Creative Baby Naming

Inspiration :: Skye (painting of the Isle of Skye)

People often make lists of names titled '10 Great Artist Names' or 'The Most Creative Musician Names'. These lists are great for honouring your favourite creative souls but what I find is that their names are often not all that creative. This is because they had no say in the name they were given, it was their parents' choice - which is why you get painters named Brian and fabric designers named Linda. So today I am showing you the names that creative people give their children - the names that the creative people themselves have chosen. 

I looked through issues of 'Mollie Makes' - a sewing and craft magazine that I read. The names were mostly short and sweet. They were a mix of vintage nicknames, Scandi minimalism, word names and English elegance.Here are some of the sibsets I found. 

Finn & Ruby
Daisy, Alfie, Frankie & Betty
Bor & Rover
Bay, Oscar, Hal & Orion
Wolf & Mus
Tallulah, Woody, Jesse & Mathilda
Bonnie & Betsy
Boudica Venus May
Jack & Otto
Ted
Max & Selma
Skye
Charlie, Nomi, Liv & Viggo
Violet
Rafferty
Ruby & George
Solie, Rosa & Pearl
Uma
Satine
Lois & Ellie
Skip
Babette, Rosemarijn, Anne-Floor & Friso
Cooper & Campell
Bert & Gus
Elfie
Edith
Sonny & Huck
Lina
Alfred & Flossie
Arthur & Kit
Ellerie
Atlee
Ruby
Anton & Hope
Emily
Moos

The Classic Name Formula

Inspiration :: Bernard (painting by Mike Bernard)

It is a question that plagues name nerds- what consists of a classic name? As this brilliant article says, classic is often associated with good especially at this time in fashion history where people are favouring styles that were fashionable decades ago. When this is combined with the minimalist buy-only-a-few-items philosophy, 'classic' is the new modern. But classic is hard to pin down.

I feel that there should be a formula or a system to find classic names but this is hard when classic is so undefinable. Upswing Baby Names (in the post I linked above) did such a great job at this and I would like to have a go myself.

My first though was to find names that were popular in the late 19th century and early 20^th century that are still popular now. Below is a chart of my findings:

The problem with this method is that, because names from the 19th century are popular again now, we see the revival names rather than the classics. Their graphs look like a U shape rather than the level graph you would expect with a classic name.

It also leaves out the names we consider classic (Mary etc.) that are in decline at the moment.

And where do we stop? There are so many names that peaked in the 80s that are still popular today – we can hardly class all of them as popular. In my chart, I used all the names from 1940 and before that are still popular today.  So maybe classic isn’t a fixed state. Maybe it is more fluid. We can’t say that Isla is a classic name at the moment but it may well be in the future.

For my next try, I used the number of times a name had been in the top 100 as a marker. These names have all appeared in the top 100 ten or more times:

But this doesn’t take into account that some of these names just don’t ‘sound’ classic. Mohammed still sounds exotic – even though it has been in the top 100 since the 1920s. Bernard and Janet sound incredibly dated. However, these names appear further down the 'classic' list. We could just use the top few as they seem like the most classic names but that doesn't give parents much of a choice when trying to find the stylish classics they crave.

Sadly, it is obvious that I still haven’t found a foolproof system yet. But I am beginning to understand that when many parents say 'classic', they are actually looking for revival names. 

Alphabet Popularity

Inspiration :: Victor (painting by Victor Vasarely)

Names have popularity patterns; but their beginning and ending letters also have peaks and troughs. Here is a chart showing the letters that peaked in each decade.

Year	1st Letter	Last Letter
1880	e f g h l o w	e m a u
1890
1900	m	z
1910	v
1920	b	d s t
1930	r
1940	d p	p
1950	k s t	f g l k y
1960		c
1970	c j	w
1980		r q
1990	n	o b
2000	a	v j n x

Popular Beginnings

Below is a graph showing the year that each letter of the alphabet peaked as the first letter of a name. The letters without results are those that haven't really had a peak in popularity.

Names with Popular Beginnings

These names all have the popular initial for a year they were in the top 50. Eg. The letter V peaked in 1910 and this is also a year where Victor was in the top 50. 

1880

Elizabeth, Florence, Ellen, Emily, Eliza, Hannah, Gertrude, Harriet, Frances, Fanny, Eleanor, Esther, Grace, Louisa, Lily, Lillian, Laura, Emma.

George, Henry, Frederick, Ernest, Edward, Herbert, Harry, Frank, Fred, Francis, Edwin, Harold, Edgar, Horace, Hugh, Edmund, Lewis, Willie, Leonard, Walter, William.

1890

There were no letters that peaked during this decade.

1900

Mary, Margaret, Mabel, Marjorie, Muriel, Minnie, Maud.

