The Baby Name Wizard

What job titles convey power, status, and stature? How about this list:

Judge, Bishop, General, King, Boss.

Every one of those top dogs was a top-1000 name for American boys back in the late 1800s. Could there be any clearer statement of a country's dreams? In short, ambition was in.

It was the Gilded Age, when great fortunes were born. New parents of the time had grown up with Horatio Alger books...or, just as likely, had grown up across the ocean and come to America in search of opportunity. Why not pass on those big dreams to your kids in the most direct possible way? Thousands of boys were named with titles of leadership. Military officers, nobility, exalted professions -- any name that suggested that this boy can be something BIG. Take a look at the popularity history of military-rank names:

That's Admiral, General, Marshal, Commodore, Colonel, Major. Not Ensign or Corporal.

Perhaps you prefer the civil professions? In the contemporary comic strip Jump Start, there's a running gag about a boy who was named Doctor by a mom who dreamed big. It wasn't always a joke:

The nobility and aristocracy, meanwhile, were represented by King, Prince, Duke, Earl, and Squire -- Earl reaching its all-time peak at #21 in the 1890s.

There's a new wave of exalted names today. Heaven, Angel, Diamond and Destiny are all hits. Most of today's lofty names, though, envision the child reaching spiritual rather than professional heights. (Perhaps a sign of a shift away from material values, or perhaps just a loftier level of hubris.) It's also notable that the contemporary hits are girls' names. While we're naming more girls Princess and Miracle, "meaning" names for boys have taken a very different turn, which I'll talk about next time.

Last time, I talked about the Top 20 hot list of names that rose most dramatically between 2002 and 2004. Then I charted the pop culture events that jump-started those names. But if you look closely at the chart, you'll notice I only listed 14 names. What are the other six? Meet them now:

Rubi -- Hot in two ways, as an alternate spelling of the rising hit Ruby and as Rubí, a Latina favorite that got an extra push from a 2004 telenovela.

Saniya, Janiyah -- Saniya is a Hindi name, used in the U.S. by both Indian and African-American families. Rhyming twin Janiyah is a new African-American variation on the theme that joins Aniya, Aniyah, Janiya, Saniyah, Shaniyah, Taniya and Taniyah in the top 1000. Which make the Aniyas runners-up to the Hottest Name crown worn by:

Cadence. And Kadence. And Kaydence. Incredibly, the top three fastest rising names in America are all spellings of the same name.

Cadence, the hottest name in America, has no celebrity bellwether. It's pure style, a sound and image that hits a perfect bullseye for a large segment of contemporary parents. Try typing Kaydence into Yahoo or Google image search -- it's like a national baby convention.

Breaking down the elements that make Cadence such a baby magnet: first, The "Kay" sound is hugely popular for girls, featuring in hits like Caitlin, Kaelyn, Kayla and Kailey. Cadence is also a feminine elaboration on the boy's hit Caden (or rather Caden, Caiden, Cayden, Kaden, Kadin, Kaeden Kaiden, Kayden). It's a meaning name (a cadence is rhythmic flow of sounds), a growing style led by names like Sierra, Autumn and Trinity. And it has a traditional name-like sound. With familiar nicknames (Kay, Cady) and echoes of classics from Candace to Florence, Cadence is a new creation that fits in easily.

Look for more young Cadences in 2005. And as the name becomes part of the sound of the times, its popularity could even rub off on other -ence names, currently an endangered species. Top contender: Patience.

Do celebrities really influence baby names? After all, the top names in America, Jacob and Emily, are hardly stripped from the headlines. In general, the most popular names reflect a general cultural zeitgeist that's more powerful than any single celebrity.

You do see the celebrity influence, not in the most common names, but the most changed names. If hundreds of parents suddenly all have the same idea, chances are they all got that idea from the same place. And chances are that place is their television.

Some parents may choose a celebrity name in homage to their favorite star. More often, though, people simply take a liking to a name when they hear it. Watching Charlize Theron stride to the Oscar podium in a slinky gown, the thought wafts across the nation: "Charlize, that's a pretty name!" The celebrity plants the seed, but the name has its own life.

I did some quick calculations to find the 20 names that rose most dramatically between 2002 and 2004. (In case you care, I calculated rise as a function of the percentage change and the log of the absolute change. Ah, didn't care after all? Nevermind, then.) Sure enough, most of the top rising names had a clear pop-culture trigger during that time. The triggers ranged from the serious (Laci Peterson's murder) to the silly (Paris Hilton's...well, everything.)

