It’s the ultimate baby name dream: a name that’s stylish and appealing, yet undiscovered. In my Baby Name Wizard books I try to unearth these hidden gems. My “Why Not?” category lists names with the ingredients for popularity that have somehow slipped under the fashion radar. I submitted the first […]
You should expect to meet a lot more Frankies, Stevies and Georgies in the years ahead. And you should expect most of them to be girls. An -ie suffix is a time-honored way to turn male names like Frank, Steve and George into cute diminutives. These boyish nicknames are also […]
The letter X has put its stamp on the past generation of American baby names. Over the last 25 years, names have included the letter seven times as often as in earlier generations. Beyond the numbers, we’ve seen a creative explosion in the way parents use X in names: inventing, […]
Once upon a time, there was only Charity. In the early decades of U.S. national baby name stats, starting in 1880, Charity was the only -ty “concept” word being used as a name. It was the lone reminder of a past style of demure virtue names like Chastity and Amity. […]
There’s a new letter in town, and it’s just for show. Allow me to introduce the “ornamental H,” an alphabetic flourish that’s adding a stylistic—not phonetic—note to names like Whyatt, Khadence and Ameliah. The story behind the style is a cultural ride that takes us everywhere from the Bible to […]
Some quick notes on themes emerging from the new national baby name statistics. 1. Masculinity Through Word NamesOver one thousand names made their all-time debuts in this year’s name stats, 500+ each for boys and girls. Common English words appeared three times more often among the boys’ names. I suspect […]
2020 was a year like no other. In a time of loss, division and moral reckoning, the fastest rising names of the year were not hot new celebrity names, but memorials. Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash in January, 2020. Kobe was […]
Once upon a time, something happened to boys’ names ending in the letter A. Or rather, two somethings. Starting around 1970 the typically female -a ending was twice transformed, and the sound of American boys hasn’t been the same since. See for yourself. The top black line in this chart […]
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.
Name trends have momentum. Once a name’s popularity starts heading downhill, you can count on it continuing that way unless acted upon by an outside force. Right now, 14 favorite names of the past generation are tipping down that slope. These names have just hit their lowest point since the […]
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