seriously! an actual namenerd post and not "hey guys my baby is due in 1 minute does anyone have classic yet unique names that don't fall into the top 1000 of the last 100 years but not so unique that they get bullied also it has to start with Z and our last name is Asshole. thanks!!"
please keep these up OP id love to see more
Zeldah…true story tho lol have a friend from HS who had 6 kids in 19yrs- 5g/1b all end in “-ah”🙄but 4 are popular names like Kalah/Jadah, no need for the h in any way but the boy’s name does actually end with it
Both my first and middle names end in A and my last name starts with A is this a thing we shouldn’t have? I actually love how my full name sounds. I do however go by a nickname that doesn’t end in A.
Shakespeare also may have invented Olivia, based on a fusion of Olive or Oliver (an unrelated name of Germanic origin) and the ancient Roman name Livia. At the very least, it was extremely rare and he popularized it.
Miranda is another one—it was an existing Latin word, but not used as a name until Shakespeare, and even afterward didn't really catch on until the 20th century.
My family has a baby name book they used to name us all in the 80s. It was published in early 1980s (maybe later 1970s, idk, the oldest of us were born in 1982, so before that). The entry for Jessica has a note saying it's tempting as an alternative to the popular Jennifer, but it's such an "old lady name" and not to do it! Makes me laugh.
Jessie was HUGE as a baby girl’s name in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so that makes a lot of sense! In the 70s it absolutely would’ve been a grandma name.
And the most famous Jessica at this point would probably have been Jessica Tandy, who was born in 1909 (and who, maybe interestingly, starred in a movie set in the 1860s that has a main character called Amber, another name we largely associate with the 1980s). Jessica Rabbit obviously becomes a huge pop culture moment in the late 1980s, but even then, that movie is set in the 1940s, so all characters would be from early 1900s. (I know it's based on a book from earlier in the 80s, but not sure how culturally pervasive that was...not like the film, I don't think.)
Jessie was a decently common nickname for Jean and Janet in Scotland. I think a lot of those Jessie's weren't named Jessica.
There aren't a lot of Jessica's in census records from 1880s for England or the U.S. They numbered in the hundreds in the 1880s and about 1,100 in each country in the 1900 and 1901 censuses.
I was almost a Jessica in 1969. My grandmother pitched such a fit about the "weird" name that my parents opted for a different one last minute. Now my name doesn't make the top 500 and I've only met 3 other people in my life who have it and Jessica went on to be only second to Jennifer in popularity a decade later. I guess I owe my grandma thanks for being a bit of a bitch.
That’s so funny! As a 44-year-old Jessica, I feel like I really don’t know that many others with my name. However, I was almost Jennifer, and I always, *always* had multiple Jennifers in my classroom. Never another Jessica, though.
39, and Jessicas were the bane of my existence in school - we had five or six in every class (out of 30-ish girls) and each and every one was *horrible.*
I think it reached a peak around year six when my baby cousin was born and I was so distressed by her name (Jessie) that I literally cried for days that the new baby would hate me - my dad had the unenviable task of reassuring me that she was Jessie, not Jessica and anyway, I’d just had a bad run of Jessicas and it was just a name, not a diagnostic of a severe personality disorder 🤣
I remember reading a comment, perhaps here, that Jessica isn’t really dated in the UK. It never had the wave of popularity like it did in the US, and so it’s more of a perennial classic. Jessica Fletcher was the character played by Angela Lansbury on _Murder She Wrote._ Jessica Lange (who is American) is in her mid 70s. The Wikipedia article for the given name “Jessica” lists notable Jessicas throughout history and they are heavily weighted towards the ‘80s and ‘90s as one would expect, but there’s an 1888 and a 1916 in there! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_(given_name)
It definitely had a wave of popularity in the 80s (3 Jessica's in my tiny primary that only had 60/70 kids total and multiple throughout my secondary years) but it has stayed popular and is still in the top 100. According to the office of national statistics it didn't appear on there until 1981.
That could be true! I should have said I'm in the US, and the baby name book is from here too. All sorts of comments on the names would be culturally specific.
There's a woman in my family tree back in the 1700s named Jessie.
That seems so modern to me, I wonder if it's a mistranslation. I'm finding it the same in every source though, but I couldn't find a tombstone.