Michael.

1910

Violet, Vera.

Victor.

1920

Beryl, Betty,

Bernard.

1930

Rita, Rosemary.

Ronald, Raymond, Roy, Richard, Reginald.

1940

Dorothy, Diane, Doreen, Patricia.

David, Peter, Derek, Paul, Patrick, Phillip.

1950

Susan, Sandra, Kathleen, Sheila, Karen, Shirley.

Stephen, Keith, Kevin, Steven, Thomas, Kenneth, Terence, Trevor, Timothy, Stuart.

1960

There were no letters that peaked for a first initial during this decade.

1970

Caroline, Jenna, Jessica, Catherine, Joanna, Clare, Joanne, Charlotte, Jennifer, Claire

Christopher, James, Jason, Jonathan, Craig, Carl, Colin, Justin, Christian.

1980

Jennifer

1990

Natasha, Nicole.

Nathan, Nicholas.

2000

Amy, Amelia, Abigail, Alice, Amber, Abbie, Aimee.

Alexander, Alfie, Adam, Aaron, Archie, Alex.

Popular Endings
Below is a graph showing the year that each letter of the alphabet peaked as the last letter of a name. The letters without results are those that haven't really had a peak in popularity.

Names with Popular Endings

These names all have the popular last letter for a year they were in the top 50. Eg. The letter A peaked in 1880 and this is also a year where Laura was in the top 50.

1880

Grace, Amelia, Nellie, Laura, Isabella, Maria, Bertha, Clara, Martha, Louisa, Eliza, Emma, Ada, Alice, Florence, Annie, Catherine, Gertrude, Kate, Rose, Beatrice, Minnie, Charlotte, Jessie, Caroline.

William, Tom, Willie, Bertie, Horace, George.

1890

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1900

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1910

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1920

Frances, Iris, Violet, Phyllis, Winifred, Gladys, Doris, Margaret.

Clifford, Herbert, Francis, Bernard, Douglas, Richard, Reginald, Donald, Raymond, Alfred, Harold, Leonard, Ernest, David, Dennis, Charles, Albert, Edward, Robert, Ronald, Thomas, James.

1930

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1940

Phillip

1950

Carol, Wendy, Shirley, Lesley, Mary.

Michael, Paul, Nigel, Neil, Jeffrey, Timothy, Patrick, Derek, Gary, Barry, Mark, Geoffrey, Anthony.

1960

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1970

Andrew, Matthew.

1980

Christopher, Peter, Alexander, Oliver.

1990

Jacob

2000 

Madison, Erin, Caitlin, Lauren, Megan.

Benjamin, Ethan, Dylan, Ryan, Ben, Cameron, Nathan, Owen, Kieran, Aaron, Brandon, Alex, Harrison.

Special Names

These are the names that had both a popular first letter and a popular last letter.

1880
Eliza, Florence, Gertrude, Louisa, Laura, Emma, Grace.
Horace, George, William.

1920
Bernard

1940
Phillip

1950
Shirley
Timothy

2000
Alex, Aaron.

From Surname to First Name :: B

You may want to read the first post in this series which looks at some undiscovered A surnames. Here it is.

Below are some surnames beginning with A that are already in usage as first names but are still quite unusual:

Below are some surname beginning with B that are very rare for first names:

Bade     

Origin: English

Meaning: Battle

Short and Strong but slightly reminiscent of a monk (probably because of the likeness to Bede)

Baena    

Origin: Spanish

Meaning: Habitation name

Sounds like a modern invention but with some strength behind it. Think Bernadette but without the negative connatations.

Baeza    

Origin: Spanish

Meaning: Habitation name

Fiery and daring but with the familiar two syllable, -a ending pattern.

Barrio    

Origin: Spanish

Meaning: Man who lives on the outskirts of town

A dated name (Barry) + a trendy O name = a new and improved surname name. Also the name of a font (which might be a nice occupational nod to a typographer or other designer)

Beatty   

Origin: Scottish and Northern Irish

Meaning: Short form of Bartholemew and an anglicised form of Biadhtach.

It might get confused with Betty or ‘beat’ but pronounced correctly (bee-ah-tee) it sounds pretty sweet.

Behenna  

Origin: Cornish

Meaning: Unknown

You’ve heard of Morwenna and Rowenna but Behenna will be new to many people. You could use the nickname Bea.

Bertolf    

Origin: German

Meaning: Famous wolf

What a name and what a meaning! An extremely brave choice but there is probably someone somewhere who is brave enough to use it.

Bracken   

Origin: Irish

Meaning: Speckled. Spotted.

Full of nature and adventure. Bracken might be a bit too ‘real’ for some people but with names like Fox, Wolf and Cedar coming into use, Bracken could become popular too.