and continually misspelled and/or mispronounced. Beautiful name though.
Our son married a woman whose name was what I’d chosen had DS been female. Guess how much more I love our DIL (and calling her by her full name)?
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My niece just had a baby boy that they named Chester! Even though they’re going to call him Ches, it’s still weird to me. I guess it’s a family name on her husband’s side. At least there won’t be any other Chesters in his class…
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We reuse family names frequently.
My daughter is named after her great, great grandmother who died in the 1930’s. She has two living cousins with the exact name. In our family third and fourth cousins are considered cousins, not just first cousins. Similar names give the relatives a common family connection; it’s fun to see them meet each other at weddings and funerals and laugh over their shared first and middle names.
We also use family surnames as given names, and some are used by both sexes. I go by my middle name which was my great grandfather’s middle name. We joke that we aren’t allowed to name children randomly since there are plenty of forebears’ names available.
Some do complain about it, especially genealogists and scholars. One student wrote in a dissertation about a cousin that “this family is difficult to research as they use the same names over and over.”
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Both of my parents have names that seem to be short for something else and aren’t. They also don’t have middle names. Perhaps they feel like they were ripped off because my siblings and I have very long, but classic, names that they never wanted shortened.
My name has been a popular classic for centuries. I don’t love it, it just is what it is. I’ve never really identified with it. My parents were against nicknames and always called me by my full name. I completely rebelled and only used the common short form of it (there are about 20 different nicknames). Now when my parents call me by my nickname when I’m around my friends it just sounds wrong and when my husband calls me by my full name I know he’s frustrated with me. My friends think it’s adorable when he calls me by the “y” version of my nickname. (I kind of do, too).
My MIL died when DH was very young so I never met her. We have the same first name, but she went by a much less common nickname and no one ever called her by her full name. Once I got married, we technically had the same legal name. When we went to a family funeral and I saw her grave, it was a very weird feeling to see MY name on a gravestone.
The name I originally picked for our daughter has an American and a French spelling. I only liked the French spelling so we decided to use another name as I didn’t want her to have to correct people her whole life. We eventually settled on a very common name because everyone reacted so poorly to all of our other choices and because all of our friends were having babies and we didn’t want to repeat names. It’s a nice name, but every time we look at her we think one of the names we didn’t use because a friend had just used it fits her so much better. We often say, “she’s such a XXX” She likes her name.
My husband wanted to use his mother’s name as a middle name (remember… it’s also my name) for our daughter. This caused a complete uproar in my family as traditionally you can’t name after someone that is living. My husband still laughs at my response to my mother. “Dead mother trumps religious folklore”. In the end, we went with another middle name because her name would have ended up being the same as a character in a popular children’s book. (Even funnier because we have a pet that very much resembles the main character of those books).
The name we picked for our son wasn’t at all common when we picked it and then became one of the most popular names. There are also many similar sounding names and my son ended up on a sports team with 5 kids with rhyming names. It was like a comedy skit. There are also multiple ways to spell his name, but the two most popular are like 50/50. I much preferred the one we use, but somehow it’s ALWAYS spelled wrong. He’s won many awards and has been in many newspaper articles, but his name was always spelled the other way. When I google him, I often have to use the other spelling to find what I want.
Luckily, our last name is very uncommon, but easy to pronounce and spell. I grew up with a last name that is not common, but yet very common in certain areas of the country. I had a graduating class of 365 and was one of five with the same last name. I also had 4 live on our (very large, suburban-sprawl) block and only 1 of those was a repeat of those I graduated with. Teachers were constantly asking me "which XXX are you? ".
Both Mr Groundhog and I have very common 70s names. Both of our kids have pretty common names too, although D’s is more her nickname than full name. I put sooo much thought into naming our kids. S’s name follows a somewhat tradition in my family of having his first and middle initial be the flip of his dad’s. I won’t go into other cool things about our names since it might give too much away.
My maiden name is very common in Louisiana but very uncommon in the PNW (and most everywhere else) where I grew up. It’s second nature to me to have to pronounce it and spell it constantly. I’m so accustomed to it that I still instinctively do it with my married name which is as common as Jones or Smith. My first name is commonly spelled with a C of course mine is K, my mom wanted me to have to always correct my first name as well. 
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I wish more of you would divulge the names you are alluding to in your posts 
I’m curious - I love hearing people’s names and the stories behind them.
