Hi.
My name is Clare, and it goes without saying that my middle name is Marie.
My parents had precisely zero creativity when it came to naming me and, yes, I resent them for it.
I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that my middle name was particularly common, but I only gained a sense of exactly how default it is when I was chatting to a friend in the office.
Her name is Keryn, and creatively, her middle name is Maree.
We laughed and laughed, until it turned out to be another colleague’s middle name. And another’s.
EVERYONE’S MIDDLE NAME IS MARIE AND IT’S A CONSPIRACY THEY DON’T WANT US TO TALK ABOUT.
That was until Buzzfeed took the phenomenon out of the dark.
'If Your Middle Name Is Marie, This Post Will Speak Deeply To You,' wrote Krista Torres, and yes, it really did speak deeply to me - and THOUSANDS OF OTHERS WITHIN MERE HOURS.
Because, of course, everyone's middle name is Marie, we just hadn't... acknowledged it yet.
In case your middle name isn't Marie, and instead it's Louise or Rose, let me demonstrate how many people have Marie as a middle name with this list of celebrities:
Lisa Marie Origliasso
Selena Marie Gomez
Ivanka Marie Trump
Kate Marie Nash
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer
Jessica Marie Alba
Katherine Marie Heigl
Jamie Lynn Marie(?) Spears
We're in good company - apart from the Trump one but we'll... ignore that.
According to Mamamia's Helen Vnuk, there's actually a reason Marie is such a common middle name.
Marie is similar to Louise in that "it's all about the rhythm".
"Most popular ‘80s and ‘90s girls’ names had two or three syllables, with the accent on the first syllable: Jessica, Sarah, Amy, Emma, Katherine, Rachel, Hannah, Georgia, Caitlin. To make a pretty-sounding combination, most parents would – subconsciously – choose a middle name with one syllable (Anne, Jane, Lee, Kate), or else two syllables, with the accent on the second syllable (Louise, Marie, Renee, Nicole)."
It's true - Sarah Marie sounds better than Sarah Lucy or Sarah Lisa. Almost every name sounds good followed by Marie: Holly Marie, Amelia Marie, Lucy Marie, Lisa Marie. It’s light and almost musical. Marie is a winner.
For parents in the ‘80s and ‘90s, naming children was less about commemorating family members than it once had been. They simply wanted to give their daughters the gift of a beautiful name.
Except in doing so.... they accidentally gave us all the same name. Which is unfortunate, but also lends itself to some great memes.
Brace yourself, Reddit reveals the worst baby names they've ever heard and some of them are baaaad.
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