NYT article on changing fads in popular baby names.
July 6, 2003
Where Have All the Lisas Gone?
By PEGGY ORENSTEIN
According to the official Popular Baby Names Web site, the
name we are considering for our daughter, to be born later
this summer, was in the Top 200 for her sex last year. It
was less popular than Molly but more so than Abby. This has
me worried. It seems perched at a precarious point from
which it could, without warning, rocket into overuse.
Witness Chloe, which has shot from 184 to 24 since 1991.
Call out the name in your local Gymboree, and four little
heads will whip around.
Popular Baby Names, which is operated by the Social
Security Administration, ranks the 1,000 most common boys'
and girls' names since 1900
( ssa.gov ).
You can also look up a specific name and track its status
over time (an activity that, I warn you, is an Internet
addict's sinkhole). The site, started seven years ago, was
initially the side project of a government actuary named
Michael Shackleford. Michael reigned as the No. 1 boys'
name for 35 years beginning in 1964, after about a decade
of duking it out with David and Robert. It was unseated by
Jacob in 1999.
Shackleford grew up, with no small amount of bitterness, in
a multiple-Michael world. He hoped that by publishing the
list, parents-to-be would see that his name (and other
common names) were shopworn and choose something more
original. (Shackleford, incidentally, quit the Social
Security Administration in 2000 and moved to Las Vegas,
where he has become a gambling consultant known as the
Wizard of Odds. His own children are named Melanie, No. 88,
and Aidan, No. 63.)
Perennials like Michael or Sarah are not, to my mind, the
nub of the issue. They don't explain why so many people
seeking more adventurous names seem to hit upon the same
ones. Why did I recently receive birth announcements from
three couples who had never met, who lived as distant from
one another as Maine, Minnesota and California, yet who had
all named their sons Leo? How to account for the sudden
spate of Natalies?
I am not so smug as to think myself immune to first-name
zeitgeist. A few years ago, I developed a sudden affection
for Julia, which now hovers at 31, and then for Hannah,
which is No. 3. Although I have never personally met a
Madison (2), I have watched friends seduced by the seeming
novelty of Alyssa (12), Olivia (10) and Dylan (24 among
boys), only to discover that their children are destined to
spend life with the initials of their last names appended
to their first.
While my husband doesn't seem concerned -- at least judged
by the excessive eye rolling when I bring up another
contender -- I've trawled the Social Security site for
clues to the potential future of ''our'' name. I've sifted
through message boards on pregnancy sites to see if it has
cropped up among other moms-to-be. I've checked a site that
polls users to determine a name's image based on continuums
of ambition, attractiveness and athleticism. I've even
looked on the Kabalarian Philosophy site, which, using a
supposed mathematical principle, analyzes the ''power''
hidden in more than 500,000 names. None of that, however,
explained what I really want to know: how a particular name
becomes popular and whether it's inevitable, like it or
not, that my husband and I will choose the next Kayla (19).
Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz have built
their empire on the backs of people like me. Their eight
books, including the classic ''Beyond Jennifer & Jason,
Madison & Montana,'' have sold more than a million copies;
a new volume, the pared-down and pointedly titled ''Cool
Names,'' will be published next month. Like ''Jennifer &
Jason,'' it is part advice manual, part pop sociology text.
Avoiding the deadly (and useless) dictionary format, it
divides names into sections. There's the safe Hot Cool
(Polly, Harry); the famous Cool Cool (Charlize, Keanu); the
retro Pre-Cool Cool (Beata, Lazarus); and the New Cool,
which encompasses, among other things, constellations
(Elara, Orion). The express purpose is to help jittery
parents-to-be separate current favorites from what's about
to break big from what the daring among them can pioneer.
The duo read the baby-name tea leaves of preschool class
lists, maternity wards and birth announcements. They also
consult the Social Security site, though Satran warns of a
critical glitch: it doesn't combine alternative spellings.
