According to this handy dandy Java doodad, the popularity of my first name, Paul, has plummeted from when I was named (in 1969) from 18th most popular, to 155th.
The drop is so sudden and steep, it makes me think there was some reason behind the abandonment, especially as it is a tried and true, widespread, internationally adapted, even Biblical name, that had great popularity through the first half of the 20th Century.
Did someone famous called Paul do something really bad in 1971 or something? Surely Paul McCartney, Paul Newman, and Paul Simon would have kept it in the public eye and in favour.
Admittedly, there haven’t been too many popular Pauls in the 80s and beyond (Paul Reubens. Paul Reiser. Um… Pope John Paul. Paul Rudd, I suppose. Paul Walker, at a stretch). But that’s a symptom, not a cause.
I’m an Elizabeth. I would prefer a name where there weren’t 8 billion of me, although nobody finds anything when they google my name since I married someone with one of the most prevalent last names in the English-speaking world.
I think the clout of traditional male names like Paul or John or Matthew is down. Historically there has been much less variety in male names than female ones, and if you look at old charts of the most popular boys’ names, you used to see the same ones over and over again. I think that’s still true, but not as much as it used to be.
Paul was the 20th most popular name, or more, every decade from the 1900s to the 1960s. So it was very popular for a long time, everyone knew Pauls, and people probably came to see it as kind of dull. Add that to growing diversity and things like racial or ethnic group pride and you might have a fuller explanation.
In terms of popularity, here’s how Paul ranks for the period covered in the chart:
1880s: 44
1890s: 22
1900s: 20
1910s: 14
1920s: 14
1930s: 14
1940s: 17
1950s: 17
1960s: 18
1970s: 27
1980s: 40
1990s: 64 (it couldn’t be 63 or 65, it had to be 64)
2003: 124
2004: 128
2005: 130
2006: 134
2007: 148
2008: 155
So that’s a decline, but the decline is in usage per million, not overall popularity. By that score, take a look at John: in the ‘40s, about 25,000 babies per million (2.5 percent) were named John. Now it’s about 5,000 per million. Looks like a big decline but it’s still one of the most popular boys’ names. It’s around #20 now after being in the top 10 until the '90s.
IIRC, Freakonomics said that names choices aren’t really guided by celebrities. It’s more of a class thing and it’s a red queen’s race. Middle class people choose names that sound upper class. But upper class people avoid names that sound middle class. So the upper class is constantly moving on to new names, which then get imitated by the middle class, as a result of which the upper class stops using those names and moves on to new names.
I would suspect that the decline in popularity as a name for children is the opposite of what you propose in the OP. The popularity of the Beatles and Paul McCartney in general, may have caused parents in the US to not name their sons Paul, because they didn’t want to be accused of naming their kid after one of the Beatles.
I don’t think that would have had a big effect. Like I was saying above, originality hasn’t historically been important in boys’ names. As far as I know Matthew and John and Jacob have never soared in and out of fashion the was Jennifer has.
On the other hand you could argue that Paul’s popularity started to drop as the popularity of Paul McCartney declined. I don’t know much about his album sales but as part of the Beatles and Wings, he was a much bigger deal in the '60s and '70s than he was in the '80s.
My parents specifically chose my name to be unpopular, but still sound like a name. They were tired of being one of many in high school. What’s funny is that, their names are now nearly as unpopular as mine. (My mom’s, in particular, peaked around the year she was born, and dropped off to almost non-existent.)
When we named our kids (both in the last five years) we tried to pick names that were traditional, but not trendy or too common. Biblical names were a plus but only the boy ended up getting a Biblical name (and we Anglicanized the spelling). We thought we had picked a nice, traditional, pretty yet not trendy name for our daughter (Lucy), but unfortunately two more babies in our church got the same name since she was born. Makes my wife furious!
Strangely enough I haven’t known too many people named Paul as I have grown up. I encounter it here and there, but usually tangentially, rather than directly. For instance a girl I had a crush on ended up hooking up with some other Paul instead of me. And after I moved out of a house, the flatmate who replaced me was also named Paul. I have met neither of these people.
I have an unusual name, and my full, exact name has never been in the top 1,000 in any decade. There are two common shortenings of my name, neither of which have been popular for several decades before I was born. Even the alternate spelling of one of my nicks is horribly unpopular. I may not be as old as my user name suggests, but my parents are quite old, which manifests itself in what they named their children. Ah well, at least they didn’t name me Gertrude or Mabel. No offense to any Gerties or Mabels.
