While girls’ names are arguably more interesting – there are more of them, with more variations, and they move up and down the popularity ladder more nimbly – boys’ names are where the real baby-naming story lies today.
Parents are virtually reinventing the genre, abandoning traditional masculine names that have ruled for centuries in favor of a new brand of names for boys. These might be ancient names resurrected from the Bible or mythology, established surnames reconstituted as firsts, ethnic choices newly imported to our shores, or – most frequently – names invented to suit the current style.
All these different types of names yield the same result: They identify a new type of boy. He’s decidedly masculine, yet not conventionally so. He’s strong, yet individualistic; he nods to tradition, but doesn’t necessarily follow it.
Our sons, parents seem to be saying via these new boys’ names, are neither sissified nor the same old Dicks and Johns to be shoehorned into some outmoded macho mold. These names herald a quiet revolution in the way parents view their little boys and, by extension, in the way they’ll raise them.
Are we putting too much stock in the power of names to affect a change in something as fundamental as gender roles? Actually, we think it’s the other way around: The vision of gender is changing, for boys as well as girls, and the new boys’ names reflect that.
This week, we’ll look at some of the new masculine choices moving up the popularity list. The first group are the old names made new again.
Jadon (though it’s used less often in this original form than as the nouveau Jaden, Jayden et al)
Tomorrow: Surname names, real and synthetic, for the new brand of boy.
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Tags: boys' names, classic boys' names, creative names for boys, new names for boys, old man names, Old Testament names for boys, old-fashioned boys' names
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 11:57 pm and is filed under baby name popularity, baby names of 2008, biblical names, boys' names, classic baby names, creative names for boys, gender and names, historic names, name trends . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:18 am
I like:
Atticus
Gideon
Isaiah
Josiah
Levi
Sebastian
Tristan