Vintage names maturing well

VINTAGE baby names remain fashionable, which is a relief after the burst of bizarre choices from celebrities such as Gravity or Dweevil or Brooklyn.

By comparison, Zacharia and Zara from the last century would not look out of place on a school register. Mind you, not all parents back in Victorian England adhered to society’s expectations. Some had their own burst of wilful daftness. A poultry dealer in Leeds called his son Friendless Baxter, Thomas and Alice Day named their son Time Of, Mr and Mrs Castle called their daughter Windsor and Henry Water had a daughter called Mineral.

Recent generations of youngsters are growing up with names from television and cinema dramas, such as Bilbo or Khaleesi, but fame by association does not always work. Darth Vader Williamson, a surgery technician in a hospital in Tennessee, was named by his Star Wars fan father while his mother was still under anaesthetic. “They came up with the best plan to ruin a child’s life,” he said. Vintage names have more gravitas. There is sense and sensibility naming a daughter Jane or you might offer greater expectations with Charles for a boy. There is even, I discovered, a 100-year rule in choosing them, so today’s parents in search of something unique and retro, should be perusing the popular appellations of the 1920s. Here are the top 10 for girls and boys from 1922: Mary, Dorothy, Helen, Margaret, Ruth, Betty, Virginia, Mildred, Elizabeth and Frances. John, Robert, William, James, Charles, George, Joseph, Edward, Richard and Frank.

Others from the same period are: Ophelia, Posey, Alma, Dorothea and Abigail for girls; Cassian, Linus and Theodore for boys. I even found a list of the current top vintage baby names worldwide: Patricia, Anita, Samuel, Rita, Martha, Barbara, George, Esther and Gloria. Plenty there to be going on with without resorting to Dweevil.