In 1998, for instance, Kaitlyn was way down at 36. But if
you totted up the Katelyns, Caitlins, Caitlyns, Kaitlins,
Katelynns, Katlyns, Kaitlynns, Katelins, Caitlynns,
Katlins, Katlynns and Kaytlyns, that name would have easily
bested the No. 1-ranked Emily. Like any kind of
forecasting, though, from predicting cargo pants to
recognizing that we're about to have an orange moment,
picking the next Grace (15) is as much art as science. ''We
look at all the lists,'' Satran says. ''We look at movie
stars' names and what they're naming their children. We
look at names that cut across several trends at once. But
after that, it's just instinct.''
Satran and Rosenkrantz have a pretty solid record of
prognosticating, particularly on groups of names. They
sounded the alarm on the use of places (Paris, Sierra,
Asia) as first names in 1988, years before that trend slid
from mainstream to cliche. A friend named her daughter
London, Satran remembers, which caught her attention. A
short time later, she heard about a baby boy named after a
Pennsylvania town. She then met a Holland and heard about a
Dakota. Those encounters dovetailed with an uptick of
androgynous names for girls. By the time Alec Baldwin and
Kim Basinger named their daughter Ireland, Satran and
Rosenkrantz knew that place names were firmly on the map.
Names weren't always subject to fashion. About half of all
boys in Raleigh Colony were named John, Thomas or William,
and more than half of newborn girls in the Massachusetts
Bay Colony were named Mary, Elizabeth or Sarah. Even in the
20th century, John, William, James and Robert were, in some
combination, the top three names for boys for more than 50
years. Among girls, Mary held on to No. 1 for 46 years,
when it was supplanted for six years by Linda, fought its
way back for another nine, then succumbed to the juggernaut
of Lisa.
These days, even a popular name isn't especially prevalent:
though the name was ranked fourth, there were only about
16,300 Emmas born last year. Sell-by dates are shorter too,
at least for girls. Only three of today's Top 10 names
(Sarah, Samantha and Ashley) survived since 1990.
With boys -- well, there's Michael. Parents continue to be
more conventional with their sons, more conscious of
tradition and generational continuity. Girls' names are
more likely to be chosen for style and beauty. That makes
them both more interesting to track and more vulnerable to
sounding passe, the human equivalent of bragging about your
new pashmina.
The Harvard sociologist Stanley Lieberson first bumped up
against the fashion quotient of names in the 1960's.
Believing they were bucking convention, he and his wife
named their eldest daughter Rebecca, only to discover a few
years later that she was part of a pack. How had that
happened? The marketplace, after all, has no interest in
what we name our children; no corporation profits if you
choose Kaylee over Megan. That makes names one of the rare
measures of collective taste.
Lieberson, the author of ''A Matter of Taste: How Names,
Fashions and Culture Change,'' insists that names generally
rise and fall independent of larger cultural or historical
events. Consider the resurgence of Biblical names. ''They
came back like gangbusters in the late 20th century,''
Lieberson says. ''There was speculation that it was related
to a resurgence of religion. But people who use Old
Testament names are, if anything, less religious in their
behavior than those who don't. It's just fashion.''
Naming styles, Lieberson says, are usually variations on
what came before, moving forward predictably, the way
lapels get wider and wider until they reach a peak and
switch direction. He calls this ''the ratchet effect.''
Take Old Testament names. In 1916, Ruth, for no obvious
reason, was the only one to crack the Top 20 for girls.
After it crested, it was replaced by Judith in 1940, then
Deborah in 1950. By the late 1980's, there were three Old
Testament names among the top slots: Rachel, Sarah and
Rebecca. Now it's Hannah, Abigail and Sarah, with Leah (90
and holding) as the only potential replacement. Perhaps
after a hundred years, girls' Biblical names have ratcheted
as far as they can go.
Sometimes, Lieberson explains, rather than a concept, it's
just a sound that catches hold: the ''a'' at the end of
girls' names (Emma, Hannah, Mia, Anna), or the hard ''k''
at the beginning (Kylie, Kaylee, Caitlin, Courtney). That
breakthrough sound undulates outward, in a kind of jazz
riff, gradually mutating. So the ''djeh'' sound in Jennifer
begat Jenna and Jessica, but Jennifer also begat Heather
and Amber, which share its suffix. (Before Jennifer, the
only commonly used ''er'' name was Esther, which was never
a favorite.) Those names went on to spawn waves of their
own. African-American parents, who are more likely than
other groups to invent names for their daughters -- again,
less often for their sons -- recently became enamored with
''meek'': Jameeka, Camika, Mikayla. (Remember the legendary
three ''meeks'' of the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team
-- Tamika Catchings, Chamique Holdsclaw, Semeka Randall?)
