Ava hits the top 10

It happened this year. The Social Security Administration recently released the ranking of baby names for 2005. Ava is the 9th most popular girls' name. When we were naming our baby girl in Jan. 2003, I looked up the name Ava on this very web site and found it was moving at a very steady upswing. Over the past 10 years it had moved up from the 800's to around 82 I believe is where it was in 2002. At the time I considered not using the name because I didn't want my daughter to have an extremely common name. But, I loved the name so much that I decided it didn't matter if it continued to gain in popularity. When she was a year old I discovered we had two other Ava's in our neighborhood. So I am not surprised to see it break the top ten. It's a great name, and I can't imagine my little girl being called anything other than Ava- it suits her so perfectly. But sometimes I do call her Ava Beth, so if I want to distinguish her name a bit I can always do that more regularly. That is a decidedly more Southern twist- to be called by two names. I wouldn't mind if it stopped at 9 and started heading back down though. I guess we'll just have to wait until next year's list is released and see what happens!