Category: baby name Max
The Nameberry 9: Names with potential, from Adeline to Castle to Winslet
This week, for The Nameberry 9, Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel looks at new names that might make their way onto future Top 1000 lists.
Are you still drowning in data? I had barely finished devouring every bit of analysis regarding the new US Top 1000 before the state data started to pour in. Emma is tops in North Dakota, and Mason and Olivia won Most Likely to Appear on a Birth Certificate in Utah.
Baby name news was all over the mainstream media, too. NPR and The New Yorker weighed in on name trends. Jimmy Kimmel was one of many to pick up on the influence of reality television – he quipped that if he ever has twins, he’ll christen them Toddler and Tiara.
There’s no denying it – when it comes to baby name trends, what’s in the headlines has an impact. A notable name is not guaranteed to catch on – Snooki and Katniss remain rarities. Still, it is an important part of the puzzle – a source of inspiration and new ideas that we all tune into, almost constantly, on our smartphones and tablets and televisions and magazines at the grocery check-out line.
Last week brought us plenty of notable names likely to have an impact when we look at future years’ Top 1000 lists:
Boys’ Names: The Happy Ending
Maybe contemplating the name Rufus sparked my revelation. Or it might have hit me when I encountered an Otis. Whatever the inspiration, I suddenly realized that my most-loved boys’ names end in the letter s. Yep, almost all of them.
Amias? One of my all-time underappreciated favorites.
Amadeus and Miles? Music to my ears.
Augustus, Octavius, Cassius, and Aurelius? Love, love, love, and love.
What is it about s-ending names that hold such appeal?
It’s true, I prefer their soft, sybillant ending to the harder –er ending that’s so popular right now for boys’ names. Besides being more gentle, it feels a bit more surprising, intrinsically distinctive.
Many of my favorite classic boys’ names end in s: Thomas, James, Louis, Charles, and Nicholas. And trendier choices of decades past, from Chris and Curtis to Dennis and Douglas to Ross and Russ to Jess and Wes, helped whet the overall appetite for s-ending names.
Some of the names that end in s are fairly fashionable today. These include:
Hot Baby Names: Max in the Spotlight
Max, the name of both the child hero and the young actor who plays him in Where The Wild Things Are, is one of the hottest boys’ names these days.
Max can stand on its own or may be a short form of the ancient Roman name Maximus, which means “greatest,” or of Maximilian or Maxwell. It’s one of the down-to-earth cigar-chomping grandpa names last popular a hundred years ago and enjoying a huge revival now. Like brothers Sam and Jake, Max is unpretentious and friendly but also sounds cool.
Celebrities led the way in launching the revival of the name, starting in the late 70s and early 80s. Stars who are the parents of now-grown kids named Max include Dustin Hoffman, Henry Winkler, Steven Spielberg, and Nora Ephron & Carl Bernstein.
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