Here is a handy cultural reference chart to guide you through the young Ashtons and Keiras in your neighborhood:

NameEventAshton (male)2002-2004: General-purpose celebrity Ashton Kutcher stars in a series of films, tv series, gossip columns.Charlize2004: South African actress Charlize Theron wins the Best Actress Academy Award, experiences the Halle Berry Memorial Name Surge.Dayanara2002: Former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres and singer Marc Anthony hold huge cathedral wedding. 2004: Torres and Anthony divorce, amid his romance with Jennifer Lopez.Dylan (female)2000, 2003: Drew Barrymore plays the character Dylan in two Charlie's Angels movies, establishing the name's "pretty tomboy" credentials.Jamarion2002: Singing group B2K, featuring *Omarion (née Omari) debuts. (*Name Omarion instantly soars in 2002, soon followed by variants Amarion, Damarion, Demarion and Jamarion.)Kanye2004: Rapper Kanye West's The College Dropout is one of the top albums of the year; 10 Grammy nominations create publicity flood that threatens coastlines.Keira2003, 2004: British actress Keira Knightly breaks out in Hollywood films Pirates of the Caribbean, King Arthur. (Lest you think Americans are the only ones to care, the name Keira soars especially dramatically in the U.K.)Laci2002: Laci Peterson announced missing. 2004: Husband Scott Peterson convicted of murder.Maddox2002: Actress Angelina Jolie adopts a baby boy, names him Maddox.Norah2002, 2004: Singer Norah Jones releases first two albums, wins armload of Grammys.Paris2003-4: General-purpose celebrity Paris Hilton's personal life is revealed in an array of media including home videos, electronic organizers, and the tv series "The Simple Life."Roselyn2002-2004: Actress Roselyn Sanchez stars in a series of films and tv series.Sanaa2002-4: Actress Sanaa Lathan stars in a series of films including Out of Time and Alien vs. PredatorSherlyn2002, 2004: Mexican actress/singer Sherlyn González stars in a series of telenovelas.

Looking at the most popular American baby names of 2004, one name leaps out at me....or rather, one sound. A whopping 33 different names rhyming with Aidan made the boys' top 1000 list. (And that doesn't even count the near misses, like Dayton-Payton-Layton-Clayton-Treyton.) That number is up from 28 Aidan-esque names in 2003, and just one 20 years ago.

Such an overwhelmingly fashionable name sound is unprecedented. Now before you start dwelling on all the little Kristens, Kristas and Christines you knew in the '70s, I should make it clear: the remarkable part of the Aidan phenomenon is that we're talking about boys' names.

Traditionally, male names have been much less subject to the whims of fashion than female names. Parents were always more conservative in naming boys, and less likely to view their name choice as a style statement. Styles would change, but relatively slowly. Mary, Lisa, Jennifer, Jessica, Ashley and Emily all spent time as America's #1 girl's name during Michael's long reign as the top choice for boys. Yet last year, the majority of the new names debuting in the top 1000 lists were male names. And in a clear nod to fashion, two thirds of those new names ended with the letter N. In fact, more than a third of all the names on the boys' 1000 now end in N.

I've said before that androgynous names are a one-way street: parents like boyish names for girls, not girlish names for boys. But even as we choose more and more traditionally masculine names for girls, the way we approach naming our boys is moving toward the traditionally "feminine." Today, parents are extremely fashion-conscious with their sons' names as well as their daughters -- a first glimpse, perhaps, at how this generation will be raised.

For the curious or incredulous, here is the full 2004 Aidan-esque honor roll (boys only):

Aden Aidan Aiden Aydan Ayden Aydin
Braden Bradyn Braeden Braedon Braiden Brayden Braydon
Caden Caiden Cayden Kaden Kadin Kaeden Kaiden Kayden
Haden Haiden Hayden
Jaden Jadon Jadyn Jaeden Jaiden Jaidyn Jayden Jaydin Jaydon

The Social Security Administration has announced the most popular American baby names of 2004. The top spots are unchanged: Emily and Jacob are still #1.

49 new names made debuts in the top 1000 lists. Many were variations on familiar themes (Aydin, Jaydin, Haiden) or hybrid offspring of other popular names (Gracelyn, Jayleen), while several of the highest debuts were celebrity-inspired (Kanye, Charlize). Indian names also continue to come on strong (Rishi, Diya).

