Got Name?
I had lunch with a colleague last week who is expecting his second child. We had a conversation that included baby names. Did they decide what the name of the child will be? Since they didn’t know the sex of the baby, they had narrowed it down to a few choices. It got me to think about this topic and I thought it would be a fun blog. So I did a little research and found a site on the web that had a lot of information on names and their trends.
Yes I was curious what names were on there!
Yes I was curious if my name would make a comeback!
(Which is sort of comical because I am sure it never made any of the top lists in any decade. )
Here are the top names according to babycenter.com for 2006:
Perhaps this will help you if you are expecting this year. In addition, here are a few trends you might want to be aware of:
What names do you like?
Do you agree with the list?
I look forward to your comments.
February 19th, 2007 at 11:23 am
i’m in the middle of the big baby boom among my friends, and they are definitely keeping with the trends. we have a miles, charlotte, two ava’s, noah, aiden, isabella, and peyton (i actually haven’t met peyton yet - and i can’t remember the sex, so i keep sending yellow and green gifts!!!).
At least Puma, Seven, Coco, Apple, Banjo, Tallulah Bell, and Pilot Inspektor didn’t make the list.
February 19th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I tend to stay away from the top 10 lists. As a Jennifer born in 1970, I was always one of many Jennifers.
My first was a boy and I found choosing a name very difficult. There seems to be less variety when it comes to boys names (although I think that is changing). I didn’t want something really common, but I didn’t want something really “out there” either. I came up with Wyatt and my husband agreed.
Our second child was a girl and I had a couple of rules in addition to avoiding the top ten. I wanted a feminine name (no gender neutral names) and I did not want a name that people would constantly misspell. I also assumed that the process would be very similar, i.e. I would choose a name and my husband would agree. That, however, is not how it worked out. My husband got stuck on the name Kacey and would not budge…and it broke both my rules!! In the end, I relented and we named her Kacey. It has grown on me.
I am now expecting another girl and I told my husband that I would have the final say on the name. I bought a book with 60,000 names and spent hours on the internet searching for names. My husband didn’t like any of the names I picked and, frankly, I wasn’t crazy about them either. One day he suggested the name Savannah. I liked it and it met my requirements, but I was still determined that he was NOT going to name this baby, so I continued my search. But I couldn’t get the name Savannah out of my head and it was a name we both liked, so this baby will be Savannah after all.
P.S. If I were going to choose a name from the top ten…for a girl it would be Emma. I think that is a great traditional, simple, feminine name. For a boy, Logan.
February 20th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
There’s a whole chapter on names in Steven Levitt’s book “Freakonomics”. It mines public databases to figure out how names become popular, lose popularity and then resurface. It also gets into how different socio economic and ethnic groups differ in their approaches to baby naming. And whether a Rose by any other name would smell just as sweet? Interesting read for those thinking about the topic.
In fact if you haven’t already read the book, I’d recommend it for all researchers. Levitt applies a data driven analytics approach to challenging popularly held notions. It is a fascinating perspective even if you aren’t interested in baby names, Roe v. Wade, sumo wrestling, or KKK … which happen to be some of the topics he “analyzes” in the book.