There's a new #1 for girls! Emily's 12 year reign is over. Here's the top ten: Code: Rank Male name Female name 1 Jacob Emma 2 Michael Isabella 3 Ethan Emily 4 Joshua Madison 5 Daniel Av 6 Alexander Olivia 7 Anthony Sophia 8 William Abigail 9 Christopher Elizabeth 10 Matthew Chloe Alexander debuts in the top ten for males, replacing Andrew. Chloe replaces Hannah in the top ten for females. More details here. Only 14 different names have topped the lists over the past 129 years. List of names to hit #1: Code: Streak Years 1 Mary 67 1880-1946 2 Linda 6 1947-1952 3 Mary 9 1953-1961 4 Lisa 8 1962-1969 5 Jennifer 15 1970-1984 6 Jessica 6 1985-1990 7 Ashley 2 1991-1992 8 Jessica 3 1993-1995 9 Emily 12 1996-2007 10 Emma 1 2008 Streak Years 1 John 44 1880-1923 2 Robert 16 1924-1939 3 James 13 1940-1952 4 Robert 1 1953 5 Michael 6 1954-1959 6 David 1 1960 7 Michael 38 1961-1998 8 Jacob 10 1999-2008
That second list is fascinating. For girls' names, there has been a steady passing of the torch from name to name with no repeats since 1880. With boys, though, there seems to be more a passing back and forth between a smaller number of standard names. Why is this? I'll hazard a guess--it probably has to do with parent attitudes towards child gender. It is assumed girls will one day go off and join another family, so there's no need to have a "traditional name," while boys are seen as maintainers of the same family, thus the desire to give them a conservative, "time tested" name. These are not the attitudes that my fiancee and I have, but I think this may account for the difference in naming patterns. Anyway, that's my "Modern Jackass Magazine" theory for the day!
Something I read when we were researching baby names a few years back -- there are examples of names that used to be for boys but are now for girls, and once they become names for girls, they don't get used for boys any more. Leslie and Stacy are a couple of examples -- there are some fairly famous older men with those names (actors Leslie Nielsen and Stacy Keach) but nobody's naming their boys Leslie or Stacy these days.
Actually, some of those names go back and forth in the African American community. I've had both male and female students named Stacy and also Dominique. Hmmm... now that I think about it, I might not have had female Stacys... but I've had lots of Dominiques of both genders. Have a male Dominique now.
Along these lines... At the turn of the 20th century, "Pearl" was typically a man's name. The western writer Zane Gray's given name is "Pearl Gray." He changed it after he overheard people talking about his first published stories and referring to the author as "she." I had a neighbor when I was growing up who we called "Peck Denley" because by the time he hit adulthood, "Pearl Denley" was causing him untold grief. Maury Povich's dad is a sportswriter named Shirley Povich. I've met two academics who go by their first initial and their middle name, say, "S. Frederick" because their first name was Shirley.
The whole male-to-female shift on names is really fascinating to me. Let's see (some of these you guys already mentioned) Stacey, Ashley, Leslie, Shirley, Carol, Marion, Pearl, Jordan, Lauren (and its variants), Cary (and its variants), Kim, Abbie, Sean (switched to Shawn), Jamie, Dominique, Terry... Then there are the names that are unisex in their shortened form: Jess, Chris, Alex, Jo, Jamie... Is this a purely English phenomenon? I've lived in Latin America and I never once encountered an name that could go both ways. José and Maria go together, but José Maria is always a guy and Maria José is always a girl. Can anyone weigh in on other languages?
Adrian is another one that is now considered (most often) a girls name. Girls have Andrianna, I don't understand why they need Adrian too.
Are there many boys named Francis these days? Or do people go with Franklin if they want a kid named Frank? Thanks to my wife, I know that "Francis" is the traditional spelling of the boy's name, and "Frances" for the girl's. Makes it easy to remember: His name is Francis, her name is Frances.
I met a guy named Hillary, once. Up to that point, I hadn't realized that Hillary could be a boy's name.
There's been a trend toward last names as first names for a while, maybe more prevalent among girls than boys. Madison, McKenzie, Bailey, Paige, Shelby, Lindsey, Payton, Cameron (both sexes), Mallory, Whitney, (K)assidy, and Taylor.
Don't get me started on Lexus and Mercedes. If the former was short for "Alexis," I'd let it slide, but I've come across too many people who've named their kids after luxury vehicles.
I have a Cameron (boy). I don't think of it as a last name so much, but a Scottish name. I think it's like #6 in popularity over there. Not that we were going for a Scottish name, we just liked it. There seems to be a lot more girl Camerons now, although they usually spell it more "girly".
We named our son Taylor. When his mum first mentioned it I thought it was a girls only name but we both liked it and it fitted in with one of our main criteria which was that we didn't want it being shortened to a slang version.
Mercedes is a pretty common Spanish name (comes from the Spanish for either 'mercy' or 'deserving', I'm not sure which).
Most likely because of naming conventions in English. I'll bet a number of those Roberts and Johns are Juniors, III's, IV's, etc, whereas there's no corresponding tradition with women's names.
I know this thread is basically dead but thought it was the best spot available for this - any advice out there for the wife and I to resolve our conflict on naming our new baby? I'm not looking for suggestions - but rather how to settle the fact that I've got a name and she's got a name and neither one of us like the other's option.
I'd love to weigh in (don't have any kids yet myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt...) but we need more info. Is this a kid that is currently in the oven, or a theoretical future kid? Do you know the gender? Is the issue the first name or what last name the kid will have?