There are some sites that show changes in first name popularity over the last 100 years or so.
I have never seen or read any articles or books that explain well the changes in popularity of names. Why have names like Cecil and Arthur become old-fashioned? Why have names like Jack and Jessica become so popular?
These trends do not seem to be driven by names of celebs as far as I can see.
I had a grandmother named Bertha. Her sisters were Lorraine and Freida. The were three terribly, terribly old women. In my mind, the names Bertha, Lorraine, and Freida are inexorably linked to the idea of “very old people.” I wouldn’t name my daughter with one of these names. However, Bertha, Lorraine, and Freida are all dead, now. My as-yet-unconceived daughter will never have the chance to meet them. For her, the names aren’t going to have the “old lady” association they have for me, and when she has kids of her own, they might come back into play as viable baby names.
This was briefly touched upon in chapter 6 of Freakonomics. Wikisummaries says “In addition to the general trend of increasingly unique names for white children, Levitt describes a pattern by which highly educated parents popularize obscure names, gradually compelling the names to achieve broader popularity. Finally, after a period of several years, white parents from lower socioeconomic classes adopt the names, prompting a selection of new names among highly-educated white parents, and the repetition of another cycle” which is how I remember it. Both in the book and in life. Especially for names like Brittany and Tiffany.
Although he says nothing of why the name chosen to start the cycle were chosen.
Even if it had some truth to it, that would not explain much.
There are many examples of people wanting to give their kid a fairly unusual name and then not realising that the name was very popular at the time. So in the kindergarten are 3 girls named ‘Ava’.
Of course, the name Bertha is frequently preceded by the word “Big”, so that may continue to make it an unpopular choice.
It’s been fascinating to see a return to names that I once thought were old-fashioned. Some of them have come and gone in popularity. One of the first was Samantha. I had an aunt named that and I couldn’t imagine anyone naming a little girl that. I think maybe Betwitched had an influence.
There weren’t any little girls in my class named Debbie or Tammy, but there were babies named that after Debbie Reynolds became popular and starred in one of the Tammy films.
A return to double names that are combinations of old names has surprised me: Anna Rose and Ella Grace. I understand that Mae and May are back as second names.
Sarah made a comeback about twenty years ago.
When I was a child in the 1950’s, none of the boys had Biblical names. Imagine a world without Matt, Jake, Luke, Mark, or Josh. They were considered old-timey names (except for Mark).
Names that I think won’t come back, but you never know: Herman, Elmo, Elmer, Ethel, Mabel, Peggy, Minnie, Susie, Dorothy, Doris, Wayne, Leonard, Fred, George, and Horace.
The most enduring female name seems to be Elizabeth with all its variations.
Does anyone remember the origin of Madison for a girl?
I don’t know the original origin if there even was one. The popularity since the 1980’s is attributed to the movie splash in which the lead Mermaid picks her human name by looking at the sign for Madison Avenue.
This doohickey shows the change in popularity for various names over the last century. It’s exceedingly interesting.
National differences…in Britain: George has been consistently popular. Susie (and Susannah) is not uncommon. Wayne has been common (but also has acquired an unfortunate stigma as a lower-class name). I can certainly see many of the others returning, as they lose the ‘old lady’ association described by Miller. My money’s on Dorothy and Ethel as the most likely.
When I was growing up, not so long ago 
, nobody was called Ellie/Eleanor, Molly, or Evie. They were old-fashioned names. But they’re all here. Also, as I typed that, I realised it only seems to work for girls’ names, with the top two dozen boys not being all that out of place a couple of decades ago.
Moderator’s Note: I don’t think there’s a big debate here, but I don’t know that anyone’s going to come up with a factual answer either, as opposed to more or less informed speculation; so, off to IMHO we go.
I don’t know, but when I was born in the early 70s the name Bryan was not very common. Then it took off and a good 10% of the people in my class were named Brian. When we picked the name Sabina for our daughter we thought it would be unusal but not far out there, just not common at all. Oddly enough, in the day care center none of the kids have the same name, except our daughter and another girl who is in the same room! I just know there will be hundreds of them running around now.
Peggy is Margaret; I know several Georges below age 20; Susie again is Susan; bunch of itsy bitsy Leos around (can’t figure out why :rolleyes: ).
One of the official reasons my SiL gave to choose Marcos (Mark) was that it’s “a normal name but not very common.” We warned her that since “the hunk” in a current popular TV show was a Marcos, there would be quite a few around and people would think she’d chosen the name for the TV one. She didn’t believe us, “aw c’mon, who’d name their kid after a TV character?”
