What Adrienne Thinks About That

You naughty girl!Did you really just want the most common name?The Rocky thing wasn't my fault.Glad you are writing another book:)

Well, "Franki" doesn't even show up in the girl names and "Frances" my "real" name is in the 800s. Never had a surge like Adrienne did! A fun site--thanks for sharing:-)

Lesse... in 1982 when I was born, Abigail was the 158th most popular name (between Cheryl at 159 and Tasha at 157). It's been steadily increasing in popularity and hit number 4 in 2004, but last year (2007) it was down to number 8.

Olivia stands at #7 now. When I was born in 1976, my name was #196. It's been steadily rising in popularity and its best year was 2005, when it hit #5 on the list.

And contrary to belief, I was *not* named after Olivia Newton John. I was named after Olivia de Havilland, who surprisingly, is still alive at age 92!

Boy, that was a very interesting website,I put in Brian and his name came up for every year since, guess it's still used a lot, and so is Donald.As for Linda,forget it,it wasn't in the top 1000 for very many years, oh well, that's life.But my granchildren, Eli and Sadie are both in the 100's for the past 4 years, not bad.....I like checking out things like that,thanks.

#1 from 1970-1984 and steadily declining after that, although still in the mid-60s (interesting since I haven't met a Jennifer under 20 since I was under 20).

I echo momster's point that you don't necessarily want the most popular name. I doubt there were 5+ Adriennes in all of your classes until college.

my name was in 9th in 1981 when I was born and has floated between 9th and 11th since then. it's not very exciting.

One of the reasons I love the name "Peter" is that there aren't many of us around (in my age group, at least), but yet everyone knows how to spell it. :-)

If you'd like to see a snazzy visual representation of the baby name data, I recommend NameVoyager.

I didn't mean to imply that I had any kind of problem with my name. Just reporting facts. :) It's always kind of exciting to meet another "Adrienne," because it only happens to me once every few years, and one of my favorite things about Facebook is that it put me in touch with the one other "Adrienne Furness" in the world (whose birthday is also in December--really, what are the odds?).

Momster, "Michele" with one l didn't even appear on the list in some years! "Michelle" with two l's is, however, a steady performer.

Hello! I just came across your blog and love it. I, too, am a children's librarian (on hiatus though) and have NO public libraries where we are living (gasp!). Don't worry though, we were fortunate enough to join (for a small fee) a school library here (with childrens and adult books) although we can only take out 2 books a week per person (gasp!). Anway, hello! Nice to meet you and I will be back.

p.s. I love all things related to names. always very interesting to me.

My actual name is Theresa and was quite en vogue when I was born many, many years ago - #38 in fact! Alas, it's popularity has plummeted to #769. Only a few people call me Theresa - notably my mother particularly when I'm in trouble. :)

My name, Catherine (spelled the RIGHT way) in 2007 was ranked 143 while Katherine ranked 39. Bleh.

My husband, Jeffrey, ranked 190, but if he spelled it Jeffery 484.

My son, Jack, ranked 38, and no his name isn't short for anything.

My daughter, In Utero (!) can be spelled many different ways:

Leila 249

Lila 259

Lilah 572

I want Lila, but my husband insists on Leila. He thinks that looks prettier, but my great-grandmother's name was Lila. (BTW, her middle name will be Jane.

And guess who I see with my little eyes? Tammy! Yippee!

Whew, so many "a" sounds in the top girl names right now. Everyone always thinks I'm saying "Ava," too, when I say Ada, my youngest's name. Ergh. It's becoming a pet peeve of mine. And that's 'cause I tried so hard not to pick a trendy name.

Anyway, gripe. (Sorry.)

My name was hugely popular when I was born -- I was born with all those Michelles (my middle name, incidentally) and Heathers and Stephanies and Tinas of the early '70s. I asked my mom about my name once, where it came from. She said she was watching Mod Squad and thought Julie was a good name. So that long-haired hippy is my namesake. And I was hoping for a story with some great history dripping off it. Ah well. It could be worse.

Adrienne is all the more lovely for being a bit out of fashion now, don't you think? It'd be hard to be a, say, Caitlin right now in America. Or a Madison.

P.S. to Bri's mom: I love the name "Sadie." Beautiful. And, Franki, I've always LOVED the name Frances and the nickname Franki. Or even Franny ('cause of Salinger's Franny & Zooey). You rock it.

Happy novel writing!
Our transatlantic writing group has a member in the Rocky Mountain time zone, one in Central, two in Pacific, and one in the UK. Let me know if you'd like to hear more if/when you're ready for readers/critique.

Cheryl, Glad to have you visit! :)

Terri, Do you still get in trouble? You have to bring your mother in to meet all of us one of these days when she's visiting you....

Cathy, I like "Lila," but she'll be awesome no matter how her name is spelled. :)

Jules, The Permutations of Caitlin/Katelyn/Kaitlyn/Catelyn/Katelynn/Catelynn/etc.

TadMack, We were commenting at the same time. :) I may just take you up on that. I need to straighten out some things first, though--such as that I've written a lot of dialog and need a little more stuff in between some of the dialog in some spots. This is another way of saying I need to get a little more brave before I let others see what I've been working on. ;) You know.

Farida is not in the top 1000 female names for any year of birth in the last 100 years.
Please enter another name.

Pooh.

Both my first and middle name were the two most popular names the year I was born. No wonder there's so many of us. I guess that's why I've spent most of my life trying to be different :). And my mother thought she was being creative. At least she had specific reasons for naming me as she did.
If I have any more kids, I'm going to make sure their names are not in the top 100.

That website is awesome, by the way, as is the name voyager one.

Farida and Jason, I think you both have lovely names. :)