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“Mom� and “dad� names not currently used much for babies.


Ginevra
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Granted, in 40 years, people may start using these names again for babies, but I was thinking today about names many people born in the 60s and 70s were named that are very unlikely to be used currently. Names such as:

 

Karen

Dawn

Sue/Susan

Annette

Melissa

Alicia

Kim/Kimberly

 

Jeff/Jeffrey

John/Jonathan

Anthony

Don/Donald

Robert

 

The guys name list seems shorter because males have repeated ancestral names much more than females (I guess?). Fashion-forward naming for boys was much less common when I was a kid than it is now, at least, where I live.

 

What names would you add to this? Which names do you think will start to sound good again to moms a few decades from now?

I have a child with one of those names and another child with one as a middle name...

 

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

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We sell a lot of labels to middle-aged ladies named Deb or Deborah or Debbie. Fair number of Lindas, Kathleens, Margarets/Peg/Peggy (although I think Catholicism keeps Margaret from ever going too far out of style).

 

When I was in school Sara (my name) was the most popular, although with an H normally. Also a lot of Katies, from all kinds of sources (Catherines, Katherines, Katelyns, etc.), Rachels, Heathers, Elizabeths.

Where I live, many classic Bible names never really come or go. Sara(h), K©atherine, Rachel, Elizabeth, Matthew, Joshua, Michael, James. The main difference seems to be versions of nicknames, as I haven’t heard of any little Kathies, though lots of Kates or Katies, or just the full name use.

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Debbie

 

that's what  I was going to add.

 

Also Lisa.  I don't know any Debbie's or Lisa's under the age of 40.

 

 

What I've noticed with my children's gen is that they are using my grandparent's generation names.  We have an Oliver, an Alfred , and a Harvey who were born this year in our extended family.  I know I've seen some Hazel's and others that I would consider very old-fashioned names.  (But no Bertha yet  :lol: ).

Edited by PrincessMommy
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Usually the only other Alison/Allisons I meet are my age (upper 30s) but I did meet a young college student recently who is an Alyson....

DIsney Channel has had a star named Alyson and a main character named Allyson who went by Ally. It drives DD, who is an Allison, crazy, because no one her age ever spells her name correctly.

Edited by Dmmetler2
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The other thing I’m seeing less of is the Prefix names. For awhile, almost every young Black child I met had a name that began with Le, De, or Me-like LeBron James. I’m not seeing that now. DD went to baby showers last year for college classmates named LaKedra and MaKeshia, and one named her baby Ruth, and the other James :).

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John is declining but it still made #26 in 2015! John was at #48. Name voyager is fun: http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=john&sw=both&exact=false

 

My 8-year-old's middle name is John (for my dad).

Yes, I have had fun with those charts. One of my daughters is named after her great grandmother, and looking at the chart for her name it was common in the 1920's when the g.gma was born, and has seen a significant revival in the 2000s. I think named skipping two generations like that is not unusual.

 

I get a kick out of the graph for Elsa:

 

 

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=elsa&sw=both&exact=false

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Yes, I have had fun with those charts. One of my daughters is named after her great grandmother, and looking at the chart for her name it was common in the 1920's when the g.gma was born, and has seen a significant revival in the 2000s. I think named skipping two generations like that is not unusual.

 

I get a kick out of the graph for Elsa:

 

 

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=elsa&sw=both&exact=false

 

 

We almost named my daughter "Elsa" in 2003, well before the Frozen movie.  We chickened out because my husband was worried that kids would call her "Elsie the Cow".  Of course, in hindsight, that was ridiculous because none of the kids today even know who Elsie the Cow is!

 

But now that the name is so trending up so much, I'm glad we didn't use it anyway!

