Fashion and Trends

3 Generation Cycle
Names tend to go through a 100-year cycle now. Think of your great-grandmother's name. Does it sound fresh and useable now? My great-grandmother was Amy, (who I was named after). This was also her mother's name. Others of her generation were: Anna, Elizabeth, Ella (now in the top 10), Emma, Emily, Lily, Sarah... all those sound fine now. Basically, a generation needs to die out before the names sound fresh again. For example, the generation after my great-grandmother's--my grandmother's & her peers'--names' still sound a little stodgy: Ethel, Dorothy, Mildred, Edna, Gladys, Margery, Irene... Believe it or not, those names will probably be all the rage in 10-20 years. In fact, names from that generation, like Stella, Evelyn, Nora and Audrey are already in the top 100!

Girls names tend to cycle faster than boys' names--people tend to be more conservative in naming boys. Also, it is more common for a boy to be named after his father than a girl named after her mother. This is why you may know little babies as well as 50-year-old men named Michael, but probably know relatively few babies named Barbara (more common among 40-60 year olds).

Here's a chart of the top 20 names in 2016, and the last time they peaked in popularity (1880 is the earliest year the Social Security Administration has data for):

Here are some contemporaries of the 1880s names that may be climbing the charts soon. These still may be considered too stuffy to use, or "cutting edge" depending on whom you are talking to.

Here are some names you may see in 10-20 years:

Names that is may take a while to come back into fashion. Some of these are still hanging around the top 1000, but still falling.

Names of my generation that are still holding onto low spots in the top 1000, but falling quickly and will probably not be resurrected very soon.

Other trends that make up Naming Fashions

Piggybacking
Another trend that names follow is that names that have similar sounds to already popular names "piggyback" their way onto the charts. For example, Kaitlyn was very popular in the 1990s and 2000s. Following in the Kay- trend, Kaylee, Kaylin, Cadence & Mikayla have followed suit. Ditto for -in and -lyn names, like Jordan, Jasmine, Madison and Brooklyn. Kaitlyn is falling out of favor, but Kaelyn, a similar name, took up its mantle. In turn, Kaelyn spawned Maylin, Jaelin, Braylin etc. In the 70s, Jennifer's popularity not only spawned lots of Je- sounding names like Jessica and Jenna, but also Heather, for the -er ending. Ryan became the new Brian because it sounds similar, but seemed fresher. In this way, Jason was popular in the 1960s and 70s, but Jayden took over in the 1990s, and names like Aiden, Brayden, Cayden etc. have followed in its wake. Also Jaylen and Jayton have picked up in popularity to a lesser extent.

Books, Movies, Music and TV are one inspiration for names, but like any other fashion trend, they also have a tendency to produce one-hit wonders. For example, in 1996, 7 babies were named Jamiroquai after the band. Nobody before or since has been named that. Other examples: I know a few girls named Cricket (from the Soap opera Days of Our Lives), Adia (from a Sarah McLachlan song), & Jadzia (from Star Trek, although it is a nickname for the Polish name Jadwiga, it was never used before on its own in the USA). I once met a 60-year-old woman named Jalna, it was a character out of her mother's favorite romance novels in the 1930s. Another example is the rash of Alexises born in the 1980s thanks to the night time drama Dynasty. Unlike the Jamiroquais, though, Alexis stuck around for a long time in popularity, also inspiring the similar sounding names Lexis, Alexa and Alexia. Aisha is another name that had staying power. Originally made popular in Stevie Wonder's 1976 song "Isn't She Lovely," Aisha remains popular to this day (helped by the fact that it was the name of the prophet Muhammed's second wife in the Islamic tradition).  Similarly, Scarlett has been coming into vogue for several years now, possibly influenced by the main character in Gone With the Wind. Why wasn't Scarlett more popular a name after the movie was released in 1930? Maybe because the naming trends back then were too conservative to fuel something as outlandish as Scarlett? I know a whole lot of girls named Tara after the plantation in GWTW, because their mothers loved the movie, but didn't want to take the plunge and go with Scarlett in an era when the most common names were more conservative things Mary, Barbara and Margaret. Many other names come from movies/television/books/songs etc. stick around. Other movie/literary names en vogue right now are Scout, Atticus, Holden, & Leia.

