My daughter is Evangeline Autumn... Wouldn't expect many of those, eh? Guess again! I googled it after she was born, quite a few. Also annoying are the constant "is she named after Evangeline Lilly?" or "Like The Princess and the Frog?" When I tell them we picked it because of the Longfellow poem, I get blank stares...

Isn't it ridiculous?!?!
We named our daughter "London". Thought it was unique...until I brought her home from the hospital and heard it everywhere.
Apparently, a character on some lame show on the Disney channel is named London.
Peachy.

I know how frustrating it is to have YOUR kids' names suddenly everywhere. I swear, when my older son was born I'd never met another Owen in my LIFE, but suddenly there are Owens everywhere. ARGH! I made sure to check popularity for my second son's names, and ask the people of Yahoo Answers for their opinions while I was pregnant. Everyone hated Sidney Ellis and said it was for old men, so I took that to be a good sign. So far, so good; no other Sidney Ellises out there....

My husband and I have lists of our top 10 boys/girls names for when we (hopefully soon!) start having kids. I HATE when I read a favorite blogger of mine has named their new baby something on MY list. I usually just suck it up and keep the name on the list though, because I know no matter what my kid won't be the only Gideon or Vega on the block :) ps- your kids' names rock!!!! I took Latin for 10 years, and the boys names were always so beautiful and distinguished. Jules is an especially awesome name. So beautiful.

I was born in 1991 and my parents chose to name me Jolene after the Dolly Parton song. I've always hated my name and still am not a HUGE fan of it.

Hey, I have the Jules chair. It rocks :) Face it, G, you're a popular gal! What's that saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery??"

I had my daughter, Lark, via home waterbirth... Yeah, Jennifer Connlley just had a home waterbirth and named her daughter Agnes LARK. I feel like such a trend setter!

You've been tapped into!! Seriously, this same thing happened with my sister in law and Pottery Barn Kids. She had her son, Hudson, ordered a monogrammed blanket, six months later, there was the "Hudson" collection. Then she had daughter #1, Larkin. Same thing happened. We all laughed. Then she had Daughter #2 - Miller. You guessed it. The kicker here is that they changed MIller's name to Brooke when she was 6 months old. Then the "Brooke" collection came out!!! Daughter #3 is now 18 months old, and so far, there is no collection named after her! Seriously, 3 out of four kids, within six months, and TWICE with the one child's name. It was freaky.

It happens to us EVERY SINGLE TIME we name a child. We purposely pick names that aren't very popular, but once we have the kid, suddenly it's everywhere.

Right now, I think your choices have become more popular, but still not over-used. Let's hope it stays that way. That way, they can be cooly familiar without having 3 other kids with that same name in class.

FTR, when I told one elderly man on base my girls' names when they were babies, he was shocked and said, "Lily was my wife's mother's name. I haven't heard anyone with that name in 50 years." Sure enough, my Lily was one of THREE in Hebrew school. GAH!

I think the name Jolene has actually been on the rise since The White Stripes covered Jolene a couple years back. Its a beautiful name and song - who could blame you!

Those may be the only pieces of Ikea furniture that I can pronounce.
I am Melissa (as in Greg Allman's guitar). My folks felt the same name fury when I entered Kindergarten with three other Melissa's. They have always called me Missy and by seventh grade I was fed up with being Missy Mo or Missy with the boobs that I changed the spelling to Myssie.

With my first, I was going to choose Violet until the Afflecks *stole* it ;) So we went with Lilah and then suddenly there's the song "Hey there, Delilah" and Lilah starts trending.

My uncle's family basically anticipated every major name trend by about 1-3 years. I've always joked that if you want an unusual name you should ask my uncle and if he likes it, then move along because it will be huge in a year or so.

i was so excited when i named my first son jaden...then britney spears named her son jaden and ruined it...

Now now, I was born north of the Mason-Dixon after 1979! I was the only Jolene I ever knew of until I was about 20.

Sometimes being cool has it's price. People want to be just like ya ;)

I was actually quite happy to see Kendall's name in a Pottery Barn Kids catalog last year IN A BOYS ROOM, since it seems some people are convinced I named my kid a girl's name in an effort to be cruel.

And you would think Jill and Scott would both be pretty common names, but I'm telling you, I only met one other Jill and maybe 2 Scott's my age my whole life... until I became a blogger. Now I feel like every other blogger's name is Jill or Jillian and I SERIOUSLY know 6 "close" bloggy friends with Scotts for husbands.

Ikea's got me, too. My son's name is Ivar. They also have a shelving unit named Ivar. And we call him Ike for short. (it's kind of a family name)

Two weeks after he was born, a hurricane named Ike f'd up Houston. And I live in Austin.

GRRR... Now I'm sure there is an army of nearly 3-year-old Ikes running around, just to vex me.

It happens.

I could have written the same post. I don't think any of my friends read your blog so I can say it here. STOP STEALING MY KIDS' NAMES GODDAMNIT.

I spent months picking out the perfect name. Then there are 2 more of my second baby's names in my circle of friends. WTF?! This is not a common name. I find it hard to believe you picked it from the motherfucking sky.

I feel your pain.

I'm pretty sure you can blame Ray Lamontagne for the rise of popularity in Jolene - that song is too lovely. As for Jules and Jonas and Ikea, that is a mystery....

There's a popular theory over here (Germany) that kids get named after the piece of IKEA furniture they were conceived on... ;)

Someone once told me that the IKEA furniture was named after the designer, but I don't know how accurate that claim is. But! I do know a "Jonas" (an adult) in Sweden, so ... . (Jules doesn't strike me as particularly Scandinavian though. It reminds me of the fabulous movie Jules et Jim, though!)

haha I searched my son's name to make sure it wasn't popular before I named him...and of course the year he was born it jumped WAY up in popularity. >.< C'est la vie, I guess.

Well, Jolene "trending" means it's 970/1000 (when it hadn't made the top 1000 since the 80's). There were 261 Jolenes born in 2010 (and nearly 23000 Isabellas) so it's still a special and unique name!

I named my kids Jackson and Henry. Prior to having kids I'd never met any kids named Jackson or Henry. Plenty of Avas, but no Jacks or Henrys. Now, every third kid in Jack's class is named Jack. And if you go to Nameberry (the website of that very popular Beyond Jennifer and Jason, Madison and Montana name book) and type in Henry, here's what comes up: "its stylishness has increased substantially to the point where in upmarket neighborhoods and suburbs, it seems every other boy is named either Jack or Henry."
Apparently I should have consulted that website before naming my youngest son after my grandfather.

My youngest is named Tess, which also seemed very retro and unique two years ago, but now seems to be gaining in popularity.

Regardless, your kids have pretty cool names--imitation is flattery, right? Everyone is flattering you :-)

i think you have to make up names in order to not here them, like watermelondrea. to be fair, 'jolene' is a darn popular dolly parton song. i mean, i knew of it before i started reading here and i'm not really a dolly parton buff. also, the white stripes did a (damn good) cover of it a few years back. i think they released it as a b-side though...

don't worry, i heard my son's name (mateo) a lot right after he was born, but have yet to run into one of his name doubles in school or on the playground. i remember there was a serge of marissas when i was about 10, but it still remains pretty uncommon (or unpopular?).

Ok, well that's just freaky.

Have you seen the Name Voyager? You put in names and it tells you the popularity over time. Very weird curve for Jolene.
http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=jolene&ms=true&sw=f&exact=false

Don't worry, your Jonas, Jules, and Jolene will be total originals, just being who they are! And because they have quite the rockin' mom.

bawahhhhh! that is too weird. I do love me some ikea though.