Light, one-syllable girls’ names are having a moment. Long-neglected classics like June, Ruth and Mae and have made comebacks, but there simply aren’t enough of them to go around. So parents are turning to single-syllable words for fresh options. A few of the new word-names have a contemporary swagger, like Blaze, Luxe and Reign. But more of them are updates on the traditional name themes of nature, virtue and faith. Each of the names below has at least doubled in popularity for girls over the past decade. ONE-SYLLABLE NATURE NAMES Ash Blue Cove Dove Fern Lake Lark Moon Rue Rye Sage Vale Wren ..read more

A major economic study found that employers respond differently to resumes with “Black” and “White” names. But which names, exactly? A closer look raises questions. Names send messages, and we can’t help receiving them. We form impressions of age, gender, race, class, culture, even personality just from people’s names. That makes name-based prejudice a constant risk. A 2022 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research measured the effects of name-based prejudice in hiring. The researchers sent out over 83,000 job applications with fictitious resumes, each bearing a full name chosen to ..read more

Gustave Doré’s Leviathan Which came first, the nickname or the name? The question may sound silly. Nicknames are pet forms derived from given names…right? In fact, the origin story sometimes runs the other way. Parents who loved the name Finn but wanted a more “formal-sounding” option have turned the surname Finnegan into a top-500 first name. And instead of saying that Emmy is short for Emerson, we might want to say that Emerson is long for Emmy. A close look at US name data reveals that names like those are just the beginning. Recent nickname-fueled name trends include: Leviathan (M) The fea ..read more

Kehlani is contemporary. Agnes is antique. So far, so good. But our sense of old vs. new in baby names doesn’t always match reality. “Old-fashioned” is a style, one based in our modern mindset. Sometimes our personal experience with a name makes it hard to judge how old or new it really is. Sometimes we romanticize the past, as when we picture a world of elegant gentlemen named Sebastian and rugged cowboys named Rowdy. And sometimes the past can simply surprise us. Here’s a chance to put your name instincts to the test. In each pair of names below, one was much more popular in the US in the y ..read more

Robert Forster in 1974, Lupita Nyong’o in 2018 Black Panther was a dynamo. The superhero epic was the top-grossing film of 2018 and a landmark of Black cinema that pervaded our culture. But baby names didn’t get the memo. Parents didn’t name children after the heroes of Wakanda. Take Nakia, an appealing, high-profile female character played by Lupita Nyong’o. The simple, stylish name seemed like a natural to become popular in the movie’s wake, yet it barely made a ripple. Why not? It’s a classic story of names before fame. Even the most glittering celebrity can’t launch a name unless it has th ..read more

Author and You Tube maestro John Green recently set out to describe the median American. He calculated the median age (38), the median gender (female), the median household income ($74,580) and the median opinion of Taylor Swift (positive). When it came to names, though, he abandoned population medians and just chose the most common name for a 38-year-old woman: Jessica. I can’t blame him for bailing on an average name. Population-wide name stats aren’t reported in the US, and calculating the all-ages average would require mountains of data: name frequencies, birth rates, life expectancies. I ..read more

An alphabet of still-undiscovered names across the style spectrum It’s the ultimate baby name treasure: an undiscovered name. As name styles shift and expand, these hidden gems become harder and harder to find. But we’ve uncovered a trove. Each of these 78 girls’ names is genuinely rare. None appear in the current list of the top 1000 names for American girls. Some are antiques that have yet to return to style, like Harriet. Others are brand-new like Sparrow, or imports that have yet to catch on here like Elowen. And a few are genuine mysteries, names that continue to fly under the style rada ..read more

You know about the movie. Now let’s talk about the name. In July, as I walked past yet another store display of bubblegum-pink merchandise, I overheard a 60-something woman talking to friends. “I hated being called Barbie in school! You have no idea what a trial that doll was for us Barbaras.” It was the Summer of Barbie, a whirlwind of art and commerce that spawned a thousand think pieces. Filmmaker Greta Gerwig made a musical comedy blockbuster out of feminist theory, and in the process pulled off an astonishing name transformation. She upended the social meaning of the most commercially co ..read more

A single name can convey a world of information. Sometimes it can even capture an entire moment in time: a trend, a shift, a conflict, a celebration. What name should represent 2023 as Name of the Year? Perhaps you found yourself talking and thinking about a particular name. Perhaps a new name was created or chosen, or an old name evolved or took on new meanings. It doesn’t even have to be a baby name per se. Past honorees have included symbolic names, brand names, and viral jokes as well as names of actual babies. But a human-style name should be the focal point, reflecting the role of names ..read more

A trove of still-undiscovered names from A to Z Parents turn over every stone in search of fresh, undiscovered name ideas. Are any hidden treasures left to be found? See for yourself. The 78 names boys’ below count as “buried” because they don’t rank among the one thousand most popular names for newborn American boys. As for treasure, that’s ultimately in the eye of the beholder. But to maximize your chance of striking gold we’ve included three names starting with each letter of the alphabet: one throwback that was more common in the past, one name that fits with contemporary trends, and one ..read more