Not-so-popular name becomes quite popular

[sayga.livejournal.com]

My name is Sarah and my husband is Daniel, so we've always had our last name's initial stuck on the end of our first name: Daniel P and Sarah M (or P, now that I'm married, though the "Sarah P" format is a school thing more than a real-world thing). In 8th grade, there were 6 Sara(h)s in my science class. That was awful. We wanted to avoid that with our kids.

In 2004, when my husband and I picked the name Kira for our first daughter, it was #284 on the SSA.gov baby name site, and I'd only heard it once before on a real person. Now, my daughter is 8 and in 2nd grade. In her afterschool program, there is another Kira and also a Kyra (pronounced the same). And this week, I was doing catch up work with my Kira, and all the math homework sheets said, "Jason has 6 marbles. Kira gives him 10 more..." and that kind of thing. Over and over, "Kira this" and "Kira that."

It made me realize just how popular the name is now. I am disappointed! One person even guessed that 2004 was when Pirates of the Caribbean came out, starring Keira Knightingley. Yes, that's where we got it too (I felt the "e" was redundant so we chose a different spelling). We should've known better!

Kira would like to not be known as Kira P, and is thinking of going by Kiki next school year; it's similar to her self-given childhood nickname, Kiwi, but not as childish or embarrassing. What do you think? And, have you had a similar experience with not wanting to use a popular name, but you guessed wrong and named your child a name rapidly gaining popularity?

(As an aside on that, in high school, so 1995-1999, I was in LOVE with the name Aiden. We all know how that turned out as far as popularity!)