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I scrolled through quickly so forgive me if any of these are duplicates:

 

Janet

Janice/Janis

Joyce

Gwen

Eileen

Irene

Maureen

Colleen

Kathleen

Sheena

Sheila

Deirdre

Lois

Cynthia

 

I have a daughter named Maureen - she's 18 now. When she was a baby, our pediatrician said he hadn't had a Maureen in the 30 years he'd been practicing! 

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I'm the opposite. I chose ds' name - Noah - partly so it couldn't be turned into a nickname. 

 

Of course, everyone in the house calls him Noey. Or Noah Joe (his full name). Or 'baby', 'handsome' or 'bunny rabbit'. (He's the youngest, what can I say ? )

 

And then the middle kid - well, I called her Elizabeth so I could nickname her Beth, but for her entire first year she got called 'Baby Jack' and shortly after that, she let us know 'I Lizzie.' 

 

And dc wants to change her name....so I have had very little success with my ideas around nicknames/names. But my names were awesome and the kids should appreciate them/let me call them what i want, lol

 

(The girls hate their middle names - Sophia and Grace - I think they are lovely).

 

 

My younger girl is Elisabeth; it was my favorite name growing up and I knew a ton of girls named Liz or Lizzie or even Beth, and I was so jealous - Sara doesn't really turn into anything.

 

But all we ever call her is Elisabeth. :)  Her middle name is Grace.  I think Sophia is a beautiful name too, but one of my SILs has already used it.

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Several of the Amys I've known had people who called them Aim or Aims. It wasn't used as a general nickname - only a very few family members or friends called them those names.

Yes, my BFF sometimes calls me Aims and my nieces and nephews all called my Aunt Mamie when they were first learning to talk ðŸ˜.
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that's what I was going to add.

 

Also Lisa. I don't know any Debbie's or Lisa's under the age of 40.

 

 

What I've noticed with my children's gen is that they are using my grandparent's generation names. We have an Oliver, an Alfred , and a Harvey who were born this year in our extended family. I know I've seen some Hazel's and others that I would consider very old-fashioned names. (But no Bertha yet :lol: ).

My bold - Hi! I'm not 40 yet (I'm 33) and was one of many Lisa's - though I spell mine differently.

 

I agree with your last paragraph, my grandparent/great grandparent's era names are becoming popular again and I love it!

Edited by LMD
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We almost named my daughter "Elsa" in 2003, well before the Frozen movie. We chickened out because my husband was worried that kids would call her "Elsie the Cow". Of course, in hindsight, that was ridiculous because none of the kids today even know who Elsie the Cow is!

 

But now that the name is so trending up so much, I'm glad we didn't use it anyway!

My grandmother died in 2003, when I was pregnant with my third child. We already had names picked out, but it’s interesting - my SIL was saying, “Now that I think about it, wouldn’t Elsie actually be a super-cute girl’s name now?†I think that was quite prescient.

 

ETA: i left out an important detail - Elsie was my grandmother’s name.

Edited by Quill
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I'm the opposite. I chose ds' name - Noah - partly so it couldn't be turned into a nickname.

 

Of course, everyone in the house calls him Noey. Or Noah Joe (his full name). Or 'baby', 'handsome' or 'bunny rabbit'. (He's the youngest, what can I say ? )

 

And then the middle kid - well, I called her Elizabeth so I could nickname her Beth, but for her entire first year she got called 'Baby Jack' and shortly after that, she let us know 'I Lizzie.'

 

And dc wants to change her name....so I have had very little success with my ideas around nicknames/names. But my names were awesome and the kids should appreciate them/let me call them what i want, lol

 

(The girls hate their middle names - Sophia and Grace - I think they are lovely).

I also did this. I picked names that do not lend themselves to nicknames.

 

And I love both Sophia and Grace; my dd’s middle name is also Grace.

 

I hated my middle name when I was growing up because it was, at that time, such an old lady name: Lillian. Now here we are with a huge crop of little Lili/Lilly/Lillian/Lilliana names. It does sound pretty to me now, though I mostly abandoned it for my maiden name in the middle.

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