But why does ''a'' or ''djeh'' or ''meek'' appeal in the
first place? Why not the ''th'' in Ethel and Thelma (or
Ruth!) or the final ''s'' in Gladys and Lois? That's harder
to explain. ''My speculation would be that a sound like the
final 'a,' which did not used to be particularly popular,
probably broke through as a variation on some existing
name,'' Lieberson says, ''and then it developed its own
life.''
That's not to say that external forces are irrelevant. Race
clearly influences naming. So does class, especially among
whites. Lieberson found that highly educated mothers are
more likely to give daughters names that connote strength
(Elizabeth or Catherine as opposed to Tiffany or Crystal).
Yet, when it comes to boys, the trend reverses, with the
more bookish moms going for Julian over Chuck.
That's the problem with the Popular Baby Names site: with
no nuance, no dissection by demographic, it can get you
only so far. For instance, Satran and Rosenkrantz recently
polled upscale nursery schools in Manhattan and Berkeley,
Calif. Among that crowd, Charlottes (206) and Rubys (210)
ran rampant, but it was a desert for Savannahs (40).
After a couple of hours of my relentless quizzing, Satran
(whose own children are named Rory, Joseph and Owen)
suggested that some people become a tad obsessed by their
quest for originality. While it may evoke a particular
theoretical profile (Bambi, anyone?), there is no
definitive evidence that a name affects an individual
child's popularity, mental health or achievement level.
''There are people who want to sell the idea that your name
is your destiny,'' Satran says. ''Names aren't your destiny
any more than your shoes are.'' She pauses, then adds,
''Well, O.K., maybe your shoes are your destiny.''
On the other hand, when she recently advised a friend that
Maya was becoming overexposed, it made no difference.
Sometimes people fall in love with a name and don't want to
believe it's played out. Or they're comforted by something
that's a touch more common -- not everyone wants to be a
trendsetter, not even those who say they do.
''There's this ideal,'' Satran says, ''not just in names
but other things that have to do with style, that you
should make a personal statement. But the fact is that most
people are not that adventurous. They say they want
individual style but they pick their furniture at Pottery
Barn. So if you tell them you're going to name your child
Matilda, they'll say, 'That's awful.' But if you say Sophia
or Lily or any of the names that I'm totally sick of,
they'll say, 'That's such a beautiful name.' ''
Even pros like Satran and Rosenkrantz are occasionally
blindsided by a name, as when Trinity leapfrogged to 74
after the release of ''The Matrix.'' Popular culture is an
oft-cited launching pad for naming fads -- soap operas most
famously (Kayla, Hunter, Caleb and Ashley all zoomed upward
after star turns on daytime dramas). Still, the effect is
not as direct as it may seem. Buffy, despite a fanatic cult
devotion to the vampire slayer, has not breached the Top
1,000 (although Willow has been climbing modestly since
1998). Aaliyah surged after the singer's death, but Diana
barely budged after the Princess of Wales died.
A closer look finds that Trinity was already on the
upswing, from 951 in 1993 to 555 five years later. ''Riding
the curve,'' as Lieberson calls it, is often the true
explanation behind a pop-name phenomenon. A name (or a
sound sequence) is in the air, albeit marginally so;
because of that, it's used for a character or happens to be
that of a high-profile performer (like Jada, 78). That, in
turn, catapults the name forward, seemingly out of nowhere.
Bringing us back to the improbable popularity of Madison:
it first hit the Top 1,000 in the 1980's and it was, unlike
Trinity, probably a pure media event originating in the
film ''Splash.'' Recall that, while struggling to choose a
name, Daryl Hannah's mermaid strolls onto a certain
Manhattan street, et voila.
