Thank you all so much for participating in the latest nameberry survey. 

We were really gratified that more than 600 of you responded and demonstrated how expansive the nameberry world has become:  in addition to the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, answers came in from Brazil, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates and United Republic of Tanzania–as well as a number of “unknown locations.”

Some of the results confirmed our assumptions about how you’ve approached naming your children, while others were quite surprising.  One question that was of particular interest to us was ‘What was your prime source for choosing a name’?  It was almost a toss-up between baby name books and the internet.  29% of you voted for books 26% for the internet in general, and 11% for nameberry in particular (not too shabby since we’ve only been in existence for a little over a year!).  Other top answers were the family tree, ‘my own imagination’ and books/movies/TV/music.  But for those out there who think celebrities and their kids’ names are a major influence, that certainly doesn’t hold true in the nameberry world: only two people checked that one off.

Now for the other results:

• A majority (69%) began thinking about names when you were children or teens, the next largest group (12%) as soon as you began trying to have children.
• Most of you spent a lot of time thinking and talking about names.  For 58% it was a favorite topic of conversation, while 22% spent every minute of the entire nine months and beyond.
• 67% of responders had some disagreements with their partners about names but were able to find a number of names they both liked; only 6% made the name decision on their own.
• In terms of family pressure, for 54% the decision was left to the parents-to-be,  for 41% family members made many suggestions and were outspoken when they didn’t like one of your ideas; only 5% experienced a lot of pressure.
• And how did you respond to outside advice?  A whopping 80% listened to others’ ideas but made their own decisions.
• Answers were split about using names from the family tree: 17% named the baby for a family member, 9% used a variation of the name to suit their taste; 46% used one as a middle name; 29% did not use one at all.
• The final decision was made most often (38%) by the last few months of pregnancy; next highest (18%) as soon as you saw the baby; the fewest (12%) agonized until a choice had to be made.
• Ethnicity was not a major factor for most: 62% said it was not important, 30% it was somewhat important, only 8% said it was essential for the name to reflect their ethnic background.
• When it came to a name’s literal meaning, 64% knew what it was but didn’t consider it a major factor, 21% didn’t care about the name’s meaning, while for 15% it was a prime factor.
• Biggest problem in choosing a name?  For 40% it was deciding among all the names you liked, for 35% agreeing with your partner on a name choice.
• The tellingly large segment of 36% kept the name a secret until after the birth, while 27% debated their choices with family and close friends, 21% talked about names with anyone who was interested, and 16% said they and their partner made the decision alone and announced it before the baby’s birth.

DON’T FORGET—Part Two of this survey will be coming soon.

We realize a lot of people come to nameberry to help make their first baby-naming decision, but today we’d like to hear from those parents who’ve already named one or more children with our new baby name survey.

What factors influenced your name choice?  Whose advice did you take?  How did you finally settle on “the one”?

We’ll be following this up with questions about your opinions on middle names, nicknames, sibling names, etc.

CLICK HERE TO START Part 1 of the baby name survey. We’ll be reporting on the results soon.

THANKS for participating!!

With 2009 name fads, from Marley to Miley, safely behind us, what do we see as the hottest trends in baby names for the year ahead  Here, nameberry’s top 15 predictions for 2010 baby names:

BIGGEST BIG PICTURE TREND: ECONOMICAL NAMES

In this era of tighter budgets and darker outlooks, 2010 baby names will be getting both shorter and more light-hearted.  We see a trend toward nickname names ahead.  For boys, these are economical one-syllable names: Bob, Joe, Gus, Hal, Hank, Max,.  Such short forms – in every sense of the phrase are stylish and getting more so in Europe, with Jack the number one name in England, Tom tops in France, Bas and Sem popular in the Netherlands.

For girls, the nickname trend adds an “ie” onto the end of every name: Gracie, Ellie, Evie, Maisie, Josie.  Trendlet: boys’ nicknames – Lou, Charlie, Sam, Frankie – for girls.

NEWEST RETRO TREND

We predict the revival of serious, no-frills names that haven’t been considered for babies in several generations: Adele, Alice, Dorothy, Edith, Evelyn, Florence, Lenore, Louise, and Marion for girls; Arthur, Frank, Harold, Harvey, Martin, Raymond, Victor, Vincent, Walter, Warren for boys.  Having trouble imagining such sober names on cute little kids?  We said the same thing about Moses and Matilda a handful of years ago.

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This blog is adapted from our most recent book, Beyond Ava & Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby

When people look for baby names online, they often put in a search for “unique names.” Some of them are trying to find names that are unusual and distinctive, but some really do want to give their child a name that’s truly one-of-a-kind, something that nobody else has.

A recent newspaper story claimed that one of the reasons for this is because modern parents want their child to be “Googleable,” to have a name that’s different enough that it will pop out online. And some parents say they won’t settle on a name until they find out whether its url is available.

Of course, as soon as you give your child a “unique” name, it all but guarantees it won’t be unique anymore since someone will almost inevitably poach it. We were tickled to find, for instance, that someone posted on our website bulletin board that she’d named her son Knox, a name that wasn’t in our or any other baby-naming book –  months before Angelina and Brad chose it for their newborn son, launching it on the track to widespread use.

When we asked visitors to our website to tell us what they’d named their babies, we never expected their answers to provide such a trove of highly unusual – yes, even unique – names. Some of these turn gender on its ear, some twist spellings in different ways, some reintroduce ancient or ethnic names or transform place names or surnames, and some are conjured from parents’ fertile brains.

Now here is where you would ordinarily expect to find a long list of distinctive, never-heard-before names.  But that would be against the spirit of this style.  So you’ll just have to find–or create–one of your own.

For more of our ideas on unusual names, check out Beyond Ava & Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby

I was combing through the Top 1000 Names of 1880 the other day for another project (ah, the glamorous life of the baby name expert) and I was blown away by how many names on the list had been totally forgotten.  I don’t mean just marginalized, like Ethel or Beulah, but no longer even in our naming lexicon.

We tend to think of strange, invented, unique names as being a recent phenomenon, as if in the past everybody was named John and Mary, and it’s only since 1968 that we’ve had names like Hallie and Freedom.

But in fact, naming innovations have always been a part of American culture, and examining the list for 1880 – the first year for which we have records – makes that crystal clear.  The roster contains literally hundreds of names virtually unknown today.

Here, a two-part look at the lost names of 1880, starting with girls’ names.

The biggest name trend story of 1880 was nickname names – yes, dozens of the expected Minnie and Annies and Elsies (the name of the little girl in the Mary Cassatt painting that illustrates this post), but also dozen of names ending in –ie that have rarely been heard in the past hundred years.  There was a notable collection of boyish nickname names such as Donnie and Vinnie and Gussie, but here are the most outrageous overall:

ALCIE

ARRIE

AVIE

CORDIE

DESSIE

DILLIE

DOVIE

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