Agreed. There have been plenty of times when blokes have wanted to talk to me when I'm standing alone, which must mean I look reasonably ok… but there have also been a million times when I've been shoved, mid conversation, out of the way by blokes trying to get to my fantastically gorgeous friends. If I wanted to meet…

I'm totally on board with the Cheerleader Effect normally… except for those exceptions where one person really stands out as different (for better or worse) than the average, and that difference seems to be exaggerated.

Yes, even when they're spiking they're still unusual… we just found it so interesting that we thought we were choosing things completely without any outside influence, but apparently other people were also making the same choices at the same time.

Because they wanted to name him after someone brilliant? My friends' Django really fits his name very well.

I know someone who named a child Alouette, which would be a very sweet name if it weren't for the song about torturing small birds.

I've heard of a few; it seems quite a bit more listworthy than some of the totally ordinary ones on the actual list.

But a bunch of them aren't even slightly crazy!

It's such a nice name; I can't imagine anyone thinking it was even slightly weird.

Don't worry about that! I know Tillie's of all ages.

I know an excellent Otto, and it's another friend's middle name. I don't understand why it's supposed to be a "hipster name"; isn't it just old fashioned? (That goes for so much of that list, though.)

Why be ashamed? They're so nice. They're just old fashioned.

My friends' kid's named that, and it suits him SO MUCH.

My friend just married an Otto; all his family have quite old-school names like that.

Thanks! Essentially they're really restricted on what they can do on the NHS front, and then for cosmetic stuff my dentist says "Why would you do anything? Your teeth are totally fine if they don't hurt you" so I think I'd have to go somewhere else for anything cosmetic!

My friend and I got on the subject of names once (she thought her daughter's name wasn't massively common but of course then found out EVERYONE IS CALLED SOFIA NOW) and came up with the names we would pick if we somehow magically popped out kids right there and then… then we put our weird little choices into the Baby…

I've been thinking of sort of the opposite thing: my surname is now very Spanish, and I happen to just really like Spanish christian names too, so my dilemma for Imaginary Future Baby is that Spanish + Spanish = sounds really great, but Spanish + Spanish for a London kid who doesn't speak Spanish might seem really…

Yes, they are.

Alma's beautiful. I would definitely consider it for Imaginary Future Baby, but I'm really torn on Spanish christian names because my surname is very Spanish, too — on the one hand, an all-Spanish-all-the-time name would sound beautiful and reflect that part of the child's heritage, but at the same time the poor kid…

Yep, I know a Bear. His real name is something very old fashioned and royal and serious.

My friends had a Django a few years ago; they're musicians, and it really suits him and makes total sense with his life really.