I know a woman in her late 20s named Farrah—she will never be able to lie about her age. And about 20 years ago, I met a woman named Theda! Must have been born between 1915–20.
Jane Pauley and Garry Trudeau have unfortunate twins named Ross and Rachel—born 16 years ago, before Friends went on the air!
I tried to work out if I was being wooshed here, but I can’t see the angle, so… if you follow this link, you’ll find Czarcasm’s report on this legend which says in part:
Wendy has long been a nickname for Gwendolyn (and probably Gwyneth).
My middle name is Elmer, which was once quite common. When it was given to my great-grandfather as a first name, it was in the top fifty for boy’s names.
It took a huge nise dive in popularity because of a series of Warner Brothers cartoons.
kill the wabbit
Isn’t “Emma” near the top of the list for girl’s names?
And didn’t Ross and Rachel name their daughter “Emma” on Friends?
I wondered if the show picked a currently popular name or if the show inspired the name to be popular???
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that there are some “real” Madisons out there. There’s a tradition among very elite, east coast American families, of giving family names to girls; in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire Of The Vanities the main character’s little daughter was named Campbell.
Hard to believe that there was never a Gwendolyn or Winnifrid, before Peter Pan, who got nicknamed Wendy.
Emma jumped from 13th place to 4th the same year that Rachel had Emma on Friends.
http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babynames.cgi
It may be coincidence. Emily has been in first place since 1996. I know of people who used Emma because someone they knew already had used their first choice - Emily.
My partner’s gran died a few years ago, aged close to 90 (if not), and her second name was Alice, called like so many little girls of her generation, after Alice Roosevelt.
I have a Scottish auntie whose first name is Victoria; she’s nearly 70, and she was called that for the Queen.
I know a 20 year old Kyle because his mum was attending a screening of the original Terminator movie whilst heavily pregnant and still unsure of a name for the impending arrival (apparently when inspiration struck, she stood up during a rather dramatic scene, pointed at the screen and exclaimed, ‘That would be the best name for the kid! Yes!’)
Wasn’t it George Carlin who observed that it’s not so much there are trendy names floating around the kindergartens now, as to think about some decades from now, when the nursing villages are filled with Britneys, Morgans, Kyles.
Am I the only one who reads the obits to see if I can get a ballpark guess of the age of the deceased based on the name, I wonder…
There are a growing number of babies named ESPN or variations thereof:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/moresports/0407/13/d02-210806.htm
Originally posted by Antonius Block
Hey thanks. I didn’t know that. I always thought it rather odd to name your baby-girl after a city.
I mean: Who want to be called: ‘The Hague’ or ‘Antwerpen’? [yeah, I know about ‘Paris’]
‘Tyler’ is pretty popular here ever since ‘Fight Club’.
I remember that the popularity of the name “Tanya” took a nose dive after Patty Hearst took on that name during her time with the Symbionese Liberation Army.
I bet there are at least a few Trekkies who named their children Seven or Beverly Deanna or Wesley (or Spock).
Or Judas. 
Well, according to the lists at this site (scroll to the bottom for the U.S.), Michael was the most popular boys name in the United States every year from 1964 through 1998. I remember reading elsewhere that the popularity of this name was very high in both the black and the white communities in America.
I don’t know what sent Michael to the top of the charts, but i’m willing to bet that its long stay at the top was helped by people like Michael Jackson (especially in the 1970s and 1980s) and Michael Jordan.
Michael was replaced at the top in 1999 by Jacob, and Jacob has been #1 ever since. Again, i don’t know if there if there is a pop-culture reason for this.
I should add that i know about the popularity of the name Michael because it’s my name. But we were at the top so long, we took our domination for granted. Now that we’ve been pushed out of the top spot by Jacob, we have a new slogan:
“Michaels: We’re number two, so we try harder.”
“Help me, Rhonda, help help me, Rhonda…”
Every Rhonda I know was born in the 1960’s…
My wife wanted to name our daughter Losira (TOS, first female starship captain, “I am for you, Mr. Sulu”). My mom was noticeably unimpressed, so we named her after a character in an Anne McCaffrey novel.
Her middle name’s Hillary, though; she’s named after a couple SCA friends of ours (got nothin’ to do with Senator Clinton).
A standup comic once pointed out that there was a perfectly good name that wouldn’t get given out very often: Jason.
I doubt many people would name their kid Hannibal. Those who would are probably very, very strange.
I know of at least one couple who named their daughter Mercedes after the character in License to Drive. If I’m going to name my child after someone in a movie, damned if I’ll pick a movie starring the redoubtable Corey Haim.
Which is kind of odd, since Paris was named after a man.
