Having an uncommon name is a blessing and a curse. I like my name, which is interesting because there are many people who do not. I do not recall the exact numbers, but there as a large percentage of people in a recent Wii poll who did not like their own name.

What's nice about an uncommon name is that you don't get confused with other people. It's very easy to request "owen@somedomain.com" instead of the lousy "o.winkler@somedomain.com" because there aren't many Owens to request the address. You don't have to postfix the uncommon name with a last initial for disambiguation.

The downside is outweighed by the upside, but it's still there. Sometimes you need to spell your uncommon name for people that don't recognize it. "No, it's o-w-E-n." And the worst is when someone else nearby shares your uncommon name, and someone calls it, because you aren't used to hearing your name used to refer to anyone but you. It's confusing.

There was a girl in my junior high named Ellen who had a locker down the hall from me. This caused me endless confusion at the end of the day when people would yell her name over the din of post-school hallway chatter and I would mistake it for my own.

And that's where I'm at with name commonality today. Over the last 10 years, the name Owen has become increasingly more common. In 1991, it was the 465th most popular baby name. In 2005, it's the 60th. In the year I was born, 0.02% of all male babies in the US were named Owen.

I think Owen as a name is even more common these days in our area. There were two kids at Chick-fil-a the other day named Owen. Their parents were amused that they would call their child from the little play area and both would come running. I was not amused every time they called my name, usually in a fit of, "Owen, stop throwing your food."

Of course, I stopped immediately.