Famous People also influence name fashion. While they don't necessarily invent the trends, they seem to catch on to them earlier than the rest of us. If you note a bunch of celebrities using a name (like Isabel(la) 5 or 10 years ago), then it's likely that it will catch on with the rest of the population in the following few years. Notable trends: watch out for Bear, Finn, Luna, and James as a girls' middle name in the coming years. Also, celebrities themselves can have an impact on naming. For example, Angelina wasn't particularly popular until the actress Angelina Jolie became famous. Now both Angelina and Jolie are quietly on the upswing. Likewise, the names of Angelina Jolie's children, (particularly Maddox and Knox) weren't particularly popular until she used them. Then once the names were out there, people heard them and thought "whoa, that's cool" and as a result, the popularity of these names is on the rise. Ditto for Gwen Stefani's & Gavin Rossdale's son Kingston's name.

Famous people can also have a *negative* impact on names. For example, the name Adolph was moderately popular up until the 1930s when its popularity plummeted and has never regained its former standing, thanks to Adolf Hitler. Another example are the names Chelsea and Hillary. Both names were on the upswing for girls until Bill Clinton became president in 1992. First Lady Hillary Clinton and First Daughter Chelsea Clinton were directly responsible for the plummeting of those names in popularity that year. I guess people didn't want their daughters associated with such polarizing political figures. However, Hillary got a little spike in popularity in the 2008 when she ran for president. Conversely, when President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the name of the oldest of his daughters, Malia, spiked in popularity and remained popular. The name of President Obama's younger daughter, Sasha, spiked in popularity the year after Obama was elected, but then dropped off. It's hard to predict why-- maybe because Malia fit in nicely with the trend of -ia names already happening (Aaliyah was popular at the time) whereas Sasha's popularity had already been declining since the 1980s? Who knows?

Sounds are what names are made up of. Certain sounds come and go with fashion. For example, currently, names that contain long /a/ and long /i/ sounds are more "current"-sounding. Kaylee and Kylie sound more contemporary than Kelly -- Kelly has the short 'e' that was more popular in the 1960s and 70s. You would probably name a kid Miles before you named one Mills, Brayden before Braddon, etc. In a similar vein, Latin/Spanish/Italian forms of names are more popular now than their French counterparts, which ruled throughout the 1950s-1980s. For example, today Daniela sounds more contemporary than Danielle, which was popular in the 1970s. Ditto for Michaela vs. Michelle, Julia vs. Julie, Diana vs. Dianne etc. However, it's not all about vowels. Some sounds don't really go out of style, For example, Gina, Deena, and Tina sound a bit dated. Nina and Lina sound more timeless, and Amina is very "right now." Tracy and Stacy may have their stars setting from their heyday in the middle 20th century, but Lacey, Jaycie, Casey, Maci and Gracie have taken their place. Why is this? That would probably take volumes to explain, and no one explanation is probably correct! To oversimplify, people jump on a trend, and then get sick of it, and move on. Tracy and Staci sounded like adorable little girls in 1965, but by 1985, all the Stacys and Tracys were no longer little kids, so the name was no longer associated with small girls. However, Lacey and Casey were similar names that people discovered in the 1980s and 1990s. They sounded familiar enough with the -acy sound,  but were new and different and exciting. By the 2000s, those had begun to sound a little old hat, but Jaycie, Maci and Gracie were relatively unused and ripe for the picking. What's next? Dacey? (the similar name Daisy is already getting popular) Why not? It's an Irish surname stemming from the word déas meaning "south." Irish names as well as surname names are popular right now-- Finn, Liam, Declan... For some reason, Dacey never really took off. Bracey? You'd think with the popularity of Bray- names (Braylin, Braydon, Braylee etc.), this medieval Norman-English surname would get a nod, but its popularity has barely registered. In short, fashion is amazingly hard to predict! But, we CAN say what is popular in the moment, and possibly predict trends in the near future.