Emily is very common, and has been in the top few names on almost all the "popular names" lists for several years now.
I love Sophia...which is often shortened to Sophie-also adorable. And a very elegant/graceful sounding name :)
Although I love the name Emily Ann, I do see how often Emily is used. My husband and I considered Emily as an option for us (we picked initials first though and were very pertinent on ELC). Bella was my first choice and would definitely sound wonderful with a traditional name like Ann but no doubt, with the Twilight frenzy, there will be plenty using that name here within the next 2-5 years. An alternative would be Ella. Common and modern enough to be found on most personalizations, yet still very traditional like Ann.
My husband and I wanted to name our daughter after 2 very important women in our lives, Joyce Ellen and Dorothy Louise. We settled on Ella Louise from the first moment the name was uttered. We didn't particularly care for the elegance and for lack of better terms "oldness" of Ellen so we shortened it to Ella.
Anyway, my advice would be to chose Ella as the first name but honestly if I were to chose one of yours, I would go with Chloe. It doesn't seem to be as popular but it's still common enough you could find the personalizations you're looking for.
Even though my daughter's name is Reygan, and I obviously love that name, I voted for Emily Ann because it sounds so nice together!
btw- Don't worry about keychains, etc, because you can get just about anything personalized these days! ;)
My Emily will be 15. There are a ton in her age group. My youngest daughter will be 8 and not one Emily in her class.
just found your post ... it's in the maternal child forum ... I posted the poll in several forums to get the most feedback. :)
so, how old is Emily? Do you find that there are a million of them? The lists all say that it's close to the top (along with sophia) , but I just don't remember seeing that many of them. Of course my kids are going to be 8 and 12 ... so maybe I'm just out of the preschool circles where they are found right now.
If you're worried about the personalized thing, I wouldn't do Reagan (although I do like it very much). My daughters are Emily and Camille. It is a constant drama with Camille when Emily gets something easily personalized and nothing for her sister, we buy "princess" or some such. Not as fun!
Oh ... I do remember seeing that! Now why would they delete that???
What you said is exactly what I'm worried about ... but I'm wondering if you would find Reagan on a pencil or key chain. My other two kids are Jenna and Patrick. Common enough to find on personalized items, but theres only a couple of them in their whole school (small private school, only about 200 kids), none in their class.
Someone also said yesterday that Reagan Ann said quickly sounds like Raggedy Ann ... :( They were right!
I just said I am a teacher and sophia, chloe and Emily are the modern day jennifer so if you don't mind a common name those are beautiful names, but if you want something more original I would go with Reagan! :)
I didn't see your post ... What did you say?
WOw my post was deleted did I say something wrong?
My oldest daughter is Emily Anne :) so I pick that! However, there are at least 5 Emilys in her grade, and two are Emily Anne.
Sophia and Emily are top on my own list. Really pretty.