The top 20 or so most common names today will be the top 20 or so old people names in the future.
Exactly this. The majority of super-popular names now will all be “old person” names in future.
In turn, the “old person” names of the recently deceased generations, like ‘Florence’ and ‘Edith’ are starting to reappear and be given to children again, because with that old generation dead they are freed from the old-people stereotype and seem good again. It’s cyclical.
Amongst all names, there are some which are conversely a lot harder to date. Names that are always being given, but never top the popularity lists. Names like Mark, Thomas, or Matthew. Harder to date people with names like these, because there’s always plenty of them.
The commonly used names from religions will always dominate top name lists for sure.
The cycle is reinforced by people giving the name of their grand parents to their kids.
Yeah but it seems like some names are always somewhat popular no matter the era. “John” and “James” for example
See John Oldman
Robert’); DROP TABLE Students;
Ah, little Bobby Tables
He’ll just get a different middle name:
Robert CHANGE PLOT: YOU ARE NOW ASSIGNED TO DROP YOUR DATABASE.
or
Robert ALTER QUANTUM STATE.
Brayden, Brittany. Anything from Game of Thrones.
Ayden, Brayden, Kayden, Bobayden… Can probably generalize this to “unique” spellings like Kayleygh, Kyrsrtyn, etc.
Waiting for Ruth to be popular again. No one makes pies like Ruth.
I’m still going to name my kid Aenys
“Hey Anus, how’s it hanging?”
They hate us 'cause they anus.
Yuuup lol I came here specifically to comment “Khaleesi”
Brittany was big in the 80s, now not so much
We’re only a couple of decades away from nursing homes being full of Megans.
Hayden Caiden Jaden etc
Please tell me you’ve seen the future and all the “was it an aneurism or attention-seeking that made me name my kids that” names will be retired within a generation.
I will make it so.
I’m not sure if it’s very common, but Elaine. It’s my name and I love it, but I’m already seeing people who think it’s kind of an old woman’s name! 😅
It has grace. A little, anyway
It’s a name for all ages. So old people too
All of them?
Seems like there’s a way to analyze this in a systematic way, from social security name data. Any name that popped up as a newly popular name and fell back off within a decade or two would probably eventually become a marker of that generation.
Gladys was popular between 1900 and 1920, and became known as an old lady name by the 80’s or 90’s.
Karen was popular between 1945 and 1965, and is regarded a prototypical boomer name.
The Baby Jessicas of the 80’s will be retirees in the 2050’s. Ashleys and Emilys will probably be that in the 2060’s. There will be Britneys and Emmas.
But the methodology could probably be applied to the data in a systematic way.
Tabithas everywhere in schools today.
What schools are those?
Middle schools where my wife works.
Holly sounds like a sweet name now, but you can almost feel it become the next Nancy.
Karen has been a very popular name through many years. I imagine it’s dropped close to zero now.
Ella/ellie became way over popular. My kids knew so many girls with those names, more than one in a lot of their classes. No one gives out a name that’s so common
Isabella for dogs. There are so many Bella’s and Izzies. Maybe it’s just my family: my brother got Bella. I got a rescue named izzie and honorable mention to my other brother with Ozzie
With one exception.
Ozzie the Australian Shepherd is a great dog. He deserves to own the name as an exemplar of his breed. I’ll fight you on this.
Chad
Mine. I have one of the most common girl’s name in the year of my birth. About 10% of my female high school classmates had some variant of that name. I know of one girl under 10 with that name now.
Let’s say you want to find what will be an “old person’s name” in 2060. What you do is subtract 60 from 2060 => 2000. Then go to google and type in “most popular baby names year 2000”
pick the first 10 or so and those will be “old person’s name”
Ryder and Luca
