I think I’ve mentioned before that I work with babies. Its not a high paying job but its emotionally satisfying. Hopefully soon I’ll find work in my field, but in the meantime I enjoy nurturing the littlest of little ones. One thing I find really interesting about the babies is their names. Names have changed over time and I think it’s an interesting trend to follow. Let’s start with some history, k?
I do not know why I was given the name I have. There aren’t too many Pam’s around and when I was a kid, that was one of the things that made me feel different, and that bothered me. Translation: I hated it! Growing up the popular names were: Donna, Becky, David, Matt, Beth (Elizabeth and Liz), Patty, Debbie, and probably more, but that’s all I can recall. Rarely in the 80s did kids have unique names. But I was born in the 60s so…whatever.
When I had kids of my own, the naming trend had changed. I think families (African Americans in particular) were becoming more interested in their heritage and were choosing African (at least sounding) names. I know I considered the name Bilal for my son. He is so glad I didn’t choose that name! Instead we named him Charles. When my daughter was born, girls’ names were cutesy: Brianna, Kianna, Brittany, and the like. We chose the name Angelica (partially after the beautiful Anjelica Huston) which I thought would be unique, but not so weird that she would hate me. Contrary to belief, she was NOT named after Angelica Pickles from Rug Rats (although when she was younger, she was just as evil as Angelica Pickles). 
Today, it seems as if baby names are extremely varied and everyone is trying to come up with the most unique name possible. I know celebrities do it too (Suri, Apple). I don’t particularly care for very odd names (my mom calls them made up names) like Colanga, for example, but who the heck cares what I think, right? Riiiiight. I, do, however, like names that are slightly unique without being over the top. And working in the baby room I have come across some interesting names. Currently we have the following names:
Girls: Nora, Kayla, Colbie, Hannah, Anya, Audrey, Abby (Abigail), Gianna, Natalie, Carter (girl, yes that’s right), Cara, Gazelle (pronounced Gisele), Sarah
Boys: Connor, Ryan, Luke, Graham, Finn, Cole, Russell, Will
I find it interesting that there are some “old fashioned” names like Audrey, which I love because it’s my gram’s name, and Abigail. When looking popular baby names up on the Googles, I found a site called www.babynames.com which lists Abigail and Carter as some of the most popular baby names. In our case, however, Carter is a girl’s name. We call her “girl Carter” because when she first started coming we already had a boy Carter and we didn’t want to get the two confused. What is even more interesting is that we have had other Finns and Coles, which to me are very unique names. . A look at Nickelodeon’s parent’s connect web page (found here: http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/) offers a list of top baby names. Some of the top names include names of babies we have now: Ryan and Abigail, but we have had most of the popular baby names come through our room over the years. It looks like Abigail is the overall winner because it is on both lists. Congrats, Abby!
We sometimes give the baby’s affectionate nicknames. Nora becomes Norah Jones (singer), Kayla becomes Kay-Kay, Colbie becomes Colbie (a little prosaic I know), Hanna is Hanna Banana or Hurricane Hannah (depending on the personality), Anya becomes Lady Anya, Audrey stays the same (cuz its my gram’s name I cant, it would be too weird), Abby becomes Abby Girl, Gianna we don’t call anything because she’s always asleep. The rest of the girls don’t have nicknames, not sure why.
The boys are not left out of the fun. They also get nicknames. Connor is Chunker Munker (cuz he’s chunky), Ryan is Ry Ry or Rye Pie, Graham is Graham Cracker (clever, huh?), Luke is Lukey (I don’t know why), Finn is Finn-Finn, Russell is Big Russ, and Will is Big Will. Cole doesn’t get a nickname cuz he comes with a twin.
I would love to hear what some of your favorite baby names are or why you chose your child’s name. Hit me up, yo.
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I’ve always loved following naming trends, and putting names together. As a girl, I used to read baby name books and write pages and pages of first and middle names that I liked. I work with school age children, and we’ve had a lot of Kayla’s, Kaylin’s, Katelin (various spellings), and Cole’s.
Visiting from Blog Frog!
.-= Bethany´s last blog ..Pictureless Wednesday =-.
My 1 year old daughter’s name is Illusia Willow and you cannot get more unique than that!
I think when I first thought of names I never wanted to go with traditional. Now, don’t get me wrong, some of those names are very pretty, but I am not a traditional girl. The conscious decision to go with a unique name might have a bit to do with how VERY common my name (Sarah) is.
