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Help[Opinions] I just realized, that for the first time in decades...
no super trendy name is in the girls top 10. They are all classics that have come back into style, with the exception of Luna and Mia. Which I wouldn't classify as super trendy as they're not a surname name and very international.
Before there always used to be one. Harper, Madison, Brittany, Kimberly - back until about the 1920s with Shirley.
Before there always used to be one. Harper, Madison, Brittany, Kimberly - back until about the 1920s with Shirley.
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It's reasonable to expect that as the % of teenage mothers falls and the % of babies born to mothers with a college education rises that things would move in the direction of preferring names which have some history in the culture -- which tends to be the main difference in tastes in names between working class parents and the college educated, with the working class preferring "brand new" names while the college educated want something revived from the past. (It doesn't have to be a name with an ancient history, though, because some of the "revival" names now popular with educated parents like Hazel were new inventions back in the late 19th century when they were first popular.)
Also, at the moment some of the "trendiest" names have multiple spellings, which makes them way less likely to show up in the SSA list which counts every different spelling as a different name. Harper and Luna are unusual as names which almost noone every spells in a different way. Many brand new fashions, like Riley, Kehlani, Layla, Everly, Alaia, and Lainey, have a great many different spellings which are well-used.
Also, at the moment some of the "trendiest" names have multiple spellings, which makes them way less likely to show up in the SSA list which counts every different spelling as a different name. Harper and Luna are unusual as names which almost noone every spells in a different way. Many brand new fashions, like Riley, Kehlani, Layla, Everly, Alaia, and Lainey, have a great many different spellings which are well-used.
This message was edited 5/18/2024, 11:15 AM
Are Luna and Mia international? Mia, yes, as an adjective. I haven't noticed any Luna people in South Africa, though it's hard to say in the absence of statistics. Charlotte Bronte apologised for using Shirley, which she knew only as a ln and therefore sometimes as a male given name, for her heroine in the novel with that name, but surely it must have been used for girls after that, however seldom, otherwise Shirley Temple couldn't have been Shirley and sparked off the trend.
I'd be interested to know if names like Harper etc were first used (in the US) in media, advertising, that kind of thing; or was it just Zeitgeist?
I'd be interested to know if names like Harper etc were first used (in the US) in media, advertising, that kind of thing; or was it just Zeitgeist?
This is a tangent -- but Shirley Temple did not "spark the trend" for Shirley. Shirley was already #10 in the USA in 1928, the year she was born. Her fame caused an utterly incredible spike in the name between 1934 and 1937, but there were many girl Shirleys born in the USA before she became famous.
Harper became a woman's given name in the USA because of Harper Lee, the author of the novel "To Kill A Mockingbird," which in many surveys has ended up being the #! favorite novel in the United States over the last couple of generations. When it became really popular after 2003 it had several pop culture influences that made a sort of "Hollywood feedback loop" promoting it -- first a character in the HBO series "Angels in America" (December 2003) played by Mary-Louise Parker; then a character in the Disney Channel sitcom "Wizards of Waverly Place" (2007-2011) played by Jennifer Stone; and then a major "celebrity baby" influence when David and Victoria Beckham named their daughter Harper in July 2011.
Harper became a woman's given name in the USA because of Harper Lee, the author of the novel "To Kill A Mockingbird," which in many surveys has ended up being the #! favorite novel in the United States over the last couple of generations. When it became really popular after 2003 it had several pop culture influences that made a sort of "Hollywood feedback loop" promoting it -- first a character in the HBO series "Angels in America" (December 2003) played by Mary-Louise Parker; then a character in the Disney Channel sitcom "Wizards of Waverly Place" (2007-2011) played by Jennifer Stone; and then a major "celebrity baby" influence when David and Victoria Beckham named their daughter Harper in July 2011.
It's surprising and disappointing. But I personally have very strict standards for timeless names, so I don't think they are timeless even if they are classic.
Oh that's good
I would say that Luna is super-trendy; it's got that fantasy/character thing going.
I mean, the vintage names are a trend in themselves, but I get what you’re saying.