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

[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.