in my family, names, and naming conventions are well established. My mother named Nora Veronica, was known as Vera all her life -- Many do not know her legal name is Nora.
her brother was supposed to be Thomas, but at babtism, the godmother said Timothy, and so he was...
With so many hurt feeling in her generation about who got named after who, she decided not one of her children would be named after someone else, and there would be no nick names.
so my siblings are Deirde, Geraldine, Stephen and Margaret, not Dee, or Gerry, or Steve or Peggy.
i followed the same convention, and looked for uncommon names. Benjamin was somewhat successful, Emily less so. my siblings did too, and we have "new names" (unlike many cousins, at a family reunion, calling for Mike, Dennis, and Billy would have resulted in 60% of the males present!)
Most Emily's are 5 to 7 years younger than my daughter is, Emily as a name reaching its peak of popularity (US)in the early 80's.
my name is wonderful-- easy to spell, and everyone thinks its "common" but, actually Helen's are quite rare in the US. Unfortunately, Helen reached peak popularity in 1948, (the only year it made it on to the top 100 names..and then just barely) So i am sometimes thought to be older than i am!
