It’s become a truism that once a name gets too popular, no one wants to use it anymore.  (Which reminds me of the famous Yogi Berra saying: Nobody goes to that place anymore.  It’s too crowded.)

So what do they use instead?  Often, a name that’s the same but different.

Consider Emma, 2008’s Number One girls’ name.  Part of Emma’s success, I’m sure, is that it resembles Emily, long the girls’ top name, but has an individual pedigree and style all its own.

An older spin on this theme was Jessica, which took over the top spot from big sister Jennifer.  It works on the boys’ side too, with Jacob and Justin picking up where Jason left off.

More interesting, though, are the names that are just now appearing on the horizon as similar-but-different substitutes for names that are becoming overly popular.  The appeal of these names is obvious: They seem to offer fresh spins on favorites that are feeling a bit tired.

The down side is that so many people tend to flock to them, they’re often in danger of becoming – like Emma – overexposed themselves.

Here, some current favorites and the daughters (and sons) they’ve spawned.  Interestingly, some popular names inspire new choices that may cross gender lines.

Girls

ABIGAIL

Abel, Abraham, Abram, Abelia

ADDISON

Adelaide, Adeline, Adriel, Adele

ALEXANDRA

Alexa, Alexis, Alexia, Alec, Alexei

ASHLEY

Ashlyn, Asher, Ashira, Ashton, Ashby, Ash, Cash, Nash

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The term ’soap opera name’ has always had a pejorative connotation, suggesting over-the-top, strong, silent Ridge-Thorne-Trent type names. But the truth of the matter is that the scripters of  daytime dramas have actually been a lot more imaginative–and prescient–than those of, say, sitcoms or nighttime dramas.

The classic example–as Abby Sandel mentioned in her guest blog the other day–is Kayla.  When the character of Kayla Brady was introduced on Days of Our Lives in 1982, her name had hardly been heard of–much less used.  But not long after that, Kayla began an unprecedented leap up the lists, and stayed there for well over a decade. 

Soaps also anticipated the trend of using place names for people–there were Egypts and Indias, Sierras and Friscos years before it was a baby-naming trend and they were in the forefront of using last names as firsts.  And there were too many individual names that were ahead of their time: Cameron, Kyle and Kylie, Logan, Hunter, Holden, Colton, Cooper, Roman, Jagger, Harley for a girl…. all of them appeared on the soaps from the 70s to the 90s.

Now, as one of the stalwarts of soap operadom, The Guiding Light, is about to bite the dust after 72 years on radio and TV, this seems like a good moment to celebrate some of the more original sudsy names of the past and present (but sorry, I draw the line at Chardonnay): 

GIRLS

AMBROISIA

CALLIOPE

CHARITY

COLBY

CRICKET

ECHO

EDEN

EPIPHANY

EUGENIA

EVANGELINE

FARREN

GREENLEE

LAKEN

LIBERTY

OLYMPIA

OPAL

PILAR

ROXY

SHILOH

SILVER

SIOBHAN

VIENNA

WILLOW

BOYS

ARISTOTLE

ARTEMIS

BLUE

CABOT

CAGNEY

CANE

CASSIUS

CRUZ

CONSTANTINE

DEACON

DIDIER

ENZO

FORD

FRISCO

GRAY

HART

HAWK

JASPER

JAZZ

KATO

LORENZO

NASH

ORION

RAFE

REMY

REX

RIDGE

RIVER

STORM

THORNE

WHIP (!)

YURI

ZENDE

ZIGGY

ZANE

Appellation Mountain’s Abby Sandel, one of nameberry’s favorite guest bloggers, writes about what names mean beyond what the books say they mean.

When I refer to the secret meaning of names, I’m not talking about kaballah.  I’m not even talking about names like Nevaeh, where the so-called secret meaning is quite clear.

Instead, I’m intrigued by the difference between the meanings given by baby books and the reasons our parents pick our names.

Head to most baby name websites, or flip open your favorite book to Kayla.  Or Kaylee.  Or Kaitlyn.  Odds are that the guides will offer a one-word meaning: pure.  They might also note that Kayla, Kaylee, Kaitlyn and kin are considered variants of Katherine.  As well as Kathryn, Cathryn, Katrina, Katinka, Caylee … the entry could fill a page.

Name aficionados will pause and reflect that Katherine’s meaning is debated.  It is likely that Katherine’s origins are wrapped up with the goddess Hecate, she of witches and demons.  At some point the name was altered to more closely resemble the Greek katharos, which does mean pure.

But if your mother loved the soap opera Days of Our Lives in the 1980s, she probably had the popular character in mind when she planned to call her firstborn daughter Kayla.

Or maybe your father’s mother was called Kay, and Kayla seemed like a fitting way to honor grandma.

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In the most recent list of Most Popular Boys ‘ Names, all five of the top five names came from the Good Book, accounting for well over 100,000 of the boy babies born in the US.  Obviously, many parents–whether for religious reasons or not–continue to be attracted to names with this strong traditional base.  But why, we ask, be limited to the same relatively small group of biblical choices, when there are loads of other more unusual options out there?  Why not Joab or Joah instead of Noah?  Beniah rather than Benjamin?  Jemuel in place of Samuel?

Many of these now obscure names were quite commonly used by the Puritan Colonists, especially in New England, until the middle of the 19th century when Old Testament names fell out of favor.  Most of the names listed below are hardly heard today, with only one of them–Asa–even appearing in the current Top 1000, but they are all possible alternatives to those standards that are given to thousands of babies each year.

ABIJAH — The name of Samuel’s second son would make a perfect substitute for the Top 25 Elijah.

ABSALOM — A literary as well as biblical name, used by Chaucer (for the jolly clerk in The Miller’s Tale, Dryden, Faulkner–and currently as a comic book character.

ADLAI –  Associated with with several generations of the Stevenson family, which produced a Vice-President and a UN representative named Adlai, it can be pronounced either ad-LAY or as-LYE. (more…)

When I lived in London in the 90s, I was gobsmacked (astonished in British) by how different the baby names were there. It wasn’t like they used names Americans had never heard of – exotic ones like Pema or invented ones like Puma – but that they used some of the familiar English names far more often than did parents in the U.S.

Clementine and Hugo, for instance, were the most fashionable names of that day in the U.K., names I’d rarely heard stateside. Clementine was pronounced with an –een ending, which removed it from the “Oh My Darling” association – not that many Brits carried that association.

Some of the names popular in Britain and not in the U.S. are similarly free of connections that may damn them in America: Jemima, say, and Archie. Others are old Celtic or Cornish or Welsh names that never crossed the ocean, such as Tamsin and Callum.

And then there are those names on this list that are classics or short forms heard in America, but not as fashionably – I’m thinking of Forence, for example, and Freddie, Lucy (yes, still) and Louis.

Based on another entertaining tour through the London Telegraph birth announcements from the past few months, here are some names that are stylish in the U.K. right now.

Girls

ALICE
CECILY
CHARIS or CARYS
CRESSIDA
DARCY or DARCEY
DAVINA
EDIE
ELIZA
FLORA
FLORENCE
FREYA
GENEVIEVE
GEORGIANA or GEORGINA
IMOGEN
JEMIMA
LUCY
MAISIE
NATASHA
OCTAVIA

(more…)