Preschool and Younger Names

My kids both share their names with other kids in their grade. One of them has at least 2 others in his grade with his name. I guess I'm not very creative LOL.

It doesn't bother me. I think they are great names, and so why wouldn't other people think so too?

I made it all through HS as the only Abigayle/A. in the entire school, now you can't throw a stick without hitting three of them. My son's name is popular with younger boys, but hS never had more than 1-2 in his school with him (1200 kids). Daughter's name was very unique when she was born, then we moved TX where it's very common. She usually has at least a couple other in her grade if not her class.

My youngest is named Katelynn in her 2nd or 3rd grade class there were 3 of them
Katelynn - mine
Kaitlyn
Catelynn

My oldest has never had anyone with the same name as her's.
LOL reminds me of a funny picture I saw online title was "We've been spelling it wrong this whole time (ERICA)"
its a screen shot of some news footage and the woman's name is AIRWRECKA

As a teacher all I can say is thank all that is good that it is changing!! One year I had 12 kids in my 3rd grade class. Of those, 3 were named Cody!! When I was in college I had 6 ladies named Amy who lived on my floor in the dorm. Number 1 reason why we tried really hard to come up with names that were not popular for our kids. Up until 4th grade I was the only E. I knew. I remember feeling really bummed when a new girl named E. moved in. When there was an Erika a couple of years ahead of me in high school (who was more popular than I was) I harbored a small hatred towards her because she had "my" name.

There were three olivia's in my son's class last year. There are probably about 15 in our school, at a minimum. There are scads of Isabellas and Sophias/Sophies (both my sister's daughters). I refuse to use common names, but I also don't make up names either. Half the names in my children's schools I can't even pronounce, although I love seeing the diversity of it. No one can pronounce my son's name, although it's traditional (just ethnic) and my daughter's name was popular in the 40s but rare now.

There are 4 Sophia's out of 60 first graders at my son's school.
And I had the exact same experience as Erica, with no one else with my name until high school! Then there were three of us at one point, two with a C and me with a K. When we were all in the same class, I responded to K :)
I read something once about trends in sounds, which is so true- for example, K's and J's for boys- Jake, Jason, Jaden, etc and Carson, Caden, Camron, Cole, etc all were popular for a while, now softer sounds are more popular, like N and vowels- Noah, Asher, Owen, Ethan. Sociology is fun.

I know several 3-4 year olds named Sophie/Sophia and Isabel/Isabella. It's definitely still common.

We haven't had three of the same first name yet (though we did have three with the same last name), but my son's first grade did have several double names last year (including two Sophies, two Isabelles and two Lukes).

My son Jacob has always had at least one other Jacob in his class, usually two others. He will be in 5th grade this year and will have 2 other Jacobs in his class next year. That said, the most popular boy names in his school of 900 kids are Ryan, Matthew, Michael, Nicholas, John, William, and Alexander, all with 11-15 kids with the same name. If you combine the 7 Jacobs with the 6 Jakes, you get that name tied for 2nd most popular among the boys in his school. Those 7 top names cover 20% of the boys in this school. By comparison, the top 7 girl names in his school only cover 12% of the girls, so there does seem to be a lot more variety in the girl names, but then again you have spelling variations...so there are 6 Sophias and 5 Sofias, etc.

Anyway, my Jacob is often one of 3 in his class, which usually has 24 kids. As a Jennifer born in the 70's I was aware of the popularity of his name but not daunted by it as I have never disliked having a popular name myself.

My son's preschool class had 3 Katies and 3 Aidens. One of his camp groups (16 kids) had 3 Benjamins. There are at least 3 Nate/Nathans in his grade at school.

My daughter's pre-school does seem to have a Sophia, Olivia, Isabella and Mackenzie (making a comeback in my area?) in all 3 pre-K classes. Two of my good friends named their 3 year olds Isabella in the same year (one goes by Izzy, the other Bella).

For my 7 year old, it was loooots of Avas and Averys in her preschool, and now at her elementary there are like none? Could be because the pre-school was a little more "white" than our neighborhood school. I think that has a lot to do with it. There are at least 4 ethnic groups heavily represented in our neighborhood.

In my job, I get 360 kids on my case load for 2 years (a whole grade level) and I always look at the patterns. The school I work at is mainly white and korean. This current group I have a ton of Julias (13-14 y/o). Last group it was Tylers (now 15-16) including a girl or two. The Koreans have their own naming patterns, I have Josh's, Justins and Brandons every single time. One year I had 2 Justin Lee's and 2 Justin Kim's.

The are in the east. I know several of each name. My DD shares a name with another child. But so far just the two of them.

Yeah, I have four in elementary and there are usually no more than two kids with the same name in a class. My sons name is Kaden which is still pretty common, but has many different spellings.
Uncommon names are more common. My 1st graders bestie is Flor-pronounced flower. Olivia is pretty popular-but I've noticed quite a few Alivias now.
I had an uncommon name amongst all the Saras, melissas, Cindy's, and Heathers in the 80s&90s. I hated it! Now I guess kids don't have to worry so much about their name being "different"

My kids names were both in the top 50, but in a school of 200 kids they were each the only kid with that name.

My son had two Emma's in his class for all of elementary school, and they both also had the same last initial. There were a few Ella's as well.

My son is 26 now but when he started kindergarten there was
Andrew
Andrew
Andy and
Andre
And Drew which was short for Andrew. That was in 1994

I have an Isabelle who is 9, and when she went to public school, there was always at least one other Isabella in her class (always Isabella, though, and never Isabelle or Isabel or Isobel). Sometimes there would be two or more other Isabellas. Ours goes by Izzy, and a lot of times the Isabellas go by Bella, so it was usually fine and not too confusing.

For the record, when we named her that, we knew NO other Isabelle/Isabellas!

ETA: As some others have mentioned, there are TONS of MacKenna/McKenzies. TONS.

The girls names that are most popular around here are : Emma, Elle, Charlotte, Olivia, Sophia, Brooklyn, Ava, Mia and Ella.

Boys: Finn, Aiden, Owen, Graham, Jayden and Noah.

A few yrs back: There were at least 2 Ryans and 2 Caitlins in every class.
Haley and Tyler were popular , too.

I still and will always love Christopher and Carissa the best!

I grew up in a town so small that parents kept track of the names that had been "taken" that year, announced in the local newspaper, so that they wouldn't double up! I was the only Susan/S. in my grade (of 29). But Susan/Sues are everywhere and I hate it!

I purposely chose a name for my daughter that was not in the Top 100 list. She is the only one in her school of several hundred. It's not a made up name, it's a classic English name, just not popular. She gets complimented on her pretty name all the time. (She has 3 Leah's and 3 Maddie's (Madeline/Madelyn), in her grade).

I have a 4 year-old granddaughter named Sophia, though, and it's a lovely name and fits her.

We have 2 of each of the names you mentioned (no the Mary, Barbara ones) in each of the classes in our kids' schools.