Are Baby Names Getting Weirder?

You’re waiting at the takeout window by the playground at Amber Waves. A woman calls out: “Sparrow!”

You look around, hoping to catch a glimpse of your favorite tiny, brown bird. Instead, a child skips over to a 30-something creative, clad head-to-toe in the Row.

You listen more closely, and realize that there’s also a Bear, a Panther, and a Dove at this human zoo. Not only that: a Zephyr, a Pepper, a Banjo, and a Thunder build midcentury modern castles in the sand pit.

“There’s a lot of value these days in giving your child a distinctive name in certain social circles,” says Sophie Kihm, baby-name expert and editor in chief of Nameberry.com.

Since the 1960s, the Social Security Administration has recorded a significant decline in babies given “top 10 names.” According to Nameberry’s analysis, in 1970, American parents gave around 16 percent of baby girls and 26 percent of baby boys one of the 10 most common names. That number dropped to around 15 percent for girls and 19 percent for boys in 1990, and around 7 percent for both girls and boys in 2020. The number-one names for males and females were Michael and Jennifer in the 1970s, Michael and Jessica in the 1990s, and Jacob and Emily in the 2000s.

Today, American parents select the most popular names at the lowest rates ever.

Kihm identifies the postwar counterculture of the 1960s as a pivotal moment in the baby-naming landscape. “That’s when unique or unusual names first found some kind of cultural cachet,” she explains. “We start to see a lot of distinctly Black, Afrocentric names come up, and also hippie people using funkier names.” (Think Aaliyah, Imani, Kwame, and Jamal; Sky, Meadow, Sage, and Bodhi).

Since then, the pool of baby-name options has continued to grow. Kihm points to a familiar culprit: the internet. “Today, parents have access to data that was not available prior to 1997,” she says.

On the web, parents can peruse endless lists
of obscure yet ancestrally significant names, observe naming trends outside their immediate communities, and seek professional counsel from services like Nameberry. “Historically, you see a lot of families that would do very strange sibling names, like naming sons Gary and Larry (not uncommon),” Kihm says, laughing. “Now, people are really taking care with the name.”

Kihm hypothesizes that social media intensifies this fixation on names. “The link between names and identity, I think, has been strengthened,” she reflects. “There’s a branding element there.”

Consider the popular cooking influencer Nara Smith, whose four children’s names will make stellar Instagram handles in a couple of years: Rumble Honey, Slim Easy, Whimsy Lou, and Fawnie Golden. Then there’s the Elon Musk and Grimes kids — X Æ A-Xii (X), Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (Y), and Techno Mechanicus (Tau) — whose names seem chosen with an eye toward bolstering their parents’ “mad genius” personas.

This “branding element” can take on a literal form. Under Kimisaprincess L.L.C., Kim Kardashian applied for multiple trademarks — including skin care, clothing, and toy brands — under each of her kids’ names (North West, Saint West, Chicago West, and Psalm West). Kylie Jenner has an active trademark under her daughter Stormi Webster’s name, and Kardashian Inc, applied to trademark Dream Kardashian, the name of the only Kardashian grandchild carrying the iconic last name.

It is likely that, American culture has an intrinsic taste for unique names, posits Kihm. “Just standing out in general is seen as a cultural value in the West, but I think America in particular.”

But despite a decline in common, popular names, not all parents want unique monikers for their children. “Over all, we’re seeing name trends become much more atomized,” says Kihm. Direct family names like Junior are still popular among Black and Latino parents. “Names are very tied up in class,” she says. And while existing data about the intersection of class and naming isn’t extensive, Kihm has noticed anecdotally that it’s mostly upper-middle-class families choosing names “that are a little bit weirder, that position their child as unique.” The youngest of the East End’s summer crowd make a veritable sample of this flamboyance.

Parents often ask Kihm if a name really affects a child’s life. “What I always tell people is for the most part no, but on the fringes absolutely,” she says. “It’s hard to meet a little boy named Maverick and not think of him as being exuberant or a little bit wild. But he very well may be bookish and nerdy.”

As in any other realm, expectations serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy. But typically, Kihm says, the “child will determine what that name means, not the other way around.”