I'll be preparing the data for an update of the NameVoyager, and of course reporting my obsessive musings on the new names here. In the meantime, here are today's top 20:

GIRLSBOYSEmily Jacob Emma Michael Madison Joshua Olivia Matthew Hannah Ethan Abigail Andrew Isabella Daniel Ashley William SamanthaJoseph ElizabethChristopher

Last time, I talked about economist Steven Levitt's take on baby name fashion in the book Freakonomics. Names have suddenly become a hot topic with economists -- they seem to have wrenched the field out of the hands of psychologists and sociologists. Their single hottest subject is the "consequences" of having a distinctively black name. As the title of one paper asks, "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"

In 2003, a pair of researchers from Harvard and the University of Chicago sent out hundreds of resumés with either white-sounding or black-sounding names. The "white" resumés received 50% more callbacks for interviews, a seemingly dramatic consequence. Yet that same year, a different pair of researchers from, yes, Harvard and the University of Chicago, looked at life outcomes of people based on birth certificate data from the State of California. (The certificates indicated the parents' education level and other socioeconomic cues.) This study found no independent effect of distinctively black names .

As it happens, one of the authors of the second study was Levitt, who summarizes the result in Freakonomics. He dismisses the resumé study and all other field simulations, claiming "the audit studies can't be used to truly measure how much a name matters, the California names data can."

I read both papers when I was researching my book, The Baby Name Wizard. My initial reaction was that both painted names with a rather broad brush. All "black" names aren't created equal. Take two examples from Levitt's "blackest names" list, DeShawn and Terrance. Both may send the same skin-color signals, but they send very different cultural signals. (Just as, say, Beatrix and Shyanne are equally white names that send different cultural signals.) Look at Emily and Lakisha, from the title of the resumé paper. Emily, an old familiar classic, is the #1 name in America; Lakisha, an invention of the 1970s, has never cracked the top 1000. How can you compare such wildly different names and expect a pure reading on the effects of race?

Enter an economist from neither Harvard nor Chicago: David Figlio of the University of Florida. In 2004 Figlio looked at children in a large Florida school district, tracking signs of teachers' expectations of individual students: whether children were promoted to the next grade, for instance, or recommended for gifted programs. He rated names both for their racial makeup and their socioeconomic makeup. (By analyzing variables like parents' education level and economic status, he found that certain name characteristics were typical of a disadvantaged household.) And he focused especially on pairs of siblings, who had the same family background but often very different styles of names.

It's a remarkable bit of research wizardry, teasing apart the effects of names, race and socioeconomic status -- even the effect of the family that raises you. Figlio's findings showed that, indeed, all "black" names are not treated the same. A name like Dwayne, which was strongly African-American but carried no socioeconomic markers, didn't affect teachers' expectations. But a name like Da'Quan, with multiple signals of economic status, did. Teachers, consciously or not, drew inferences about the child's background and potential based on these naming signals. In Figlio's data, a pair of brothers named Dwayne and Da'Quan could expect subtly different treatment in school, which translated into different levels of scholastic success.

It's a useful demonstration for prospective name-and-number-crunchers that names carry a rich web of connotations. People are extremely sensitive to names' nuances: history, popularity, spelling, punctuation...everything speaks to our mental models of names and culture. There's a reason that parents agonize for months over name choices. It's not just a black or white question.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors, the legendary memory expert Gordon Bower, told a story of a paper he once wrote. He had conducted a study of word memory, but found that the results were muddled by an incidental social aspect of the experiment. The social effect intrigued him so that he wrote up the results and submitted them to a journal of social psychology, outside of his field. The editor of the journal responded, "Well Gordon, nice work. You've successfully replicated one of the best-known results in all of social psychology."

Why am I telling you this? Well, it came to mind as I was reading the baby-naming chapter of renowned economist Steven Levitt's new book Freakonomics, recently excerpted in Slate. Levitt (with journalist Stephen Dubner) set out to use "the best analytical tools that economics can offer" to uncover the "hidden side of everything," promising to reveal surprising and counterintuitive aspects of the world around us. His manifesto, from the introduction:

It is well and good to opine or theorize about a subject, as humankind is wont to do, but when moral posturing is replaced by an honest assessment of the data, the result is often a new, surprising insight.

Analytical rigor, astonishing revelations. Does he deliver?

I first started to worry when Levitt stated as fact the well-worn urban legends about babies named OrangeJello, LemonJello, and Shithead. A 10-second Google search would have been sufficient to throw those into question, didn't he bother? As a matter of fact, he did. In the endnotes, he cheerfully admits that his source for Shithead "might have been misinformed, of course, or even outright lying." And as for the 'Jellos:

Although these names have the whiff of urgan legend about them -- they are, in fact, discussed on a variety of websites that dispel (or pass along) urban legends -- the authors learned of the existence of OrangeJello and LemonJello from Doug McAdam, a sociologist at Stanford University, who swears he met the twin boys in a grocery store.

