Back in 2006 when Peter and I first got married and had our whole lives perfectly planned out, we decided we would name a baby boy Maximilian and a baby girl Samantha. Perfect names for our future babies!
Unfortunately, both of those names (especially Max) became too popular in the past five years, so I’ve taken both of them off the table.
Peter is still pulling for Max, and only refers to the baby as Max, but I hate the idea of a trendy name. We could have pulled it off four years ago, but now it would just be crazy to use the name Max. Right?
We have four friends with children named Max, all under the age of four. Charlie Sheen, Gilbert Gottfried, Christina Aguilera, J-Lo, Lance Armstrong, and Jessica Simpson all have young children named Max. The name has risen in popularity every year since 1995.
What do you think? Max should definitely be off the table, right? Suggestions, please!
the sommerkorns 
It’s hard when you like a name that is popular and Max is really cute. I tend to pick names that were popular a few decades ago but aren’t as popular today. But again, Max is really cute and I don’t know anyone named Max:) Good luck! Picking a name can be fun but frustrating!
I haven’t heard Max for a few years….and I just came from the ward of babies….where there was at least 1 baby born each week if not more. We used the name James and then so did two other people in our ward a few weeks later. Use the names you like. Changes are there is going to be someone with the same name. My nephew met a little boy at the park with his same name so he told us he called him a different name. (His name is Carson – he called he other little boy Dave.). So funny. Anyway if you love Max go with Max. That’s my opinion.
That’s hard. I’d say try to find a name you like as much and if you don’t, it can be your default. Having a popular name isn’t too bad (Liz is a pretty popular name and still wonderful).
I think you really just have to search your souls and know if it will bother you that it’s so popular. Will it always bug you or will you be glad you used it?
With Autumn, we used my middle name “Rose”, since I wanted to use it and didn’t know if we would have another girl. But I was not loving that it’s two nouns in a row and that it sounds like a romance novelist / hippie. I thought I’d get over it and learn to love it but it has continually bothered me so we are now going to legally change her MIDDLE name to Elizabeth (Autumn Elizabeth sounds much better) and use Rose for baby girl #3. I tell you this story because it always bothered me, even though I thought I would get use to it. Just make sure it’s the popularity will not always bother you in the future as well. With that said, I love the name and think popular name are fine.
I love the name but am not into trendy/popular names. I cringe every time I hear someone tell me they know someone that named a baby Hazel. When she was born, I didn’t know of a single one. I still haven’t met anyone, so I’m hoping everyone that tells me they know a girl named that is talking about the same one. 🙂 I would say it’s not overly used, but it might be close. For a while it seemed like there were as many Max’s as Jack’s (is that even proper grammar??). I still hear of it, but it seems to have died down a bit. If you love it and don’t care if there might be a few Max’s around, use it. After all, it’s a pretty awesome name.
PS Naming a child is the hardest part about parenthood. JK. Maybe.
I agree with the previous comment, choosing a name is not easy! If you and Peter have already agreed on a name though, that’s the hardest part! I haven’t heard the name Max for a while and absolutely LOVE it!
I don’t know any baby Maxes either. And by the way how do you spell that? Maxs? Maxes? Max’s? Next year you’ll move again and maybe there won’t be so many Maxes around. And I have no suggestions because we can’t think of any boy names for our baby either….
You know I have another excellent M name just waiting for you if Max is off the table. 🙂 Seriously though, how many emails were exchanged on behalf of my child? Ping me anytime.
I say who cares if its too popular. If you both like it and the only thing holding you back if the fact that it is high up on the baby name lists then just go for it. Why try to compromise on another name just because the one you both always liked is “too popular”. I say name him Max. 🙂
Picking a non-trendy name is also pretty trendy. And here’s a fact – kids are happiest with popular names. My kid with the most common name – Nick – loves his name, even though there’s about 10 Nicks in his graduating class. Jacob’s also pretty pleased to be Jake. Harry’s still wondering what the heck we were thinking when we chose to curse him with “Harrison”, and Marianne has realized the only other people with her name are cashiers over 60.
My current fav boy name is William. Distinguished, not made-up, and has what every boy name should have – a “guy” nickname – what’s more manly than “Will”?