Still, Madison? No. 2? How in the name of good taste did
that happen? Satran points to a confluence of trends:
Madison came along at a time when place names and surnames
(McKenzie, Morgan) as first names were hot, as well as the
related androgynous names for girls (Taylor, Sydney) and
the Ralph Lauren, faux horsey-set names (Peyton, Kendall).
Then there's Lieberson's phonetic wave theory. In this
case, Madeline (56) may have begun to grow tired while
Madison sounded just a little fresher. So when Madison
finally sinks, who will replace her?
On a hunch, I typed another New York place name into the
Popular Baby Names site: Brooklyn. Sure enough, it has
vaulted from 755 to 155 since 1991. Then I tried expanding
in a different direction on the sound chain from Madeline
and discovered that Adeline was inching up as well. Given
those trends, it would not be as random as it would appear
if, a few years from now, Adelaide and Portland, two
seemingly unrelated names, were both in the Top 10.
Now I was getting somewhere. A few nights later, I saw a
film that took place around 1900, a mother lode of
contemporary names for both sexes. One character was
Annabelle. That sounded jaunty. I liked it. But what was
its appeal? Then I recalled the current popularity of the
Isabella/Isabel/Isabelle chain (14, 84, 112) not to mention
Anna (20) and Ella (92). Lovely names all, but they've been
done. That made me suspicious. As it turned out, Annabelle
was rising with a bullet (from 984 to 330 in seven years,
while Annabella went from 963 to 722 in just one). The
following week I spied it monogrammed on a sleeping bag in
the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. Annabelle was off my list.
Michael aside, overuse usually spells the end of a name,
at least for a while. Names also lose luster when they
become tied to a particular era. If you really want to
ensure your baby girl will be unique among her peers, name
her Barbara, Nancy, Karen or Susan. Or Peggy. Those sound
like the names of middle-aged women because -- guess what?
-- they are.
But names are often resurrected when the generation that
bears them dies out. Although our mothers may joke that the
play group made up of Max, Rose, Sam and Sophie sounds like
the roster of a convalescent home, contemporary parents
find those names charming. Doubtless, today's Brittany will
name her daughter Delores.
Or maybe she'll call her Remember. Satran claims that the
next big trend will be word names. Colors, for example (she
just heard of a baby Cerulean), or words that resonate with
the parents' values or professions like Integrity or Story.
''There's been a street-level thing happening for a while
with names like Destiny and Genesis,'' she says. ''They
weren't mainstream, but they were there. The tipping point
came when Christie Brinkley, who is very visible, named her
daughter Sailor because she and her husband liked to sail.
Parents are increasingly looking for names that are
different and also looking for names with personal meaning.
Word names are a natural place to go. It's virgin
territory. Our grandchildren will have names we don't even
think of as names now.''
Satran expects to see a fad in heroes' last names as first
names (Monet, Koufax) as well as futuristic or
Asian-sounding names borrowed from video games (Vyce,
Ajuki). Among African-American parents, she says, the
coming thing will be idiosyncratic punctuation accelerated
by the singer India.Arie and the singer Brandy, who
recently named her daughter Sy'rai.
Which brings me back to the name we are considering for our
daughter. We're not, as it turns out, willing to saddle her
with something as outre as Minerva. And Zazie or Tallulah
are just trying too hard. Our name, as the experts would
predict, is a sideways hop rather than a radical leap from
names that have recently been stylish. So yes, it could
take off. Still, it's a little softer, a little more
free-spirited than its precursors, not the sort of name
you'd imagine for a future Wall Street gunner. But that
suits me fine: I ditched the East Coast 15 years ago for
the sunny iconoclasm of Northern California and a life that
has become far less conventional than I once imagined. I
want my daughter's name, and, I suppose, her life, to
reflect that.
I hesitantly asked Satran's opinion, realizing that, like
the mother of Maya, I might refuse to heed it. Had we
accidentally picked the next Zoe? ''Nope,'' she said. ''I
think you're safe.''
So what is it? I can only respond with Satran's parting
piece of advice: ''Don't tell anyone the name before the
baby is born. Do you really need to know about the girl
with that name someone hated in fourth grade?''
She's right. Besides, I don't want to start a trend.
Peggy Orenstein is a contributing writer for the magazine.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company. |
