When did we get so obsessed with unique baby names?

[Jilly_in_VA]

When my sister was pregnant with her children, she had a single rule: They could not, under any circumstances, have “trendy” names. Unquestionably adorable options like Theodore, Oliver, Charlotte, and Nora were vetoed over their rankings on the Social Security Administration’s annual list of the most popular names in the US.

She had a perfectly good reason: When she was born, in 1989, my parents named her Emily not only because they liked it, but also because they didn’t know of anyone else with the name. Within a few short years, however, Emily would become the single most popular name for baby girls, a title it held for more than a decade. “Everyone could spell and pronounce it, but it wasn’t terribly common,” a baby name book author recently explained on the abundance of Emilys, proving that even when parents try their best to project a sense of originality onto their children, it’s sometimes the least original choice they could have made.

Baby names, it seems, have never been more crucial to get right. On TikTok, a slew of creators have built followings of tens of thousands discussing baby name trends, and crucially, baby names to avoid because they’re trendy. They reveal baby names they liked but didn’t use, and baby names they never want to see again; they predict famous influencers’ baby names (sometimes with terrifying accuracy) and what names will soon be all over every daycare’s class list. Baby name inspiration TikToks have gone ever more niche: You can find viral videos that suggest “old money” names (Caroline, Elizabeth, Charlotte), “main character” names (Blaze, Arrow, Falcon), or “aesthetic” names (Rowan, Wren, Atlas). Their accounts are called things like @WhatsInABabyNameDoula, @NamingBebe, @DreamBabyNames, and @NamesWithSteph, many of whom now have paid consulting businesses where they help parents-to-be make one of the biggest choices of their lives.


Colleen Slagen, the nurse practitioner behind @NamingBebe, says that she’ll sometimes get comments from people asking why anyone in their right mind would pay someone else to name their baby. “For some people, [baby naming] is naturally a fun process, and for others, it’s actually very stressful, because they haven’t spent the last 30 years of their lives thinking about baby names,” she explains. She’s been obsessed with baby names for as long as she can remember; in elementary school she’d fill journals with the names of her future children and discuss her favorites with her sister. She offers three packages: a video consultation with 16 baby name options for $99, an eight-name package with extensive name analysis for $175, and 16-name package with name analysis for $250. So far, she estimates she’s done close to 100 consultations, some with people who weren’t even expecting a child at the time. “I think it’s fun to have someone analyze you and your partner’s taste and come up with something that suits you,” she says. “It’s a form of flattery.”

https://www.vox.com/culture/23708179/unique-baby-names-2023-trends-tiktok

Comment below, too long for here

[cloudbase]

1. A fool and their money. . .

You know the rest.

[Jilly_in_VA]

2. When we named our kids

they were family names. Samuel John, for two long-ago preachers on my side, and Elizabeth Rose, Elizabeth for both grandmothers and the whole thing for her great-frandmother who I adored, plus Elizabeth was a family name that went back on both sides of both our families for at least 200 years. Adam Scott was a bit of an outlier, but there was an Adam on my family tree, and Scott was for his godfather. We had no idea that Adam would become so popular. Still, we wanted names that would sound as good when they were 50 as when they were little.

The popularity thing happened with my real first name, which I hate and never use, although I would have made peace with it had my parents used the Scottish nickname for it, which is Jenny. But they didn't. So I adopted my nickname from a baby name that came out of nowhere, "Jillybelle".

When an online friend was pregnant the first time and going through this nonsense, I suggested she go back a hundred years and look at names that were popular then and choose from those. She did, and as a result their first daughter was named Mary Helen. Being a southern girl, she was called by both names, but when she started babbling and couldn't get it all out right herself, it became "Mellie", so she is Mellie to friends and family. When her siblings were born, they went through the same process and chose the names Dorothy Ann, who is now Dory, and Richard James, who is Richie to the family but prefers to be Richard.

[ret5hd]

3. I want someone to name their girl "Trendi"...

with a little heart dotting the i.

[3catwoman3]

5. Someone may already have...

…done so.

[Jilly_in_VA]

6. I watch a lot of women's basketball

and have seen some doozies. A lot of Uniques, a few Marvels, and some years back there was one named Special Jennings who is now an AC somewhere.

[3catwoman3]

4. During a 45 yr career in pediatrics, I saw...

…many names that caused me to roll my eyes (before owing in the exam room, of course) and to want to ask the parents, “Why did you DO that to your child?”

Some of the motivation often seemed like parental ego trips - “Look how clever/unique/imaginative I am!” If a child is saddled with a name that is bizarrely spelled and or pronounced, that child will spend their entire life having to explain it to people.

I think that is mean.

One of the dumbest ones I have seen is parents who named their kids after the sports channel ESPN - pronouncing it Espin. A little girl was named ESPN Ann.

A high school classmate has been married twice. Both husbands were named John. She had. Son with each, and both sons were also named John. If that had been me, husband number 2 would have had to get over himself.

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. My daughter's oldest

from a former relationship is named Jonathan, after his father (who was always called Jon, since he was named for HIS father), but has always been called Boogie. Then she married a man named Jonathan. His oldest son by his first wife is also named Jonathan, but goes by his middle name. It's nuts.

When I worked neonatal, I saw some real doozies too. One of my favorites was Chivas Aspen, about which a co-worker commented, "It sounds like we know when and how she was conceived!"

[3catwoman3]

8. Poor to enrolling in my master's program, I worked in a...

…level II NICU - feeders and growers, we called them. We once had a set of twin girls whose mom was going to name them Audra and Audrey. A social worker got involved to discuss the importance of twins having their own identities.

The worst one I ever heard was a baby girl named Shetorra because her delivery had caused a 4th degree perineal tear -

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Yes.

Whenever I see someone named "Unique" I want to say, no, you are not.

My two sons were named Patrick David, after my mother's father and an uncle of my husband's. Second son was named Jonah Isaac, because. We spent most of the nine months struggling over names. When my husband suggested "jonah" I thought, yes! The Isaac os more or less after a great uncle. Oh, and they both have four names: Patrick David Smith Jones and Jonah Isaac Smith Jones. Those last two represent my surname (which I never changed upon marriage) and their father's surname and are obviously not the actual ones.

Sometimes people try too hard naming their baby. I do recommend paying attention to recent naming, especially of your local newspaper actually gives the names of newborn babies, although a lot of them don't these days. Look at family names. Think about what you like. Try out the names you like, especially with the surname. Pay attention to initials.

There will always be spikes in names. The year I was born Linda was by far the most common girl's name. I always had several Lindas in my classroom all the way through school.

Parents also need to understand that the name they bestow upon their child will stay with that child forever. Don't go for something cutesy. Don't go for a name that is tricky to spell or pronounce. Stick with the basics.