Do you use MyFitnessPal? If you don't, you should. And if you do, you should aim to eat around the target calories it gives you.
That said, it gives me around 2000 calories to lose 2lb a week, but I knocked an extra 500 calories off because I'm a stubborn and impatient brat.
Personally, from everything I've read, 1000-1200 isn't really recommended because it's likely you will feel deprived and thus your chances of bingeing or giving up are higher. Yes, starvation mode is a real thing, but it takes prolonged periods of being on a very low calorie diet to really kick in, and it's only really damaging to people who are already at a healthy weight.
Doctors will often but obese patients on VLCDs because the benefits of rapid weight loss for someone with a lot to lose are immense. But, yeah, if you're looking to lose weight and sustain it long term, I would bump your calories up a notch. Or, give yourself at least 1500-1600 calories a day so that if you are out and you go into Starbucks or you eat a couple of biscuits or whatever, you will have that extra wiggle room and you won't feel as guilty
That said, if you make wise food choices, you can definitely eat well on 1200 calories. It's really up to you.
Hah. I've just read this through before pressing send and I realised I suck at taking my own advice. I try to eat as few calories as possible because, psychologically, I feel like I'm doing better. Then again, I shoved two pieces of cake in my face hole today and brought my total calories up to around 2000 for the day, so... yeah. But hey, we all slip up. I've just got to make sure I don't do it every day. And I think that is the key - whatever diet you choose, slip ups are inevitable, but problems arise (and the number on the scales goes up) when we think, sod it! And make it a whole day, week or month of bad eating.