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| Inspiration :: Barrie (picture of a scene from Peter Pan by JM Barrie) |
Introduction
The
series of the 'Through the Decades' posts is going to look at trends of
particular elements of names. This week I am starting with names ending with
-ie; a popular ending usually associated with diminutives.
Method
I
looked at the top 100 names four years (eg. 1904, 1924) into each decade for
each gender. The following list shows all the names ending in -ie from those
years.
Analysis
Female Names :: 1900s-1930s
Apart from Marjorie, these names are the typical 'vintage' diminutives that are becoming popular again. This is easily demonstrated by Elsie who appears in the top 100 from 1904 to 1934 and reappears on the 2014 list. She started to be used as an independent name in the early 20th Century and it is often said that parents are starting to use diminutives as given names but I now feel like this is not exclusive to the 21st Century - there are many diminutives on the popularity charts here.
Female Names :: 1930s-1990s
Marie takes over from Marjorie to be the resident -ie name for this time period and there are not as many diminutives seen. Longer names such as Natalie, Valerie and Stephanie have replaced the two-syllable names from the early 20th Century.
Female Names :: 1990s-2010s
Another shift takes place towards two syllable diminutives again. There are not many repeats of diminutives but names of a similar feel like Mollie and Charlie which may have felt too informal or even too masculine (in the case of Charlie) to be written on a birth certificate previously.
Female Names :: The General Pattern
The sketch-style graph below shows the general pattern in the amount of -ie names in the top 100 for girls.
Overall, there were less -ie names for boys. Over the first half of the 20th Century, there were one or two names in the top 100 for each decade; usually Bertie, Leslie or Barrie. In the 1970s, Jamie takes over as the longstanding -ie name for boys. As seen with the girls' names, 2004 was a turning point for -ie names. Many nicknames from earlier times are having a resurgence and are being used as given names.
Male Names :: The General Pattern
The sketch-style graph below shows the general pattern in the amount of -ie names in the top 100 for boys.
The general trends show a dip in popularity of -ie names in the middle of the 20th Century then a sudden rise in 2004. The same pattern is seen with the number of -ie names that are diminutives (eg. Many names in the 1940s-1980s were longer, complete forms of names such as Valerie and Sophie whereas names like Bertie and Katie are diminutives and seen in the early and more recent popularity charts.) It will be interesting to see how long this diminutive madness continues.
