I went to a small high school; I graduated with about 60 kids in my class. We had 4 Jennifer's, 3 Amy's, 4 Jessica's, 2 Rachel's …. I think parents who grew up like that didn't feel they had much way to stand out. They were referred to as Amy D. or Jessica C. so now we see an increase in unique names but I have a feeling when these kids go to school unique names won't be such a big deal because EVERYONE will have a unique name. Soon the next generation will be back to naming their kids Jessica, Jennifer, Amy...

so true

Just from anecdotal experience, I've noticed when writing about schools there are lots of kids with the same non-traditional name, they just spell it differently: Jaden, Jadden, Jadon or Hayley, Haley, Haylee, Haleigh.

I also did a story a few years ago on baby names, and not surprisingly, pop culture was a big influence. At the time, the "Twilight" movies were just starting to take off, so Bella (or Isabella) and Edward were very popular.

my husband and I didn't choose traditional names; we wanted names that were a little unique but recognizable and easy to spell. For example, our youngest is Lincoln, which is not a super common first name but it's a name that everyone is familiar with. If people want a unique name for their children, my opinion is that it would be better to choose a truly unique name rather than taking a fairly normal name and spell it in a way that nobody could ever guess on their own. It is cumbersome enough reminding people about the H in my name (I usually don't even correct people anymore), and I think it would have been a real pain if my parents would have taken it any farther from the original name than they did.

I am going to be neutral about unique names - they can work or not. The thing that drives me crazy are "kreatyv" names - all the spelling changes. Some, like "Madisyn" - aren't so bad. I think it's a silly move, still - it's only going to look different on paper, and on paper, it doesn't look as nice as "Madison," but you didn't throw any language rules out the window. The issue comes with names like, to borrow from another commenter, "Jaden" spelled as "Jadden." I'm sorry parents, but you didn't name your child "jay-den" when you wrote it that way. You named him "jah-den." So when people mix up the spelling to write it "kreatively," but either don't realize or don't care that they've mixed up the pronunciation as well - that just really bugs me! And what is the point of changing the spelling, because you're little boy is still going to be "Jadden B" and his buddy "Jaden M."

We wanted to name our younger daughter after my wife's uncle Mike, but wanted something other than the obvious variants Michele and Makayla. The Italian name Micaela (my wife's family is Italian) looked like a good choice, but we thought that a lot of people would pronounce it like Makayla rather than "mee-kah-eh-la."

So we went with what we thought was the closest phonetic spelling in English: Mikyla. And guess what? A lot of people put in an extra "a" and turn it into "Mikayla" anyway.

Agree Completely

My name is unusual, which I consider to be a big plus. When it came to naming my own son -- Jackson, Jack for short -- we THOUGHT we were choosing something that was traditional yet not ultra-common (in our defense, it's a lot more common in MN than it was where we were living at the time); it was also the only name we could agree on. Fast-forward a few years and there are Jacks and Jacksons swarming the playgrounds. I still like the name, and can't imagine him being anything other than a Jack, but I do regret that he's undoubtedly going to grow up knowing many kids with the same name. That's probably my own hang-up, though, and he may well not care.