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Vintage cartoon with the caption "Joyce means 'sportive'"

Is There Any Hope for the Names of the ’40s and ’50s?

March 26, 2021 LauraWattenberg 2 min read 6 Comments

These are strange times for Carol and Glenn. As hot baby names of the 1940s and ’50s, they’ve fallen into a black hole of fashion. They’re not yet antiques, and they’re not aggressively contrarian in style like Mildred or Floyd. They’re just invisible, a stylistic blind spot that parents don’t […]

Look Ma, No Consonants!

March 18, 2021 LauraWattenberg 2 min read 5 Comments

Vowels have been squeezing out consonants in names for years. Now they’re cutting out the middleman. More and more, vowel sounds follow one another in baby names without any consonant buffer—just ask Liam or Noah.

Picture of a secret door in a bookcase

The Secret Lives of Jenny and Jessie

March 12, 2021 LauraWattenberg 3 min read 3 Comments

Psst…you know Jenny and Jessie, right? They’re the standard nicknames for Jennifer and Jessica, the two names that dominated American fashion for decades. No names could be more familiar. Well, once upon a time Jenny and Jessie weren’t the same nicknames-next-door that we know and love. In fact, they weren’t […]

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