How does it break down by ethnicity? I get the impression that Adam is more common among Polish people, just like how Anthony and Paul are common among Italians and Sean and Patrick are common among the Irish.
Among my generation, as far as Biblical names go, Michael, Mark, David, James, John/Jonathan, Paul, Sam, Daniel, and Joseph are really common with my generation and really common among the “people’s dads” generation, and probably also very common among our grandparents’ generation. Those are sort of the “timeless” Biblical names that never go out of fashion.
As for the Biblical names that seem to be more common in my generation than the older ones, I think those would include Adam, Josh, Jesse, and Nathan/Nathaniel. I grew up with a lot of guys with those names, but never encountered anyone’s dad with them.
Running through my brain of people my age (60) I recall one or more
Adam
Ryan
Evan
Kyle
and I did know a Zach but that wasn’t his actual first name. That was one of the mysteries that made up his basic personality.
You write “John/Jonathan” as if they are just variants of one name, but I kinda think they aren’t. Jonathan is a Old Testament name, and comes from Hebrew words meaning “Jo [short for Yahweh] has given”. “John” is strictly a New Testament name as far as I know, and I’m not sure if it arose simply as a shortened form of Jonathan, because of the spelling “John” rather than “Jon”. (Just my totally lay etymology there.) “Nathaniel” means “God has given” (the -el suffix being short for Elohim). I’m not sure if “Nathan” arose simply as a short version of that; it simply means “gave” or “has given”, from the Hebrew verb נָתַן (natan), past tense of “give”.
I’m 52. While it’s a small sample size (n=75), I went to an all-boys Catholic high school, and we didn’t have any boys with any of those names in my class. We did, however, have 8 Michaels, including myself (it was the most popular baby boy name for most of the 1960s).
While I know a number of adult men with some of the names listed by the OP, none of them are over 45.
My great grandfsther was Laban Csrdy … the only person in the UK (since registration of births began in 1837) ever to have this name. There’s also a Lilith Death in my family tree.(Death was a fairly common name in parts of 19th century Suffolk)
One Zach that lived a couple door down from me when I was young (I’m now in my mid-fifties). It has definitely become more popular since then in my world.
One Evan. I went to college with him. Again, more common since…
No Tylers, Chads, Ryans, Chases, Kyles, Justins, or Dustins. That I can recall. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve met more than one or two people named Chad or Chase or Dustin ever (and I work with kids).
The two on your list that surprise me are Adam and Josh. I recognize both have probably become more common than they were in the sixties or earlier, but I can think of four Adams in my life through high school and at least another one or two in college. My son’s partner has an uncle named Adam, who I’ve met, and he’s in his early sixties. So that’s a bunch.
And Josh–two of my closest friends in high school were Joshes (Josh L. and Josh L., not very helpfully), and I knew quite a few others. Josh was probably not as common a name in my neighborhood as Michael, David, or Peter, but pretty darn close. (It was a heavily Jewish area, so there’s that…) --Anyway, Josh and Adam seem to me like they’re in a different category from the others.
Over in the Pit, there was a mention that Roy Moore’s (remember him?) son has been in trouble with the law. (That “Jew lawyer” actually represented the son.) Just yesterday, I saw it mentioned somewhere that the son’s name is Caleb.
On the other hand, a while back I was talking with my dad, who’s pushing 70 and hasn’t lived in the States since 1981. We were discussing U.S. politics, when he suddenly said, “What kind of name is ‘Jared’, anyway? Sounds like something from Star Trek.”
So that’s one name that wasn’t popular 50 years ago.
No doubt, it’s quirky, arbitrary, and quixotic which of those Old Testament names will be in fashion from one generation to another. Here are a few more I haven’t seen lately, to name just a few:
[ul][li] Enosh[/li][li] Kenan[/li][li] Mahalalel[/li][li] Methuselah[/li][li] Lamech[/li][li] Shem[/li][li] Arphaxad[/li][li] Peleg[/li][li] Serug[/li][li] Nahor[/li][li] Terah[/li][li] Kohath[/li][li] Amram[/li][li] Gershom[/li][li] Shebuel[/li][li] Amminadab[/li][li] Nahshon[/li] Rehoboam[/ul]