No matter where I lived as a child I knew at least 7 or 8 other Sarahs in school and I just always felt that I wanted a name that stood out more, that made me feel like more of an individual than another ‘Sarah.’
The story behind her name is very simple, I made it up. In fact I made it up years and years before she was ever to be born. See, as a child (maybe due to my lack of friends) I made up names and characters, I had a vast library of imaginary friends
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..Very Faerie Birdhouse =-.
{OOPS MY FIRST COMMENT GOT CUT OFF, HERE IS THE FULL ONE!)
My 1 year old daughter’s name is Illusia Willow and you cannot get more unique than that!
I think when I first thought of names I never wanted to go with traditional. Now, don’t get me wrong, some of those names are very pretty, but I am not a traditional girl. The conscious decision to go with a unique name might have a bit to do with how VERY common my name (Sarah) is.
No matter where I lived as a child I knew at least 7 or 8 other Sarahs in school and I just always felt that I wanted a name that stood out more, that made me feel like more of an individual than another ‘Sarah.’
The story behind her name is very simple, I made it up. In fact I made it up years and years before she was ever to be born. See, as a child (maybe due to my lack of friends) I made up names and characters, I had a vast library of imaginary friends and this one happened to be the goddess of illusion. So that is what she was named after, an imaginary goddess
I made the name up when I was about 13 years old and I really loved the way it sounded, rolled off the tongue and looked on paper. I just really thought it was pretty. When my ex (and ‘baby daddy’) heard of it, he also liked it and so it became her, a one-of-a-kind marvel.
I think some people tend to forget that all names were made up at some point. Most ‘traditional’ names are passed down, re-translated phrases or words of objects, character traits or the like from years ago. I just made up mine, on my own
Good and interesting post, either way!
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..Very Faerie Birdhouse =-.
My boi is Harrison. Ashkenazi Jewish tradition says you name your child with the first letter of the first name of someone you wish to honor who has died. My grandmother’s name was Helen. And of course, George was my favorite Beatle. Myles is a pilot and also likes Harrison Ford (that was not my reasoning.) His middle name is after my husband’s uncle James, who we love but he’ll never have a namesake as he never had children (he is gay and never married and is past the age of adoption at this point, unless he finds himself a young love and they work it some other way.) Harrison’s Hebrew name is Malachi Joseph…Malachi after my grandmother again because her Hebrew name started with an M (and also because my college roommate, Kirsten, wanted to marry Boomer Esaison and have a child named Malachi because we thought Malachai Esaison sounded cool. The Joseph is after my father. Joseph. Aren’t you so sorry you asked?
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very very interesting! i love it!!
Sarah, the princess! i would love to hear more about your imaginary names. i used to do the same thing!
hey thanks for visiting Bethany! My kids are teens but we get a chuckle out of looking at names and their meanings. i had a kaylin the other day!
I’ve always liked babies to have names like Silence…. Serenity…. and, my favorites, Sleepy and her twin sister, Lethargic. Although Absent, Void and Missing are all good ones as well. I’d be just like any other Mom when it comes to baby names… I’d have to give them a few to make sure to be trendy and to hope for the best.
When I was growing up, I hated my name. The only other ‘David’ that I knew of was David Soul from music’s “Don’t Give Up On Me Baby” and TV’s ‘Starsky and Hutch’. Then, when I became a gay in the late 80′s, I had 12 of my closest friends turn out having the name David… so I had to come up with Nicknames, like Little David, Dance-his-ass-off David, Slutty David (he was always a party favorite), etc. etc. Just by their nickname, the large group of friends knew exactly who we were talking about.
Alas, I was always just ‘David’. My Mom was the only one to ever call me ‘Dave’, and usually when she was mad at me. I’m not sure why, but gay men always go by their full names… Michael instead of Mike, Randall instead of Randy, William instead of Bill, Richard instead of Dick (oh wait, there’s always exceptions to that one).
yeah i dont know why you never went by Dave. you just dont look like a Dave. Let’s change our names now, shall we? i’m thinking of something more ethnic for myself, like Fontella. And for you? How about Mango?
I like Mango… that’s very saucy…. perhaps Sassafras? I always wanted to be named ‘Jake’. It’s just the coolest name.
.-= D@vid´s last blog ..Baby Names =-.
how about Jake Sassafras? we can call you Sassy!