WE NAME YOU LUX KOALA WILLIAMS
Parents who want to raise their children free of gender stereotypes are looking for names that are truly gender neutral
BABY NAME WEBSITE NAMEBERRY, PREDICTS WHAT WE WILL BE CALLING OUR NEW ARRIVALS IN 2019... AND SOME OF THEM ARE PRETTY WILD
OLIVIA and Oliver may currently be the UK’s favourite baby names, but what will take the top spot in 2019? Researchers at baby name website Nameberry.com have revealed their predictions based on which names attract the most views from visitors to the site each month.
Here Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz, the site’s creators and co-authors of 10 best-selling books about names, talk us through the trends they expect to see in the next 12 months:
CELEBRITY SURNAME-NAMES
CELEBRITIES have influenced baby names since the days of Shirley Temple, and surnames repurposed as first names – such as Morgan and Carter – have been rising since
Becks appeal: David’s the conservative
surname is popular 1980s.
Now those two trends have combined into one megatrend: Celebrity surnames for baby girls and boys. Goodbye, Shirley; hello, Temple.
Examples: Beckham; Bowie; Hendrix; Jolie; Ledger; Lennon; Lennox; Monroe; Wilder.
OLD-SCHOOL NICKNAMES FOR BOYS
WE’RE seeing charming vintage ‘nickname’ names like Archie, Alfie and Freddie beginning to rival their female counterparts Millie, Maisie and Josie, but more surprising to us is the nascent revival of early 20th century favourites like Johnny, Jimmy and Billy on birth certificates, names which once were confined to old radio and TV shows. Even more startling is the reappearance of some generic appellations, appealing to the hipster sensibilities of celebs.
Examples: Ace; Billy; Buddy; Buster; Hank; Ike; Jimmy; Johnny; Sonny; Spike.
MOST FASHIONABLE CONSONANT: F
F HAS suddenly rocketed forward, particularly for boys, and particularly for boys’ names of Irish descent. Then there’s the whole Family Fran (Frances, Frankie etc), which started to take off after the election to the papacy of Pope Francis.
Fashion-forward names starting with F include the following: Examples: Faye; Felix; Fern; Finnian; Flora; Frederick; Frost.
A TREND TOO FAR: ‘EM’ NAMES
WE PREDICT that baby namers are about to become all Emmed-out in 2019.
After all, we had Emily in the top 25 for 35 years, at number one for 12 of them. Then came Emma, in the top 25 since 1998, and still reigning in first place.
A number of dueling Em-names followed in their wake and we predict that the consensus is about to be that enough Em is enough. Examples: Ember; Emerson; Emery; Emilia; Emily; Emma; Emme; Emmeline; Emmett; Emmy.
BIG PICTURE TREND: GLOBAL NAMES
AS THE world gets smaller, the pool of names becomes larger, with new names with ever-more-diverse origins entering the global lexicon.
At Nameberry we’ve added thousands of new names from around the world: Maori names and Xhosa names, ancient Greek names and South American Indian names, Korean names and Israeli names.
With the appetite for meaningful and unique names expanding all the time, parents are looking for original choices with deep roots. Examples: Acacius; Aroha; Cyrene; Jedda; Kiran; Lautaro; Lior; Niabi; Sena; Walken.
NONBINARY NAMES
PARENTS who want to raise their children free of gender stereotypes are looking for names that are truly gender neutral. And if the names also evidence a gender-free ideal such as Justice, all the better. Examples: Briar; Campbell; Finley; Journey; Justice; Laken; Revel; Robin; Royal; Story.
EASTERN INSPIRATION
NAMES related to Eastern religions and non-European mythology have