There’s 40 kids in the preschool Marcos will be joining come September. 5 of them are Marcos… since none of the 5 will be leaving yet, he’ll be number 6! :smack:
In grad school, my department had an intramural basketball team. Of the 15 or so people that participated, we had enough Brians on the team to have a Brian-only squad on the court.
I think that a portion of the surge of Brians at that time can be attributed to the movie Brian’s Song .
Some of that is names being overheard and bandied about - they catch the popular concious.
I have an Eleanor. One of three born to friends/acquaintances in three months. My Eleanor is named in part after my grandmother (we liked Eleanor, I had a grandmother named Helen - which is a related name). The other two friends also have Eleanors in their family - so I suspect something in the cyclical nature of old fashioned names has to do with generational skips. Eva was very popular in the 1920s - about the time today’s Ava’s great grandmothers would have been born - there looks to be about a 90-120 year skip for popularity in names. (I have a girlfriend with an Ava - the family name is Eve).
A name like Hannah (which was never as popular during its first “babywizard cycle” as its second) may have started because it was a family name for some folks - than caught the public conciousness.
Weirdly enough, I know some folks who named their daughter Sabina.
I’ve always wondered why Jessica and Jennifer topped the lists for the 70s, 80s and 90s.
I am a Jessica and went to school with at least 4 others in my grade alone (which is how I got the nickname JJ - we all also had the same last initial!) There were even MORE Jennifers.
[anecdote]I go to a halloween and new year’s party every year at the same person’s house. The party guests consist of his friends from high school and college, and their SOs (all of us around the same age). There’s usually about 6 of us there named Jessica (out of maybe 10 or 11 women) and one guy named Jesse. Every year a new woman named Jessica seems to show up, too.[/anedcote]
Neither Jessica nor Jennifer are particularly biblical names. I can’t think of any famous people with those names, other than Jessica Tandy, that were around in the 70s.
Any Doper parents who named their girls Jessica or Jennifer in the 70s or 80s care to shed some light?
The most obvious example: Madison became very popular after “Splash”
No matter how you may struggle and argue and research and test in order to find a name that will not serve as a potentially justifiable reason for your future child to attack you one day with an axe, remember that the spinning of the world is beyond your control. I thought I’d chosen a lovely, classical, literary name for my daughter, one that was unusual but not outlandish. Then a certain hurricane came along. :mad:
raises hand I got my name because Kyle Rote Jr. was playing soccer on TV while I was being born. I’d’ve been a “Steve,” but someone convinced my parents it’d sound like I was stuttering (my last name begins with “St-” also). So I got named because of a guy on TV.
Of course, as that nifty doohicky Mayo Speaks! posted shows, in the 90s everybody started naming their kid “Kyle.” I went from never having met any other Kyles, so teaching swimming classes full of the little buggers. Like to have drove me crazy, it did. “Kyle, stop running!” “Kyle, pay attention!” “Kyle, stop drinking the pool water!” Never having been around any other Kyles, every time I thought they were yelling at me.
So, best off not naming kids after the TV.
An hypothesis I’ve liked (not as grand as a theory) is that until and unless somebody really drives a name to infamy by way of dastardly deeds, there’s a cyclical effect that’s already been mentioned where names that were novel or maybe unique in one era become dated and off-limits as that era fades into the domain of Old Folks. Then, what had been an attempt to be different or unique now smacks of fogyism and at least one more generation must pass before there’s an interest in reviving those old names.
Some of those older names just don’t have what it takes to become truly popular again, but a new group of namers, looking for the out-of-the-ordinary, will happen upon an old name and reuse it.
Parallel to this category of names are the old standby types: John, James, William, Richard, Robert, Ann, Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret, all with an assortment of diminutives which may themselves be taken as names without the reliance on the process of “name him Richard and let nature take its course as to whether he will remain a Richard or become a Rick, Dick, Rich, Richie, Rickie, Dickie or something exotic like Rixster.”
As I said before, once a relatively rare name gets attached to someone who becomes the embodiment of evil or depravity, that name is likely to fall out of favor until the time that that evildoer’s influence has faded. As an example of this feature, try to think how many people you know with the name Sirhan, Attila, Judas, Benedict, Adolph, Idi, Caligula or Vlad. Yes, there may be a few of them about, but it’s unlikely their names will be revived with any great fanfare – mostly by some iconoclast with a taste for the shocking.
My favorite such name was the one Susan Atkins, of Manson Family renown, gave her child: Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz, and at times I become curious about what old Zeso must be up to these days. Does anybody know?