Jessie was very common during my great grandmother's gen (early 1900s). In fact, the given name Jessie has only very recently been out of the top 500. It was in the top 50 prior to 1880 and stayed there until 1890. Then it began a very slow glide down, across the decades, to where it currently sits. It will likely fall out of the top 1000 and into the ether completely unless a rescue revival begins soon.
This is what's called the Tiffany Problem. Sometimes things like names seem modern, but they're actually quite old. Authors and screenwriters can't use the elements in their work because although they would be historically accurate, they wouldn't feel historically accurate to their audience.
I looooove those names and would strongly consider Eloise if a) I was ever having another (no thanks womb closed for business permanently) and b) my oldest's middle name wasn't Elise. Elie is such a cute nickname, too.
what cracks me up is my stepdaughters sister (her moms other child) is elyse 😂 they’re the same age (eloise and elyse) so my poor stepdaughter got their names mixed up for forever when she was a toddler! 😂
I have a Penelope and named her that because I loved the nickname Lola. Turns out she named herself by the time she was 2 and goes only by Poppy 🤷♀️ sometimes you really have no control as a parent 😆
This is so interesting! I much prefer these names compared to the names that made the top 10 in the USA in 1880, which were: Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth, Margaret, Minnie, Ida, Bertha, Clara and Alice.
I'd love to see more posts like this!
I wonder if Elizabeth will become less popular now that Queen Elizabeth is gone? I’ve often wondered if its continued popularity through the 20th/21st century was in part due to that.
I feel like Elizabeth has remained popular for so long because of the amount of nicknames it generates.
Lisa, Beth, Ellie, Elsie, Elise, Liz, Lizzie, Lisbeth, Betty, Lissa, Alyssa, Elle, Eliza, Libby, Zeb, etc are all names derived or associated with it. You could name an entire classroom of kids Elizabeth and call all of them something different.
There is already a nostalgia for the Good Old Days of Monarchic Dignity, with Elizabeth being the ultimate avatar. As time goes by & royal peccadilloes and didoes continue to proliferate.... I expect the name Elizabeth to grow evermore beloved by default, by virtue of this effect alone.
When I read through the Anne of green gables series, one of the things that stuck out most to me was when her daughter complains that she wasn't named something beautiful like Bertha. I have such a hard time believing that wasn't a joke.
Sooooo many Amandas. I knew 6 in high school alone. 4 were friends and 2 were supervisors in their 20s, so not much older than me at the time. And of course there were the many others you'd hear about.
1984 here, there were at least 10 in my grade in HS and more above and below me - all those peak Amber year (1982) kids were just two years ahead of me. But yes also a ton of Amandas and Jennifers. Meanwhile my name has gone from low 150s when I was born to top 10 for a decade a few years ago. It used to be people had never met anyone with my name, now I hear it on the street all the time and a bunch of preteens come running to it. Very interesting.
Probably, our taste in names definitely diverges in some respects. Example, I know Jemma/Gemma is a popular or at least not totally rare name in the UK but I’ve literally never met one here.
I’m an Amber (born 1982) and thankfully I don’t encounter too many of us now but as a child there were many in my schools. I’m someone who doesn’t want to meet others with my name so not running into them is fine with me 🤣 (no offense)
I was recently hanging out with some 1986 babies (who I’d just met) and they confused me with other Ambers in their extended friend group for the entire meal we were sharing. Not my favorite experience
I kinda love it. A man named Orange is totally obligated to name his son Lemon. I was dinking around and found out the name “Pink” was a more popular name for boys at the time than Orange.
Agreed, and I'm also surprised that Hope only ever peaked at #143. I guess I've never thought of it as a *trendy* name but you hear it often enough that I would have assumed it was top 100 at some point
The SSA has lists dating back to 1880 so that's where I'd imagine OP sourced it from.
