How many Mary's

[Nanna52]

I don't seem to have an oversupply of any one name, but do have groupings.  Elizabeth is a recent one with myself, granddaughter, mother and great aunt having it as a middle name, from my great grandmother.
One of my great aunts in the 1920's had three daughters, Grace Margaret, June Marjorie and Marjorie Elizabeth.  Yes her name was Margaret.
My problem came with my 5 times great grandfather, he was  Samuel Harris and he had a son and grandson called Samuel Harris.  To make life more difficult two of them married a Hester.  On looking back I found that I had attributed a baptism to the wrong Samuel.  He would have been 120 years old.  Fortunately my line became maternal and moved away from the Samuels and Hester's, although the names kept popping up, but not in my direct line.

[coombs]

In County Durham I have an overload of William's, Isabella's, Anne's and John's. Even less common names like Cuthbert seem to be popular up in Co Durham.

[Marmalady]

In my husbands line, the names Thomas Waterhouse & Anne Waterhouse are very common -- often marrying cousins of that name

There is one particular family grouping where both sets of parents are Thomas & Anne Waterhouse and their children Thomas & Anne married each other. Guess what the next generation was called?

I always think that it must have caused confusion over the dinner table!

The Thomases and Annes usually all had a brother John too!

[lydiaann]

I have 7 Euphemias from one family (3 generations) in one town in one census. 

[andrewalston]

Two of my main lines are from a village where Ellen outnumbers Mary by about 25%, and Ann(e)/Hannah outnumbers Mary by 50%. My lot seem to be nearly all Ellens.

An adjoining village has a lot of boys called Oliver, which is almost unheard of in the places around. I'm conviced that the place was Parliamentarian in the Civil War.

In my one name study, a small area near Wrexham has a paucity of given names. Virtually every child has parents John and Mary, to the point where I have worked out from the locations and timings that there are three "John & Mary" couples having children at the same time, and no siblings of any of the Johns appearing in the registers around then.