My grandmothers were Velma and Bertha. My grandfathers were Lafayette and Oren. I have aunts and great-aunts named Dolly, Flossie, Maxine, Gertrude, Evelyn, Norma, Esther, Florence, Bette, and Phyllis. Needless to say, I didn’t name my kids after any family members, except…
Ivylass, My oldest son’s (second) middle name is Vernon, after my grandfather’s middle name; he’s a fourth generation Vernon, because my uncle and my cousin have the same middle name. And it’s totally an old-man name. I had an Uncle Walter, too! Old man!
I have a very old-lady name, myself. My four older sisters have normal names, yet I have a name like someone’s great-grandmother.
I have great grandmas named Elsie or Elsa(not sure which she was), Lulu, and Johanna. My grandmas were Jean and Elizabeth(Betty.) While Elizabeth is as popular as ever, Betty has fallen out of favor as a nickname for it.
My great-grandmothers were Fanny, Fanny, Myrtle, and Hazel, none of which are currently very popular. Hazel’s mother was Araminta, which I think is a cool name, but a bit florid. Also in that family tree was Deliverance, which is an awesome name, but not one that I could see my atheist self bestowing on any child.
It’s probably because there was a sympathetic character name Noah on some daytime TV soap opera. This is said to be one of the strongest trendsetters for children’s names.
My grandmother’s name was Virginia – don’t see too many of those these days. She gave one of her daughters a middle name of Millicent, another (ugly, In My Aunt’s and My Opinion) out-dated name.
A friend of mine moved to Alaska and found himself a girlfriend named Ethel. She’s 24.
I work in paeds. Apart from the weird spelling names which still abound, we’re also knee deep in Noahs, Jonahs and Jacobs.
I would have disputed the theory about our grandparents’ names a while back but I think it probably has something to it. One of my grandmothers was named Harriet, a name I would have thought as dead as the dodo. I’ve nursed three kids in the last year named Harriet.
I went to high school (graduated in '82) with a couple of Marians, and I used to work with a guy whose daughter was named Marian. She’d be in her early 20s now, I think.
I teach preschool part-time, and Lucy is making a big comeback. We’ve had a couple of Lucys each year for the last several years.
My mother’s cousin is named Dorcas (she’s in her late 70s), and one of her granddaughters is named Dorcas. She’s in her late teens, IIRC. Ugh. It’s an awful name.
There’s a poster here at the SD whose RL name is Vernon, and he’s definitely not an old man. I don’t know his age for sure, but having spoken to him by phone, I’d say he’s probably somewhere between 20 and 40, probably more like 20 to 30, if I had to guess.
I remember in the late 80s when everyone was utterly aghast that Sarah Ferguson named her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie.
Mildred and Prunella. I’ve met one Mildred in my life, and I know her for six years before I learned what ‘Millie’ was short for. I can’t believe those names sounded euphonius to anyone, at any time.
I can’t imagine a 2009 new mother calling her daughter either Prunella or Mildred but I know of two small girls called Prue and Millie (not the same family), so the derivatives aren’t extinct.
