What’s in a name?

Mon., Oct. 3, 2005

Breanne Gilpatrick and Maria Puente USA Today

Naming babies

Celebrity influence

» Drop into any preschool in a few years and you're likely to see a lot of backpacks marked with names like Paris and Mariah. But don't expect to find any mini-Madonnas or Clays; some famous names just don't fit with the times.

» The celebrity influence on baby names has been with us since the Bible, but now you can track it online: The Social Security Administration Web site (www.ssa.gov) has a searchable database that shows the rankings of popular names by year, going back as far as 1880.

» The data show that names of celebrities, or the characters they play, soar in popularity as celebrities' careers take off.

» Example: Paris as a girl's name shot up in popularity from 2002 to 2003, coinciding with Paris Hilton's hit TV show, "The Simple Life." Paris had been known as a boy's name (The Iliad).

» "It was a rare name, especially for girls, but as soon as she hit the news, you could see a nationwide measurable spike," says Laura Wattenberg, author of "The Baby Name Wizard."

» The link between career success and name popularity also is strong with such names as Mariah (Carey), Shania (Twain) and Norah (Jones). Same with Denzel (Washington), Keanu (Reeves) and Kobe (Bryant).

» Experts say parents don't necessarily name their babies after a celebrity; they might not even like the celebrity, but they like the name. And when the celebrity is everywhere in the media, more people are exposed to the name.

» "It's the confluence of exposure and the name being unusual, attractive and a bit different," says Pamela Redmond Satran, co-author of nine books on baby names.

» It doesn't work for every name. Few parents today are naming their children Madonna or Elvis, for instance.

» And some celebrity-inspired names rise and fall for reasons that are sometimes obvious, sometimes not:

» There was a spike in Britneys after Britney Spears' first album in 1999, but the name's popularity crashed when she began sexing up her image. (Spears named her new baby Sean Preston; Sean has been becoming less popular in the past 15 years but could rebound because of Spears.)

» Monica was declining slightly in popularity before the debut of "Friends" in 1994, but after the Monica Lewinsky scandal in January 1998, the name dropped sharply.

» Clay had been losing steam since 1995, and when Clay Aiken appeared on "American Idol" in 2003, it spiraled further, Satran says.

» Jennifer became hot among Hispanics after Jennifer Lopez hit the scene, even though it had lost its appeal for other ethnic groups because of its ubiquity, says Cleveland Kent Evans, president of the American Name Society.

» Some names become trendier than the stars who started them: Jada, as in actress Jada Pinkett, wife of actor Will Smith, and Jaden, their son's name.

» "Now there are thousands of people with those names that wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for them," Satran says. "This generation of parents is looking to get away from cookie-cutter stuff, and our culture of celebrities is supporting that."

The ‘80s are back. The 1880s, that is.

The nation’s birth rate peaks in September, and many new parents will pick names for their newborns that were equally popular in the Victorian era. One-fourth of 2004’s top 20 names also were in the top 20 in 1880, according to the Social Security Administration’s baby name database, which records the names of Social Security card applicants born after 1879.

But it takes about four generations for the old to seem new again. “The women with the name die out, so the name is not connected to old women, it’s merely an old name,” says Stanley Lieberson, author of “A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions and Culture Change.”

Your mother’s name? That’s old. Your great-grandmother’s name? That’s vintage. This is why when Julia Roberts chose Hazel for her daughter, it sounded dated to people in their 40s. To twentysomethings, it was a variation of Hailey, and the name became cool all over again.

But it takes more than good timing. Some factors that determine a name’s popularity:

Traditional is a perennial favorite

Just like little black dresses and navy blue blazers, some names are classics. Mary, Katherine, Elizabeth, William and Joseph never go out of style: They’ve all been in the top 100 for more than a century.

What’s the key to staying power? A variety of nicknames, for versatility. It may say Elizabeth on her birth certificate, but a girl can go by Liz, Lizzie, Eliza, Lisa, Beth, Betsy, Bette or the hipper Ellie and Bethany.

Sounds like a good name

Sometimes a name just sounds right. In the ‘80s, everyone wanted names starting with “J” (Jessica, Jennifer, Jason, Justin, Jonathan). Lately, vowel sounds have been on parents’ lips: Half of 2004’s top 20 girl’s names start with vowels.

Vowel names like Ella, Eva and Ava for girls and Ethan, Emmett and Eli for boys are finding their way onto more birth certificates every year, says Pamela Redmond Satran, co-author of “Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana.”

Another popular sound for boys: names ending in “-aden,” as in Cayden. There were more than 30 variations of them in 2004.

So what are the next big sounds? Names starting with O, like the already popular Olivia and the steadily climbing Oscar, which ranked at 123 last year, Satran says.

And the long “I,” as in Isaac, says Cleveland Kent Evans, president of the American Name Society. “In another 10 years, we’ll see Ida.”

Some just like to be different

The days of multiple Ashleys and Susans are fading: Today’s parents want names that stand out.

In 1880, the top 20 boy’s names were given to more than half of all boys born. Today, it’s less than 20 percent. The top 20 girl’s names covered 14 percent of girls born in 2004, compared with 34 percent in 1880.

Reasons for this: smaller families and a modern emphasis on uniqueness.

“If you’re only going to have one or two kids, it kind of focuses your attention on finding the name that is ‘perfect,’ ” Evans says.

And this is the one time parents don’t want their child to fit in.

“They don’t want to have a child who’s in a kindergarten class with another child with the same name,” Evans says. “It’s almost like it’s a form of child abuse.”

When all else fails, go custom-made

In today’s name game, individuality is the mother of invention.

An unusual name or spelling isn’t enough for some parents. More are settling on names they’ve made up, playing with syllables, letters and sounds until they find a winner. Aidan gives birth to Zaden. Mariah is twisted into Zariah. Kyan, made famous by Kyan Douglas of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” is likely a tweak on Ryan, Evans says.

And more parents are creating “word names,” Satran says. That’s a name derived from an object, idea or place, such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter, Apple. “People are looking for a color, a bird, a fish, a feeling that embodies something they care about.”

Most are too offbeat to make the top 1,000. One exception: Nevaeh, or “Heaven” spelled backward, which ranked at 103 last year. It’s a variation on such spiritual words as Destiny, Trinity and Miracle.

Flexibility has its own appeal

Call it equal-opportunity naming: It’s getting harder to tell which name belongs to which gender.

The trend toward unisex names escalated in the 1980s as parents who grew up with feminism began having children, Satran says. They gravitated toward names like Taylor, Addison, Morgan and Riley.

But though parents will adopt boy names for girls, it generally doesn’t work the other way around, Satran says. In most cases, the female version takes over, becoming far more popular than the male version ever was.

But the switch isn’t inevitable: Drew, Dylan and Ryan, though not unheard of, just haven’t taken off as girl’s names.

Other names have stayed popular for both genders – such as Jordan, which could be the result of celebrity influence. “Michael Jordan’s aura went a long way toward keeping the name masculine,” says Laura Wattenberg, author of “The Baby Name Wizard.”