Mine is uninspiring with no backstory whatsoever - I am one of the “Jennifers”. To some I am “Jenn”, to my family, I am “Jenny”
Like the song, “27 Jennifers”:
I went to school with 27 Jennifers
16 Jenns, 10 Jennies and then there was her
Yeah, it? s the sweet shine of
Yeah, force of divine love
The blessed arrival of you
You might be the one that I’ve been seeking for
You might be the strange delightful
You might be the girly who shall end all girls
You might be the sweet unspiteful
I rode the bus with 27 Jennifers
15 Jenns, 10 Jennies disapproved of her
Get from my sight, man
Gladness is a blight, and
The happiness stinks up the room
You might be the one that I’ve been seeking for
You might be the strange delightful
You might be the girly who shall end all girls
You might be the sweet unspiteful
You might be the one that I’ve been seeking for
You might be the strange delightful
You might be the girly who shall end all girls
You might be the sweet unspiteful
27 Jennifers
27 Jennifers
My kids are Madison (always known as Maddie) and Emily. They have their grandmothers’ names as middle names.
We’ve lived in the south for most of my kids’ lives and I’ve noticed a trend here to give family last names as first names. Sometimes it suits, sometimes it doesn’t (like when a cumbersome, masculine last name is bestowed on a girl) but at least it does ensure more of a likelihood of being one of a kind. There were always multiple “Jennifers” in my classes. I thought there would be many “Emilys”, as it was very popular in the early 2000’s, but there were maybe 3 Emilys total in her elementary grade.
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My first name was a spin on my mother’s middle and first names that’s more commonly found in Europe. It’s not overly common over there, but not unheard of, but the exact spelling of mine is rare (mine is hyphenated). I remember being so excited in college when I went to a street fair in Europe where plaques with name meanings were being sold, as it was the first time in my life I had ever found my name in any form.
My maiden name is also hyphenated, so I was First-Name Last-Name (my parents took some pity on me and did not give me a middle name). In college there was a guy who also loved Austen who had a hyphenated last name. My friends and I joked that I should marry him and hyphenate my maiden name with my new married name to be First-Name Maiden-Name-Married-Name and have four hyphens in my name. But, I ended up marrying someone with a nonhyphenated last name which is infinitely easier to find in a system.
Spouse (and the kid) have the same name, which is a name that everyone knows how to pronuonce and spell. It seems so common that it’s actually not that common, certainly not for the kid’s peer group. It’s also a common nickname of a traditionally popular name that also doesn’t get used much anymore.
It can be fun asking people who aren’t from the state to pronounce very common names. And just imagine teachers who move to the state from elsewhere!
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Sorry…if I posted my name, and my kids’ names, this would take the confidential out of CC.
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I’m one of the many Kims in my age group. There were five of us in my high school Spanish class. So I tried hard not to give my kids names that would be too popular in their age group.
We gave our son a traditional Anglo-Euro name that had fallen out of popularity by 1995. And this year it was in the top 5 for babies in our state. Oh well.
We gave our daughter an uncommon but easily spelled and pronounced name, found in baby name books, and though we can find others with that name online, we haven’t met any in person.
My name is Karen. Suddenly, a couple of years ago, it became a derogatory term used to describe entitled, unkind women. The media seemed (to me!) to use the term gleefully! Guess they thought they were “cool.” I think the use of this is actually a micro aggression. I live a quiet life and try to ignore thoughtless people.
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Unless you’re a “Jennifer” - over a million of us (and apparently, support groups for those with identity crisis’s). If I Goggle my name and my 2 daughters’ names - only celebrities come up. But maybe I am Jennifer Lopez and my daughters are Maddie Zeigler and Emily Ratajkowski 
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Terry (I’m female), and not short for another name.
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Hints:
- Doubting _________
- Peeping _________
- ______, ______, the piper’s son
- _________ Thumb
Oh how I wish there had, at some point, been a __________ the Great, but alas, this is the popular baggage I was born into. As if the above weren’t bad enough, I am also a male turkey.
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Wait. You don’t believe my given name is Abasket?!
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We found that with the boarding school crowd, middle names were family names. We noticed my kid was one of the only kid with two “first names”, while most kids had a 'last" name as a middle name.
He also went to school with 3 Cannons! It’s not a (first) name I have heard anywhere else.
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My married surname is common in its country of origin, but both the spelling and pronunciation in English can vary. My mother was always oddly proud of her “exotic” SIL (who grew up in the midwest and speaks un-accented English as his primary language). One day, she told me a story from her day, volunteering at her local hospital. A woman with the same surname arrived at the ER in labor, and Mom was tasked with transporting her to Labor & Delivery. She proudly recounted to me how she had enlightened this woman about how she was pronouncing her own name wrong. 
I always wonder whether this poor woman still tells this story, too.
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