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American "trendiness" explained via baby naming:
Almost a third of all boys born now receive a name ending in -n. Meanwhile the traditional, classic English boys' names are all plummeting because parents want their kids' names to be "distinctive." But how distinctive is Jaidyn in a class with Aydin, Bradyn, Kaeden, Raiden and Zayden? (Yes, those are all top-1000 names.)What you have here is a story of two competing impulses. American parents love the idea of unusual names, but our tastes are still as much like our neighbors' as ever. The inevitable result is hundreds of tiny variations on a theme. We carve out tiny niches of uniqueness -- "that's Jaidyn, not Jadyn" -- and end up sounding more alike than ever.
Supporting data: "Aidan" and its spelling variations were the number one boy's name in 2006.
If you're into trendwatching - any kind of trends - Baby Name Wizard reveals some interesting patterns in how it all plays out just in the baby-naming niche. And the outstanding NameVoyager tool shows the patterns graphically.
Any news you want to share, Mark? This baby name stuff has been around for a while, and it's only people who are thinking about baby names that discover it and share it with the world. So, any news from the Hurst family?
Indeed - read Uncle Mark 2008 to get the skinny...
http://unclemark.org/unclemark2008.pdf
:)
I heard a talk by the linguist William Labov last year in which he noted in passing that girls' names ending in a long "e" sound have become much more prevalent in the last hundred years. Once you're aware of it, you see it everywhere: Ashley, Emily, Katie, Molly, etc.
The intarwebs say Brian peaked as the 8th most popular name in the 70's, but I don't beleive it; it had to be first for at least a couple of years.
I rarely had any class in school where I was the only Brian. I joined a fraternity once. 7 of the 30 or so active members were named Brian, one was named Ryan, and another was named Orion, apparently a hippy variation of Brian. His sister's name was Sky.
I now work at a company where until just recently, 4 of the 20 or so employees were named Brian.
I was in class with some combination of Ken, Ben, Glenn, and Jen all through school. sometime all of us in the same godforsaken room.
Then of course there were our neighbors two houses down the road, so Jen and Ben lived two houses down from Len and Beth, and had last name differing form ours by one vowel.
Len.
Where's Oz-wee-pay when you need him?