Popular names when you went to school

This is very interesting. Names can date you and they can also be linked to class in UK. My mother was named out of her generation, after her mother’s friend, which meant people sometimes thought she was older than she was. She hated it and also thought it was ‘a housemaid’s name’! Her dream was to be called Margaret.

There were five Susan’s in my class, three Elizabeths.
a couple of Helens, a couple of Janes, but only one Sara, for some reason I always thought I’d like to be called Anita, a woman up the road called her baby Anita, and I thought it was a beautiful name.

In my mothers generation I remember her having a circle of similarly aged friends from church called Dorothy, Joan, Audrey, Betty, and Shirley.

MissAdventure

I wanted Marc for my baby, if it it was a boy, but daddy's surname was Hunt.

Not a good idea, given the essex accent.

So so funny, literally snorted my coffee, now choking!

On reading this thread, we all had similar names in our classrooms.
Mine were Susan's, Linda's, Julie's Carol', Christine's, Lesley's, Wendy's, Elizabeth's.
I was at an all girls school, but the lads were called, John's David's, Peter Nicholas, Tony's. Paul', Richards.
I chose names for my 2 children that were uncommon, both were the only ones to carry those names through out their Schooling. They aren't that uncommon now.

Usual sort of names from my era, at school mainly in the '60s. Catherine, Katie, Jane, Mary, Marie. Ann, Susie, Susan, Patsy, Patricia, Theresa, Veronica, Carolyn, Elaine, Bernadette (bound to be Catholic schools)Frances, Angela, Gillian, Bridget, Josephine, Christine, Elizabeth, Diana, Angelina (we had some Italians at our school) I was kind of pleased and annoyed in equal measures that no one had my name, clues, Streisand the most famous of us The boys and girls parted company at 11 but I remember these boys and their names, Noel, John, Christopher, Vincent, Pasquale, couldn't forget that name! David, Andrew, Graham, Kevin, Stephen, Anthony, Bernard. .

Autumncolours

This is very interesting. Names can date you and they can also be linked to class in UK. My mother was named out of her generation, after her mother’s friend, which meant people sometimes thought she was older than she was. She hated it and also thought it was ‘a housemaid’s name’! Her dream was to be called Margaret.

In the whole girls school only two of us had my name, although it was a 1950s name.
The other girl spelt the name phonetically, which my mother said was ‘common’ .🙄

Bernadette, Theresa, Mary, Jane, Catherine,Clare, Paul, Joseph, Vincent, Benedict, Peter, Christopher and a very exotic Theodora!

It was a Catholic school.

Many of these names remain- I have a son in law with one of the more common boys names, but this seems less so with the girl's lists.
My grandson's friendship group includes boys and girls with names that my parents would have considered terribly " old fashioned " - Stanley, Ralph, Elsie...

I've seen my mum's name, my name, and my 2DDs names actually on this thread!

I remember a Bernadette , two Gertrude ,several Mary and Desmond featured amongst the thomases and James

Nell82

Some from school in North East Scotland -

Fiona, Heather, Morag, Isobel, Kirstie, Sheona

Callum, Hamish, Alasdair, Stuart, Archie, Iain

I think it does also depend where you live too when it comes to common names you encounter.
My secondary school in N London was in an Italian/Greek area. We had lots of Marias and Sofias.

I was born in 1957 so my contemporaries were mostly Wendy, Yvonne, Jacqueline, Linda, Christine, Carol, Sally and lots of Susans. When I went to private girls' school at the age of 10 I encountered Christiana, Venetia, Clementine and Miranda.

Boys in our village were mostly Paul, Stephen, David, Kevin, Roger, Peter, Christopher and Nicholas.

My friend was one of 5 Janes in her class. I remember Susan was popular in our year, Pauline, Christine, Evelyn, Marilyn, Pamela.

Boys names were Keith, Ian, Barry, Stephen, Geoffrey, Christopher.

None are heard these days.

Didn’t mention the two ‘Vs’ I had friends called Vivienne and Vanessa.
When I was getting older there were younger children coming up through the ranks called Tracey and Dawn. Also boys called Darryl and Darren.

A few Janices, I've just remembered, along with Karens and Sharons.

MissAdventure

Do you want us to call you Nicola now?
It's never too late to realise a dream, so they say.

I did think of Nicola for a dd, but dh thought there was a risk of her being called Knickerless in future! Though what that says about his wayward teen years I really don’t want to know…

Nicola is still a nice name.
I've never considered knickerless as associated with it.
Unlike "some people"

Linda, Helen, Christine, Susan, Judy, Frances and Fran are those I remember, rather hazy on the boys as it was an all girls school.

In my year at school these were popular names, Caroline, Margaret, Barbara, Jane and Janet.
Boys names, Kenneth, Keith, Brian, John, David, Michael and Geoffrey.

Elizabeth, Bernadette, Mary, Anne

John, Paul, Anthony, Brendan

Thinking of my closest friends over the years.
It would start with Patricia then Judith, Marilyn, Anne, Barbara, Janet and Tina, they were all school/college.

penny,Linda,Anne,Eileen,Margaret
Anthony,Gary,Nigel,John,Phillip

I went to a tiny Grammar School so there were only 20-30 each of girls and boys in the whole year. Nonetheless there were still 4 girls called Linda in our year, 4 Christines in the year above and 4 Susans in the year below. The only recurring boys name was Stephen/Steven. I was always surprised how few Johns we had.

The most unusual name was Lois.