How have your associations with names affected your choices?

[jerseygrits.livejournal.com]

How much have your name preferences been influenced by specific people you've known and your associations with them?

The name Carly used to be at the top of my list when I was younger (around 12-14 years old), and it was largely because of a girl I went to school with named Carly who I thought was really pretty and cool. (It hasn't been on my list for a while, however.) The name at the top of my list now is the name of a girl my ex-boyfriend used to be interested in before we were dating. For a while, I thought I would never be able to use it because she always came to mind when I started thinking about the name and it just bugged me, but at some point after the relationship was history, that ceased to be an issue.

What are your personal experiences with this? What names are you either considering or ruling out because of people you've known? Have you added any names to your list that are outside of your normal taste because of people you've known and liked? Have you overcome any negative associations to keep a name on your list?

I was going to ask another question in a different post, but it's somewhat related, so I guess I'll pose it now as well: Regardless of a negative or positive association with the specific person, how far-removed do you have to be from someone who has a name you want to use to not feel like you are "stealing" the name, or just to avoid your kid being "one of the [whoevers]".

I prefer recognizable but rarely used names, and ideally, my child would be the only one with that name that people have met (my boyfriend joked last night that I won't use a name "if more than four people in the world have it." :p ), so this will be a consideration for me when I actually do start having kids.

A married couple who are basically acquaintances of mine have a daughter with another name that's near the top of my list right now. The fact that they'd used it was actually one of the reasons I started to seriously consider it. But they live across the country from where I am now, and in all likelihood I won't see them again in my life more than a few times at the most. I've never heard the name on anyone else (except for a character in a book), and it's not in the top 1,000. So I feel like I'm pretty safe there.

But what if it's your cousin's kid who has the name? What if it's your neighbor's kid? When does the association become too close for you to use a name, and when is it far enough away that you feel you can? For those of you who have already named children, what are your specific experiences with making these decisions?

That's a lot of questions! I look forward to reading your answers. :)