Today is officially Soap Opera Day (woo hoo!) and though this isn’t as big of a deal in the baby name world as it once was, with a lot fewer sudsers on TV than there were when soap operas were the main staple of daytime programming, we have to acknowledge the influence that they did have in the past—just as powerful as reality show show TV names do today.
This is true both in terms of trends (as in sometimes condescendingly considered “soap opera names” on the order of Thorne and Trent, Blade and Brent, and also place names like Sierra and Egypt, boys’ names for girls) and individual names—the classic example of which is Kayla. It’s highly doubtful that there would have been 16,000 baby girls named Kayla in 1996 if popular good girl Kayla Brady hadn’t appeared on Days of Our Lives a decade earlier. And the same goes for all those Ashleys too.
What follows is a list of soap opera names across three decades that did have some influence—though it sometimes took as long as a decade or two to make an impact (and of course there could be other factors involved)—followed by the year in which they were at the peak of their popularity.
1970s
Brooke—All My Children—2003
Kylie—Search for Tomorrow–2003
Logan—The Edge of Night–2007-10
1980s
Ariel—As the World Turns—1992 (The Little Mermaid came out in 1989)
Ashley—The Young and the Restless—1991-2
Ava—Loving—2007
Brittany—Another World—1989-91
Caleb—As the World Turns—2011
Cole—The Young and the Restless–2000
Haley—As the World Turns–2000
Holden—As the World Turns–2011
Hunter—Another World–2000
Jackson—All My Children– 2011
Jasmine—As the World Turns, Days of Our Lives-1993-94
Jonah—Days of Our Lives—2008
Kayla—Days of Our Lives—1995-96
Kendall—All My Children—2011
Lexie—Days of Our lives—2010
Marley—Another World–2008
Miranda—Another World–1995
Savannah—Days of Our Lives–2006
Skylar—The Young and the Restless–2011
Sydney (girl)—Santa Barbara—1999-2002
Taylor (girl)—As the World Turns—1994-96
1990s
Azure—The City—not yet, but a color name that could pop
Blake (female)—The Guiding Light—2011 (debut on the girls’ list)
Braden—All My Children–2005
Brady—Days of Our Lives—2007
Connor—The Bold and the Beautiful—2004
Cooper—Days of Our Lives–2010
Jagger—General Hospital–2011
Jasper aka Jax—General Hospital—2001 for Jasper, 2011for Jax
Lark—The Bold and the Beautiful—not yet, but definitely on the rise
Mateo—All My Children—2011
Zeus—One Life to Live—not yet, but stay tuned
Do you know of anyone who was named for a daytime drama character? Or any other TV character for that matter.
Linda Rosenkrantz
Linda Rosenkrantz is the co-founder of Nameberry, and co-author with Pamela Redmond of the ten baby naming books acknowledged to have revolutionized American baby naming. You can follow her personally at Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed New York Review Books Classics novel Talk and a number of other books.