baby name

[flea]

Born to Alicia (of my old LLL group), Tessa Brielle. Big sister is Cadence.

I generally don't editorialize, but I hate the name Cadence, love Tessa, and hate Brielle. Usually it's not so mixy from one person - either I like their taste overall, or don't.

One thing I ponder about baby names is to what extent trendiness/date-stamping runs in families. It's why I sometimes note the names of the parents. For example, my cousin is named Jeff, b. 1972. His wife is Denise, about the same age. To me, both of those are very 1970s names. Jeffrey actually peaked at #9 in 1966, and is now at #190. Denise peaked at #25 in 1964, and is now #370. Their kids: Alyssa, b. 2002 (#12) and and Ashlyn, b. 2005 (#126, and at its peak that year; it's dropped since).

My mother chose non-trendy names, unusual but classic. Me: not in top 100 in the year I was born (broke 900 in 1990 and is still rising). Sister: #300 in the year she was born, down from a peak of #35 in 1946, and still falling. Brother: #94, in the middle of a slowly rising trend - it hit 61 in 2000-2001. All of our names are actually family names, but of course style influences which family names one chooses. (We were not going to name our kids after Great-aunt Edna or Grandpa Eugene.)

Interestingly, my mother is Deborah (#15, 1949), her sisters are Susan (#8, 1947) and Elizabeth (#22, 1957). So a person from a "trendy" name family can choose to deviate. Whereas her sister Susan (Jeff's mother) stayed trendy - her other son (b. 1977) is Gregory (#35).

Comments

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Ha. My parents, in 1973, chose to name me an "unusual" name.

Sadly, a gazillion other parents at this time thought this "unusual" name was great too. As a result there were EIGHT girls with my name in my High School class of 30.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Reading about baby names, it is very interesting how often people choose a name thinking it is unusual or even "unique", only to find out it is very trendy once their kid hits daycare/school.

Your name is, of course, deeply UNpopular in the US! If you spell it with an h, which istr you do, it's not on the charts at all.

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed. At the American school where I worked in Cairo, my employer was still calling me Nicole after I'd been there for A YEAR. Which was, granted, an improvement over Nicholas, which she'd been calling me for most of the year.

...pretty much, that struck me as unspeakably rude. Because - sure, it's not a name she knew from Virginia. But y'know what? Neither were the names of all the Egyptian kids in the school. Welcome to life on the international circuit, lady!

Grr.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

This happened to us on a local scale. Theo's name is not common nationally or even statewide, according to Social Security. However, when he was three we met a Teddy whose mother said she'd recently been at a party in Durham where there were *five* small Theodores.

Oops. At least there aren't any others at his child care.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've found it's very niche-y. (I know two other Durham Theos and seriously considered it for my son, but my husband didn't like it.) Leo is that way too actually - rather low ranked, but I know 3.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

There's a Leo in Theo's class, actually, which has led to some hilarity.

I'm trying to think what semi-unusual names I've heard for more than one child around here: Miles. Eleanor (well, sort of. We'd thought about it as a girl's name if Theo had been a girl and I have met an actual baby Eleanor).

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

My son's daycare had two female Camerons!

Amusingly, I have never met an Emily, though it has been the #1 girl's name since 1996.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

Cadence? I foresee music lessons in that unfortunate girl's future.

Brielle is a beach town down at the Jersey shore.

And to top it off, Tessa is the name of the main villainess, a fallen angel no less, in the book I'm currently reading. Sheesh.

[larisa57.livejournal.com]

My sister's name is extremely popular -- most popular girls name not only for the year she was born, but for several years before and after. My mom actually decide over a decade earlier that that's what she was going to name her first daughter. My name has never been very popular, but I think that I remember checking the charts and it reached its top popularity a few years after I was born, but still way down toward the bottom of the chart. And I have the less-popular spelling of it, too.

My mother and her sister both have names that were pretty popular in the late forties. My dad's name was also popular for his birth year, though he got it kind of interestingly -- my grandfather came to the US from Austria in 1944, and went to movies a lot to try to listen and learn better English. There was one movie that had either a character or an actor (he couldn't remember which, later on) with a name that seemed to him like just such a perfect American name, that he decide that that's the name he would give to his first American-born son. So, a Viennese interpretation of Americanness, and the name is actually the sort that you'd encounter in King Arthur and similar time period stuff.

[brendalu.livejournal.com]

My sister's name is the same as yours (though she's one l and I think you have two?). At the time, certainly not very known. But I have to think it's seen an upswing in the last twenty years. Hmm.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I distinctly remember at 13-14 knowing that my favorite names where Sophie and Eleanor, and if I had children I would name them those names.

I was 13 in 1985. Sophia's popularity then? #236. When I had a daughter? #20. Eleanor 1985: 670; 2003: 308 (and that belies the popularity of Ellie-names, which derive from various full names.)

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

I think I would like Cadence just the sound of it...if it weren't already a WORD.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

See, it's the sound I don't like. It just makes me think of all the completely overused Jaden/Caden/Aidens of the world.

[susanw.livejournal.com]

My mother (b. 1932) has an unusual name she's never much liked, Rena. My dad was Kelly (b. 1929), which was already starting to go androgynous by the time they married and started having kids in the 50's. So all of us have VERY ordinary for their time, VERY gender-specific names--David (1953), Mark (1955), James (1957), and Susan (1971). Actually, though Susan was still common in the early 70's, it peaked much earlier, so I feel like I have more of a leftover 50's name than a typical 70's name like Christy or Lisa or Jennifer.

Dylan's mother was more ahead of her times--he was born in 1972, and his brothers, also 70's babies, are Ryan and Evan. Since Dylan is following the same path toward androgyny as Kelly, Dylan and I share my mother's insistence on gender-specific names. I wanted something classic, but not too common, because I never liked being part of a herd of Susans. Dylan wanted something with a single standard spelling, because he gets tired of Dylan/Dillon. Annabel meets my criterion, but not his...but he has only himself to blame, since he suggested it!