While browsing through a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine, I came across an article about the current generation of picture books and their bratty protagonists.  It was illustrated by an image from a book called Finn Throws a Fit.  Aha, I thought, so juvenile authors are on top of current naming trends.  This impelled me to go running (figuratively) to my local Borders to seek further evidence.

One difference I noticed immediately was that there were more little human protagonists and fewer of the porcine (excluding Olivia), feline, canine, bovine, etc persuasion than there were in the past, and there were, as the article pointed out, a lot more angry children populating the pages, and a lot more preoccupation with poop and farts.

 In terms of names, I was surprised to see that there was a book title containing almost every currently popular choice—almost as many as there are on the personalized pencils in the airport—a big upswing from the past.  Here are some titles all released since the turn of the century–and they’re just the tip of the iceberg!:

Girls

AVA and the Magic Tutu

CHLOE’S Snowy Day

CLEMENTINE

CONSTANCE and the Great Escape

ELIZA and the Dragonfly

HARRIET, You’ll Drive Me Wild

ISABEL’S Car Wash

My Name is Not ISABELLA

IVY and Bean

JUNIE B., First Grader

The Adventures of LAILA and MAYA

LILLY’s Big Day

Let’s Find LUCY

MAISY series

MERCY Watson series

Fancy NANCY series

OLIVIA

RUBY’S FALLING LEAVES

Silly SOPHIA

When SOPHIE Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry

TALLULAH in the Kitchen

I, TRIXIE

Goodnight, my sweet VIOLET

WILLA and the Wind, WILLA the Wonderful

WILLOW

ZOE’s Tale, ZOE’s Hats, ZOE and CHLOE on the Prowl

BOYS

AIDAN’S First Full Moon Circle

BARNABY Bear

BRAYDEN, BRAYDEN, Who Do You See?

COOPER‘S Lesson

DEWEY! There’s a Cat in the Library

DEXTER Gets Dressed

JAYDEN’s Rescue

JULIUS, The Baby of the World

KYLE’s First Crush

LIAM Goes Poo in the Toilet

MILO series

MILTON’s Secret

OLIVER Who Would Not Sleep

OSCAR: The Big Adventure of a Little Sock Monkey

OTIS

OWEN

PHINEAS & Ferb series

Flat STANLEY series

WALTER the Farting Dog series

Looking through the birth announcements in the Scottish newspapers of the last few months-a site which also sometimes include the regions just below the Scottish border and the Isle of Man–a couple of prominent trends jump out.

First of all it’s the nickname names, which right now seem to be even more prevalent in Scotland than in England, for both girls and boys, with a plethora of Ellies and Evies, Alfies and Archies.  Here is a list of  recent ones, with some of the middle names attached to them (separated by slashes):

girls

CHARLEE

CHARLI

ELLIE May

EMMIE

EVIE May/Rose/Elizabeth/Harriet

(Alexa) GEORGIE

GRACIE May

IZZY Henderson

JOSIE Mo

LIBBY May

LOTTIE Aoife (pron. EE-fa) (more…)

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

(more…)

When we were preparing the article “Bizarre Baby Names: A Growing Trend?” for the July issue of  Reader’s Digest magazine that’s just hit the stands, we put together a lonnnnnng timeline of the key markers in American name history–much longer than they could possibly use with the story.  So here we offer you some of the dates and events that you won’t find in the magazine.

1620.  The Mayflower arrives bearing 102 passengers, mostly with classic English names, but also one Degory, one Resolved, one Remember, one Wrestling, and one Oceanus, who was born mid-voyage.

1750s. Enter classical names (Homer, Horace), chivalrous names (Arthur, Elaine), and romantic girls (Lavinia, Rosalind).  More boys are being called Junior.

1768. Birth of Dolley Madison, one of the increasing number of babies with nicknames on their birth certificates.

1825. John Quincy Adams is the first President to have a middle name, a rarity at this time, when it becomes fashionable to use the mother’s maiden name.

1845. The Irish famine sends masses of Bridgets and Patricks to America.

1925. Girls’ names ending in ’s’ are fashionable–Gladys, Doris, Phyllis, Lois; also those ending in een (Kathleen) and ette (Paulette).

1946. Publication of Dr. Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care encourages parents to be more relaxed, confident and collaborative: husbands participate more in child care–and baby naming.

1950.  Linda unseats the seemingly unseatable Mary as the number one name for girls.

1959. First Gidget movie released; surfer dude names like Gary, Scott, Dwayne and Bruce catch the wave.

1959.  Mattel introduces the Barbie doll; other nickname names like Lori, Cindy, Sherry and Terri are hot.

1966. Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. renounces his “slave name” to become Muhammed Ali; other celebrities follow suit, influencing African-American baby naming.

1967.  Frank Zappa names his first child Moon Unit,  a seminal ’kooky’ baby name.  Son Dweezil will follow two years later.

1968. TV westerns like Here Come the Brides, featuring brothers Jason, Jeremy and Joshua, signal a return of old cowboy names.

 1974. The first issue of People magazine accelerates fascination with celebrity culture, parents start to be increasingly influenced by names stars give their babies.

1987. Movie Wall Street proclaims “Greed is good,” summing up the Go-Go 80s and inspiring Waspy surnames for boys (Carter, Parker) and androgynous exec names for all (Kyle, Blake, Blair).

1998. Parents continue to get more and more kreeatif with spellings like Adan, Austyn and Alivia all in the year’s Top 700.

2000. The Internet inspires parents to search genealogy sites for old family names.

2003. Extreme starbaby names grow more extreme–this year alone sees the arrival of Pilot Inspektor, Audio Science and Banjo.

2008. Reason returns: With economic downturn, parents look back to solid, traditional girls’ names like Ella, Grace, Olivia, and biblical boys Jacob, Ethan, Benjamin.

I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and when she mentioned her young daughter Becca, I suddenly thought, “Hey, whatever happened to  Becky?”  You rarely hear of a Rebecca under the age of 13 these days who is called by that traditional diminutive.

This is something that happens with pet forms in general–they go through phases and changes as much as–or indeed more than–the mother name.  For example when you hear the name Elizabeth, you have no idea of her age–she could be 99 or 9 months old–but you can certainly guess that Betty is a Grandma and that Liz and Beth are probably young adults. 

Some other examples: Patricia’s nicknames went from Patsy to Patty to Pat to Tricia to Trish to practically non-existent.  The no longer popular Mary spawned any number of offshoots before it faded, including Mamie, Molly and Polly.  Katherine moved from Kate and Katie to Kit and Kitty to Kay and Kathy, back to Kate and Katie,  to the current Kat; and Edward launched not only Eddie and Ward but Ed, Ted and Ned.

But the prizes for the two names with the most mutable  pet forms and offshoots have to go to Margaret and Elizabeth, many of whose diminutives have become stand-alone names.  Here, in the roughest chronological order, is what Margarets and Elizabeths been known as over time:

MARGARET

PEG
PEGGY
MAGGIE
MAGO

MARGO

MAY
DAISY
MADGE
MIDGE
MAISIE
MARGIE
MEGGIE
MEG
GRETA

ELIZABETH

TIBBY
ELIZA
BETSY
BESS
BESSIE
ELSIE
BETTA
ELSA
BETTY
BETH
LIBBY
LIZBETH
ELISA
ELISE
LISA
LIZA
LIZZIE
LIZ
(But note that many, if not most baby Elizabeths these days are called Elizabeth.)