Comments for ALEXANDRA:
This is my name, and I have pretty much always liked it since it was bestowed upon me in 1987, haha. My parents said they chose it because they had both always loved it. They liked that it was classic, historic, and would sound professional and appropriate throughout my life. They liked the regal connotations of it, and they liked that it reflected my strong heritage. (My ethnicity is half German and half Greek.)
A lot of people have been picturing what a person named Alexandra would look like... well, I am short/petite, with golden to medium brown hair, golden brown eyes, and tan/olive skin. I guess the Greek side gives me a somewhat exotic look, and I feel like my name fits that.
It does have a variety of nicknames, if that's something that's important to you, though neither my parents nor I are really nickname people. They named me Alexandra because that's what they intended to call me. So I grew up being called that. I switched schools in middle school, and my new classmates kept complaining that my name was too long, and they started calling me Alex, which I never much liked, because that could be a masculine or gender-neutral name, and I wanted something more feminine. I tried to get them to use Lexy, but Alex is what stuck. Oh well... after I graduated high school and left behind that group of people, I reverted back to the full Alexandra. Even my current boyfriend, who knew me in high school, now calls me Alexandra (occasionally Lexy or Lex, affectionately).
I've noticed that this name has stayed somewhat steady between #40 and #60 in the US for the past 25 years, and I'm often surprised at how high its popularity ranking is, because I haven't met that many other Alexandras. The mother of one of my preschool friends adored my name so much that she ended up using it for their youngest daughter, although she always ended up going by Alex. At my public elementary school, there was one other Alexandra, several grades behind me. I did always like that my name was somewhat unique, and that I was the only one in my class with it. I never had to tack on my last initial to differentiate myself, like Lauren H. and Lauren M. or something like that. One of the new students to join my grade in high school was named Alexandra, though she exclusively goes by Alex. I met another Alexandra at a summer camp program in high school, who actually uses her full name like I do. In college, I know there were a number of people that shared my name, but it's a school of 8,000 people, so it's bound to happen. I think there are a lot more of us than it sometimes seems, because many Alexandras use nicknames. For instance, I was one of three Alexandras in my sorority, but one went by Alex, and the other was Allie, so there was never any confusion. That's really about it, and I'm 24 years old now, so maybe I just got lucky that I haven't meet a lot of other people with my name yet, but I don't think that it's a name you hear every day. I feel like it's a name that's recognizable, but not overused. You meet an Alexandra every once in awhile, but it's not excessively common.
Some things to watch out for are:
1) A LOT of people will try to shorten this name. Despite always introducing myself as Alexandra, new acquaintances often ask if I have a nickname, or sometimes just take the liberty of calling me Alex five minutes after meeting.
2) This name gets confused with Alexandria a lot. People seem to want to put the "i" in there. Also, less commonly, people will call me or write down my name as Alexander.
But overall, I like my name, and recommend it to anyone looking for a name that straddles the line between classic and unique/uncommon..
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