Today’s guest blogger Kristen, aka Swistle, confronts the question of popular baby names–and explains why it’s okay to use them.

More common than the name is this naming concern heard from parents: “We don’t want her to be one of five  in every class.”

We know they don’t need to worry about that: even the name Jennifer, with its impressive peak usage of 4 out of every 100 girls, didn’t achieve such a feat—and today’s #1 name can’t compete at just over 1 girl in 100.

But another issue is this: Does it make sense to avoid names just because they’re common? Sure, if there really were five children with the same name per classroom, but what if there aren’t? It depends on our naming goals, but here are some reasons we might want to use a common name:

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