The funny thing about baby names is that they are incredibly personal and also entirely dependent on current trends. Baby name experts say that there is roughly a 100-year trend where specific names become extremely popular and then become “old people names” until they are brought back by a younger generation who finds them cool.
A TikToker named Laura, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, noticed that parents in her borough, which is known for being a bit ahead of the cultural curve, have pivoted to giving their children traditional baby names. She believes this trend is a counter to another popular trend in baby names: “Trajedeighs” or giving children relatively common names with quirky, unconventional spellings such as Zackiri (Zacahry), Bittneigh (Brittany), or Ashleigh (Ashly).
Are traditional names making a comeback?
“We got my two-year-old daughter’s class list, and it kind of made me laugh because, while in some parts of the country, people are naming their kids like Breighlynn and Braxleigh and Peightyn and whatever, I guess, in Brooklyn, we’re going in the complete opposite direction,” Laura shared in her video.
Here are some of the names of kids in her daughter’s class:
Edith
Oscar
Arthur
Nicholas
Bonnie
Owen
Henry
Ruby
Lewis
The post inspired many people in the comments to share updates on the name trends in their area. “I heard this joke that the preschool classes in NYC are the same as the boat passenger list at Ellis Island,” a commenter wrote.
“Mind you, I’m in California and my kids friends are Coyote, Denver, Sahara, Dior, Storm, Silver, Story, Velvet, Lion,” a Californian wrote. “Seattle Preschool teacher here. I had a class with Edith, Eleanor, Ernestine, Ruby, and Louise once. Called them my old lady gang,” a teacher in Seattle wrote.
Why do names rise and fall in popularity?
This unique cultural back and forth, where society collectively makes a name popular and then once it reaches its peak, abandons it altogether, is known as “frequency-dependent selection.” It works for names, as well as dog breeds. Historically, certain dog breeds have risen in popularity, such as Dalmatians in the 1940s or Rottweilers in the 1990s, only to fall out of favor once they become too trendy.
“Frequency-dependent selection is just a fancy way of saying that there is a pressure to be the same or different,” Mitchell Newberry, an assistant professor of complex systems at the University of Michigan, told Vice. “If a name gets too popular, then people don’t want to use it anymore, and there’s pressure to be different.” In fact, when we look at baby name trends, you can see that they follow a very predictable trajectory. A step rise in popularity, a brief plateau, and then a decline that was almost as rapid as its ascent.
The predictable cycles in baby names and dog breed popularity are eye-opening because they make you wonder how often we make authentic choices in life. How many of the decisions that we make are based on either joining the crowd or intentionally running in the opposite direction? If all we do is simply react to the behaviors of others, when are we truly being ourselves?