Oh, you heard it from a guy who swears he saw them once in a grocery store! Phew, thank goodness for "the best analytical tools that economics can offer."

Hereon, we proceed with caution.

In discussing the origins of name trends, Levitt's primary thesis is that fashions which originate with the upper classes gradually trickle down the economic ladder. This, naturally, is no revelation -- in fashion-based industries like apparel, it's an explicit, institutionalized process. (After all, we call the elite "trendsetters" because they set the trends.) The revelation is meant to come in the form of predictive power. Levitt uses data about California parents' economic status and name choices to propose a list of names that, "unlikely as it seems," are candidates to become "mainstream names" ten years from now. Names like Emma, Isabel, and Grace. But wait a second, aren't those already mainstream names?

Here's a graph of the popularity of Levitt's suggested future girl's names, using the data available at the time he wrote the book:

In fact, of his 24 predictions for "unlikely" names that could possibly hit the mainstream in a decade, 7 were already top-100 names, including 2 of the top 15 (Emma and Grace). Looking boldly out into the future, he predicted the present. Oops. So much for revelations.

What was the economics-based methodology for those questionable choices? Apparently, the author looked at a list of of names favored by rich Californians and chose the ones he personally found attractive. So much for rigor.

All of which brings us back to the Gordon Bower story. When anyone, even a brilliant scholar, walks into a whole new domain of knowledge, he's at a disadvantage: he doesn't know what is and isn't known. Thus it can be hard to tell the revelatory from the obvious. Any mom of a preschooler could have told Levitt that Emma wasn't a very clever prediction. It was news to him, though, so he didn't bother to dig deeper -- even to learn that Emma was already the #2 name in America. Which is a shame, because he was sitting on an absolute treasure trove of data which doubtless does have secrets to reveal.

The fashion analysis was only half of the baby-name presentation in Freakonomics. The other, much less silly half, concerns the real-world impact of race-specific names, which I'll talk about next time.

After I described a trend toward long, lacy names, some thoughtful readers wrote in...

"Lillie" noted that in practice, the long-and-lacy often turns into the short-and-sassy: "Melissa gets called Mel, Jessica becomes Jess, Samantha is Sam and Alexandra is Alex. Often these stick enough to become the person's day-to-day name." "Melissa" agreed with that point, but added "I also see a bit of a trend towards using the full versions of names."

Nicknames can definitely turn a name's style inside out -- there's a world of difference between Gertrude and Trudy. And sure enough, many parents today are rejecting traditional nicknames. (See "The new formality.") But some parents are taking advantage of the style contrast to let them have it both ways. Alexandra/Alex is sumptuous and boyish. You get two names in one, which part of the name's soaring appeal.

The 2-in-1 hook is even more popular in the other direction. Consider two classic presidential surnames: why are there thousands of little girl Madisons, and no Jeffersons? Is it the ultimate triumph of Federalism? What it really shows, of course, is that even adventurous parents would rather call their daughters Maddie than Jeff. We embrace androgyny gently, with an escape valve.

This is perhaps the single hottest sub-genre of names in America -- agressively modern, androgynous surnames that contract to cute girlish nicknames. That 2-in-1 allure has turned some unlikely candidates into hit girls' names. Here are some from the current top-1000 chart:

Addison (Addie)
Campbell (Cami)
Cassidy (Cassie)
Emerson (Emmy)
Madison (Maddie)

Using the same formula, here are some rare choices which could be contenders for the same crown:

Camden (Cami)
Carlsen, Carlin (Carly)
Connolly (Connie)
Ellery (Ellie)
Emery, Embry (Emmy)
Harlow (Harley)
Jansen (Jan)
Jensen (Jen)
Kimball (Kim)
Linden (Lindy)
Marlowe (Marley)
Sheridan (Sheri)

Over the next several years, I expect to find a few of these adding their half-dose of androgyny to our name pool. Which brings me to another reader, "Maria," who said in dismay: "I hope you don't have anything against frilly and feminine things Laura"! Nope, I certainly don't. I appreciate the lush romance of Anastasia and Arabella as much as anyone. In fact, I don't think there is such a thing as a bad name style. But that's a tale for another day.

I've talked in the past about the trend toward androgynous names, and how it's a one-way street. We like girls who sound like boys, but not vice versa. And it is a powerful trend -- over the past decade a tenth of all American girls have received androgynous/boyish names, which is an all-time high by a mile.

