We’ll have all the answers to your security questions soon…
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'Twas ever thus. We’re a rare (and dying out) breed.
Last year I volunteered for an art session in my son’s kindergarten class. The teacher introduced me as “Milo’s dad Donald.” So once again, for the first time in 35 years or so, I was gleefully referred to as “Old MacDonald” and “Donald Duck” by a crowd of three-foot-tall emotional terrorists.
The one upside is that no kindergarteners in Silver Lake have ever heard of Ronald McDonald anymore.
An aside: I’ve known since childhood that my name means “World Mighty; Proved Chieftain,” but it wasn’t until today that I learned Donald also means “little brown thing.” So I got that going for me.
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My daughter’s kindergarten class was overloaded with Jennifers & Tiffanys, now we’ll have to start calling the Murgatroyds by their last names or initials
One of the things we liked about our son’s name was that he was unlikely to share his cousin’s common-name fate. My sister named her youngest Austin back in 1995 or so, and he’s never been in a class or soccer team where he was the only Austin. So we figured Milo’d be a pretty safe choice.
Wouldn’t you know it: there was a Milo P. and a Milo {not_P}. in his kindergarten class. The only shared name in the whole class.
What! No Engelberts?
I can’t quite bring myself to endorse the recent flood of granny-names, come back to haunt us from beyond the gates of the Senior Center:
1. Emma
2. Olivia
3. Sophia
7. Emily
8. Abigail
12. Sofia
16. Evelyn
25. Lillian
42. Penelope
67. Violet
78. Eleanor
90. Ruby
91. Sophie
96. Isabelle
97. Alice
98. Vivian
103. Cora
107. Hazel
108. Clara
146. Ivy
203. Esther
221. Tessa
245. Iris
250. Camille
282. Olive
286. Elsa
298. Phoebe
300. Eloise
336. Elsie
343. Lucille
367. Vera
376. Esmeralda
404. Helen
Actually, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of those names; most of them are quite lovely and evocative. But had you asked me in, say, 1985 if I’d ever meet anyone younger than me with any of those names, I’d have laughed out loud. I thought Jennifer (220) and Melissa (224) and Jessica (179) were here to stay. Ha! What do I ever know?
And so we have a new influx of girls with names plucked from my Great Aunt Mildred’s sewing circle.
Well, not quite. Gladys and Flossie and Opal and Agnes haven’t come back yet, and for that matter Mildred’s not on the fashionable list either. But Pearl and Edith are there in the 600s.
But seriously, Cora at 103? Here’s the only Cora I ever knew:
On the boys’ side, does there seem to be a whole lot more conservatism in naming going on there? The top names seem to be a Who’s Who of Same As It Ever Was. I mean, you’ve got Names That Rhyme With Aidan (five in the top 100 alone!), Biblical names (even Malachi made it into the top 200, which goes to show that too few people remember Children of the Corn), and your Williams, Benjamins, Andrews, Anthonys, Christophers, etc. I think Oliver down at 32 is the highest-ranked name that 1985-vintage Donald would have considered unfashionably old-fashioned. (Which makes it hipster-cool like Lillian and Eleanor, of course.)
Oh, well. Still no evidence that my own name will recover its prewar cachet.
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The very definition of granny names is the names that were popular when your granny was a baby. Doris… when you think of Doris, you just know she’s about 60, don’t you? My son went to kindergarten with two Taylors and a Tyler and a Zachary and a Zechariah. In fifty years, those will be the names of old-timers.
The interesting part is that the names that are popular with the rich today will be popular with the poor in about ten years.
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What strikes me as funny/weird is just how thoroughly some names will fall out of fashion, whereas others (your Michaels and Natalies and such) seem to possess somewhat more timeless appeal, at least over the past century or two (and I’m talking USian society, as I’m ignorant of most other cultures).
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As long as it doesn’t lead to anything like the epidemic of “Kevinism” that Austria and Germany are only slowly recovering from.
What’s wrong with the name Kevin? Well, nothing. As far as I know, it’s a perfectly fine name of Irish origin.
As such, it has always been alien to the German language, until a certain 1990 movie starring Macaulay Culkin hit the theaters. Suddenly, in 1991, “Kevin” was the most popular male first name in Germany.
There’s nothing wrong with importing names from different languages and cultures. We’ve done it before, and we will do it again. But what kind of person names their kid after that cute kid in a popular movie that they just saw in the theater?
Result: If you meet a “Kevin” from Austria or Germany, they are very likely from a lower-class/poorly educated family. What’s more, it’s been shown that people named Kevin tend to be discriminated against by human resources managers. People have measurably lower chances of getting an interview when it says “Kevin” on the resume. There are jokes making fun about people named Kevin (“Mum, did you ever make a mistake that you still regret?” - “Only one, Kevin.”).
I hope that the name “Anakin” doesn’t suffer a similar fate…
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Could be worse. I gather this song made some people’s lives a misery:
@cowicide won’t be happy though - I see Donald, Clinton and Reagan on that list but no Bernie.
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The late, lamented “Hall of Douchebags” over at Rock and Roll Confidential have a somewhat similar meme for the name Jeremy, which only becomes apparent after you’ve viewed a significant number of the band photos in the Hall.
Really, there should be more Darths.
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There are a lot of names that should be merged for purposes of this list. John, Johnny, Johnathan, and Jonathan for instance. If Ariana and Arianna were counted together they’d be #9 on the girls’ side. On the other hand, the 8469 Chloes are probably happy not to have the 3518 Khloes (!) counted amongst themselves.
Edit:
Dunno about Natalies, but the more “normal” Biblical and saints’ names (Adam, George, Matthew, and Mark, rather than Methuselah, Nebuchadnezzar, Nimrod, and Ham) — have always been pretty steady.
P.S. 368 Khaleesis.
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Darth is a title, not a name.
It would be funny to name a kid Doctor (or Colonel or Professor or Pope or…) though.
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I know, still it would be nice to have a Sith Lord in the family. Darth McPherson.
It’s a good name.
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Doctor. Especially if the surname would be a bit more complex. (“Doctor… who?”)
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well it’s kind of a cycle to a certain extent. People often name babies after someone famous or someone they like. Then when those babies grow up, maybe one of them will become famous in turn. So again parents will name their babies after him/her, and so on.
I’d be satisfied with the more generic “name cycles” explanations that others have offered, if it weren’t for the correlated resurgence and adoption among the 20-30-year-olds of garish floral-print polyester-blend dresses…
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I’ve known plenty of people who name their children after a beloved grandparent (or, in the case of my own kids’ middle names, great-grandparents), so that helps explain that cyclical nature. But yeah, resurrecting grandma’s fashion sense does seem to be the flavor-of-the-month these days.
I’ve noticed a couple of names that seem to have died out after the first round of GenX kids were born in the mid 60s. Janet and Joyce, for example… I’ve never met any of those who would be under the age of 46 or so today. Anyone think of any other examples of names that you might have seen wearing mullets or knee socks at the roller rink in 1978, but you haven’t run across at elementary schools since then?
Hmm. Gary. That’s another one.
