First Names Part II – Trends

I should ask school teachers how they handle trendy names. What do you do when facing a classroom with 3 Emmas, 2 Zoes, 2 Liams and 2 Ethans?

Not that this is a new problem. I’m guessing that there have been trends in naming babies as long as humans have had names. Every culture has its own name trends over the years; so I don’t know why it surprised me to find the same thing in 19^th’ century Polish Catholic baptism records. Probably it stood out because the names were not the familiar English language names I hear and see every day.

Reading LDS microfilms of church records, I’d find one year when it seemed as though 25% of girl babies were named Josepha or many boys named Andrej (or some spelling variation), and another year when Elizabeth and Johann were common.  It is too bad that I never kept track of these because it would be a great research project to learn what were the cultural influences at those times.

Looking back at US ancestors in a couple of my lines, there were times when biblical names were very popular. There were also patriotic names. My husband’s paternal line has 5 men named after George Washington; and 2 after Thomas Jefferson.  In the US in modern times, we see trends based on movie stars, sports stars and other celebrities.

Personally, as a child, I disliked having a common name: Mary. There were too many other Marys when I was in Catholic School. I wanted something exotic. I envied Rita Hayworth’s daughter named Yasmin. But I survived.

I wonder if any of the “old fashioned” names will get recycled: re-trended? Will we ever see a resurgence of Donna, or Mabel? Of Herbert or Edgar???