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Name This Name Style

January 22, 2021 LauraWattenberg 2 min read 34 Comments

A name trend requires a common thread: a style link that makes a whole group of names rise and fall together. It might be a shared suffix, or meaning, or linguistic origin. Occasionally it’s something more elusive—a theme you recognize but can’t easily define. That’s the case with a new […]

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Shockingly Rare Names for Boys

January 14, 2021 LauraWattenberg 1 min read 2 Comments

Let’s talk about a rare boy’s name. Really rare. A name that isn’t ranked in the current top 1000, or even the top 2000. A name rarer than Theophilus, or Dinero, or Supreme. A name like Brad. Among grown men, of course, Brad is hardly a curiosity. It was a […]

"Brooks" replaced by "Broox"

A Roze is a Roze: The New Spelling Shifts

December 4, 2020 LauraWattenberg 4 min read 1 Comment

Even creative spelling has its rules—and those rules are changing. For generations, two letters have reigned supreme the realm of creative name spelling: Y and K. Parents replaced workaday vowels with Ys in names from Lynda to Paxtyn, and Cs with Ks in names like Karter and Khloe. The two […]

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Parents are Breaking the One-Word Barrier

October 29, 2020 LauraWattenberg 2 min read 3 Comments

Another baby name barrier is falling—a big one. Even this age of creative, high-impact naming, baby names have generally remained single words. But not any more. American parents have started to create names out of phrases. Compound names like Mary Kate or Jon-Michael have always been common enough, as have […]

The Two Biggest Stories from the Annual Baby Name Data

September 7, 2020 LauraWattenberg 3 min read 5 Comments

The two biggest baby name stories of 2019 were more about substance than style. The top hitmakers—the late hip-hop artist Nipsey Hussle and the film The Hate U Give—made their marks across names as varied as Kross and Sekani, Ermias and Seven. In the process, they helped define a cultural […]

graph of gender ratio of -i names from 1900-2018, in the shape of a sharp bell curve

The Three Ages of -i Names: An American Tale

August 20, 2020 LauraWattenberg 4 min read No Comments

Name endings can define style eras. The names Marlene and Carlene sound like babies of the 1940s, while Marleigh and Carleigh have the touch of the new millennium. But for names ending in -i, the story is more complicated. It’s a tale of three different American eras. As you can […]

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How a Traditional Name Can Thrive Today

January 12, 2020 LauraWattenberg 3 min read 1 Comment

These are tough times for classic names. Even names that have stood as gold standards for timelessness are falling out of fashion: William, Katherine and Elizabeth have hit all-time popularity lows. Yet even in this naming climate, some traditional choices are thriving. Names like Amelia, Sebastian and Naomi have reached […]

The 3 Biggest Baby Name Trends of the Decade

December 30, 2019 LauraWattenberg 4 min read 10 Comments

Name trends can sneak up on you. They move bit by bit, shifting your expectations along the way. As time goes by, you might even forget that Penelope used to sound old-fashioned instead of trendy, or that you marveled at your first sighting of Jaxon-with-an-X. Here’s your reminder of how […]

Racer, Trooper, Charger and All the Names that “Do”

October 17, 2019 LauraWattenberg 2 min read 7 Comments

It’s not just Carter and Cooper anymore. Check out some of the types of “doer” names that have appeared in the US baby name statistics in recent years: Fishing, hunting, camping: Angler, Camper, Caster, Tracker, Trapper Speed and sport: Catcher, Driver, Fielder, Racer, Sailor, Striker, Wheeler Rodeo and horses: Breaker, […]

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