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

[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!