Having sat down and thought about it, the most common girls names (occuring more than three times in one year in one school) in my school years were: Rachel, Jennifer, Aishia, Kelly, Gemma, Catherine (or Kathryn, Catrin etc) and Sunita. The most common boys names were Benjamin, David, Paul (or John-Paul of course) Jamain, Karl, Darren and Ashley. The current fashions amongst my friends and relatives having babies seems to be old 'granddad' names like Jake, Alfie or Sam for the boys and old, generally flower based names for the girls: Lily, Rose or Grace. I suppose these things must come in cycles. Old fashioned names lose the negative connotations they must have once had and become neutral again. Maybe it's just where I'm from in ever class conscious England but names bring up different images and different expectations, no matter how many times those prejudices are shattered (rightly) by meeting people first hand