Yet at the same time, there is an opposite trend at work. Lacy, ultra-feminine names have also risen dramatically over the past generation. Names ending in -a are a traditional marker of femininity. (With occasional exceptions, I admit in deference to all you manly Joshuas out there.) Today, almost four out of every ten American girls get names ending in -a , which is also an all-time high. When you focus in on the longest and laciest of those names, the trend is even clearer. Take a look at the rate of -a names with more than six letters over the past century:

Not only has the use of these names shot up, but so has the variety. Back in the '40s, Barbara and Patricia accounted for the majority of the long, lacy girls' names. By 2003 there were more than twice as many of these names on the charts, none especially dominant. It's the lacy style itself that's in vogue.

It seems that when it comes to femininity, parents are going to extremes: it's either Parker or Anastasia. Left out in the cold are the traditional names that are unquestionably womanly, but no-frills. A perfect example is the timeless classic Ann. Look at what's happened to Ann over the past generation:

Add an extra feminizing -a, though, and it's a whole different story. New young Annas outnumber Anns 19 to 1.

Extremes naturally make an impact. Yet as parents race to the ends of the femininity spectrum, they're leaving a hole in the middle. Right now, the most creative name ideas might be actually the plainest. Think plain Jane, or Alice, Ruth, Ellen or Sue.

For the past few weeks, bedtime for my five-year-old has meant My Father's Dragon time. Ruth Stiles Gannett's trilogy follows the adventures of a boy, Elmer, and a dragon, known simply as "the dragon" until the final volume reveals:

"Boris! Is that your name?"
"Yes, said Boris uncomfortably. "I was embarrassed to tell you before."
"It's no worse than Elmer," said Elmer.
"I suppose not, and it's certainly not so bad as some in my family. I might as well tell you the rest. My sisters are Ingeborg, Eustacia, Gertrude, Bertha, Mildred and Hildegarde. And my brothers are Emil, Horatio, Conrad, Jerome, Wilhelm, Dagobert and Egmont. Can you imagine!"

It is an admirably silly roster of names for dragons, making my daughter giggle as intended -- even though the book was written back in 1951.

The passage of time usually blunts the impact of names in fiction. Authors fret over character names, trying to project just the right social cues, but a few generations later the subtlety is wasted on us. Yet names in children's books tend to hold up remarkably well, especially when the intent is on the silly side. A similar example from Virginia Kahl's marvelous 1955 rhymer, The Duchess Bakes a Cake:

A long time ago there lived over the waters
A Duchess, a Duke and their family of daughters --
Madeleine, Gwendolyn, Jane and Clothilde,
Caroline, Genevieve, Maude and Mathilde,
Willibald, Guinevere, Joan and Brunhilde,
And the youngest of all was the baby, Gunhilde.

Perhaps the reason these names still work is that their social cues aren't subtle. Names like Egmont and Willibald are the name equivalents of a pie in the face. Yet it's not all Egmonts. Anybody could slap together a collection of ridiculous names, but these authors are better than that. It's the counterpoint of "Jane and Clothilde" that makes all the difference.

Looking closer, each name list includes 3 general types as seen from the 1950s: the exotica (Dagobert, Gunhilde), the recently fallen fashion victims (Mildred, Maude), and the mundanely common (Conrad, Joan). From today's perspective, the recently fallen are no longer recent and the mundane are now fallen. But the three types still contrast cleanly and leave the whole group off-kilter. It's a robust formula that updates easily. Try it yourself. Imagine, say, a band of mischievous elves named:

Ethelbert, Erlafrid, Ludolph and Duane,
Regimbald, Fymbert, Jim, Kevin, Gawain.

It's also worth noting a type of name the authors didn't use: trendy new hits. That's the name terrain with the most uncertain footing. Back when Gannett and Kahl were writing, the names Rhonda, Melanie and Jennifer were all at the same level of newness and popularity. As it turned out, Rhonda peaked in the '60s and quickly fizzled. Melanie became a quiet, steady new classic. And Jennifer exploded into the defining name of a generation. Looking to the future, authors just can't project what will happen to new hit names. (Neither, for that matter, can parents.)

For some types of fiction, timelessness is beside the point. If a writer's goal is to capture an instantly recognizable "now," girls named Madison and Sydney may be just the ticket. But children's books tend to take place outside of regular space and time, in a self-contained world where cats wear hats and bunnies are tucked to sleep in great green rooms. On that plane a trendy name can be a jarring intruder, grounding the book in the fleeting real world. The silly may stay silly, but the new never stay new.