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Help[Opinions] Why is Evelyn so much more popular than Evelina?
Yesterday I finished adding together spellings from the SSA data to come up with my own "most popular" lists for the USA in 2023. My column on this will be published Sunday. Here, however, are my top ten for girls in 2023 when I combine spellings:
Sophia, Olivia, Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Isabella, Mia, Evelyn, Camila, Eliana
In looking at this list it just feels to me like Evelyn is the "odd name out." The first six sound to me like characters in a Jane Austen novel. I can also just imagine a Camila (or Camilla) in the early 19th century. Mia wouldn't have been a given name, but I can imagine it being a pet name for something else in the late 18th or early 19th century, and Eliana, while it really wouldn't have existed back then, at least sounds similar enough to most of the rest that it doesn't seem odd to me as part of the group.
But Evelyn just seems really non-Austen. Ironically, I see that Jane Austen wrote a novel in her youth which is among her lesser known "juvenalia" which were never published until recently, with the title "Evelyn" -- but there Evelyn is the name of a village, not the given name of a woman!
I would expect a character in an Austen novel to be Evelina, not Evelyn. So why is it Evelyn rather than Evelina which is a top ten name in 2023? Evelyn just seems so 1920s (and its previous peak in the USA was about between 1915 and 1922), while Evelina seems like it would fit in so well with Sophia, Olivia, and Emma -- but Evelina isn't even in the SSA top 1000! Any thoughts on why people seem to ignore Evelina and choose Evelyn instead these days?
Sophia, Olivia, Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Isabella, Mia, Evelyn, Camila, Eliana
In looking at this list it just feels to me like Evelyn is the "odd name out." The first six sound to me like characters in a Jane Austen novel. I can also just imagine a Camila (or Camilla) in the early 19th century. Mia wouldn't have been a given name, but I can imagine it being a pet name for something else in the late 18th or early 19th century, and Eliana, while it really wouldn't have existed back then, at least sounds similar enough to most of the rest that it doesn't seem odd to me as part of the group.
But Evelyn just seems really non-Austen. Ironically, I see that Jane Austen wrote a novel in her youth which is among her lesser known "juvenalia" which were never published until recently, with the title "Evelyn" -- but there Evelyn is the name of a village, not the given name of a woman!
I would expect a character in an Austen novel to be Evelina, not Evelyn. So why is it Evelyn rather than Evelina which is a top ten name in 2023? Evelyn just seems so 1920s (and its previous peak in the USA was about between 1915 and 1922), while Evelina seems like it would fit in so well with Sophia, Olivia, and Emma -- but Evelina isn't even in the SSA top 1000! Any thoughts on why people seem to ignore Evelina and choose Evelyn instead these days?
