Of course we've seen the charts from the Social Security Service graphing the popular given names, but I've never seen one explicitly graphing middle names. "Rose" as a middle name has gotten incredibly popular, I think, and I really don't know why. I mean-- you picked it because it was your grandmother's name? My oldest daughter has Rose as a middle name also because it was her great-grandmother's name.

So maybe the real answer is that there's a lot of GGmothers out there named Rose. :)

Amusingly, my youngest daughter's middle name is Marie. Not Mari_a_, which is what I would have preferred, but Marie, which my husband preferred. It suits her, though.

I think you're right about names in general, though. I always thought I'd name a daughter Stephanie, but when it came down to actually picking out a name, we knew that wasn't going to work at all. For one thing, both of our daughters are from India, and we wanted names that were evocative of that origin; and secondly (and perhaps more importantly), with a last name of "Smith".... something more unusual was called for. :) But I personally dislike the trendy made up "rhymes with -aden" names which fill my kids' classrooms. I think Gwendolyn is lovely.

(I admit a tiny bit of bias -- it is my mother's name!)