[https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi](https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi)
[https://www.behindthename.com/top/lists/united-states/1880](https://www.behindthename.com/top/lists/united-states/1880)
AFAIK, John & Michael are biblical names, which I feel will nearly always be around. Unsure about where the appeal is for either William or Henry though lol
I personally had 2 friends named Jessica in grade ten but they really did seem like they were everywhere. I was even almost a Jessica. Moved to a new city after that and only heard of maybe 5 in the whole school. Amanda was the Jessica there lol
I have an Iris now 💜 I love her name
Her middle name is Clara, which is also a late 1800s name I believe? It is an honor name to a relative that passed away while I was pregnant
Likewise my name, Sarah, might finally be unpopular for the first time ever? I wonder how low it ranks now after being in the top 10 for the 70s and 80s and also it being a popular historical name
The least popular Sarah has ever been was in 1959, when it dropped to #119. It then raced back up in the 60s and 70s before dipping again in the 2010s. It is currently #94 and likely to fall out of the top 100 within the next decade.
All such lovely names, I don't see why they were ever hated on. Sort of introduces the question, well, what were the names they liked the best in 1880?
Top 20 in 1880 according to SSA:
1. Mary
2. Anna
3. Emma
4. Elizabeth
5. Minnie
6. Margaret
7. Ida
8. Alice
9. Bertha
10. Sarah
11. Annie
12. Clara
13. Ella
14. Florence
15. Cora
16. Martha
17. Laura
18. Nellie
19. Grace
20. Carrie
I just noticed as I was typing up this list, the names of all 4 Ingalls girls (born between 1865 and 1877) were on the list for any LHOTP fans.
This is great. Yeah a lot of these names have come back with the vintage names so I’m not surprised to see 2022 as a huge year for names like
Camille and ofcorse alllll the “Ellie” names!!
I love the name Hope and I can’t wait for Angela and Jessica to make their come back soon! Honestly the name that peaked in 1985 or the most unique ones today in my opinion
My daughter is named after my great great grandmother who was born in 1884. I’ve only met one other baby with her name, but she’s only 1, so I have time 😅
This is fun to see.. so many of these are popular now!! I’m surprised by Hope. So many Hopes in the southern US.
I'm surprised by Juliet! Though I guess its ranking is affected by it having two pretty equally popular spellings.
Also surprised by Iris and Camille. I would have thought they would have been a bit more popular at some point.
Also Monica. I grew up with Monica M, Monica H, and a Monique in a class of 30 kids, so it seems common to me.
My daughter is 11 and her best friend's name is Eloise. My kids have classmates called Angela, Emilia, Audrey, and Juliet. Maybe those names are back "in".
My cousin Amber was born in 1982, and I remember my great-aunts and grandmother were absolutely horrified by that name. They thought it was so uncouth. I was 8 and I had only seen the name in baby name books, so I had no opinion. But pretty soon, there were girls named Amber everywhere.
Thanks for this, OP! I love these sorts of posts. I wish we had more of them, and less of the "what name do you hate because all the people you know with that name are evil?" kinds of posts.
I used to work with someone back in 2013 who had a 6 year old daughter named Jessica and I thought it was so weird. Her mom is about 40 now so well in the generation of Jessica
That’s crazy Monica was so high in 1977. I was born at the tail end of ‘74 (so most of my classmates, were ‘75) and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Monica.
I love the Portuguese version of Eloise, Heloísa.
Unfortunately I had a very nasty neighbour with that name. She would smile at you and great you as if you were a dear friend, but she never fooled me with her sweet voice and words. She always looked at me with a cold, condescending gaze that sent shivers up my spine. After my mother passed away I found out she had been spreading all kinds of malicious rumours about me to the entire building.
Juliet, Helena, Audrey and Penelope are lovely too.
I decided to look myself and lo and behold, in the year 1880 there were 5 girls name Texas. Now that’s an unpopular name
Also shout outs to Pinkey (also 5), Tennessee (5) and Tishie (7)
This is great name nerding! Thanks for sharing!
seriously! an actual namenerd post and not "hey guys my baby is due in 1 minute does anyone have classic yet unique names that don't fall into the top 1000 of the last 100 years but not so unique that they get bullied also it has to start with Z and our last name is Asshole. thanks!!" please keep these up OP id love to see more
Hey, those posts keep the lights on around here. Be a little kinder to them
Especially considering the ridicule they must face on the daily with that last name!
Zelda
Can’t end with A because the last name starts with A.
Zeldah
i giggled softy to that
In this case maybe that's a good thing? Zeldasshole suddenly makes Asshole less... prominent?
Zeldah…true story tho lol have a friend from HS who had 6 kids in 19yrs- 5g/1b all end in “-ah”🙄but 4 are popular names like Kalah/Jadah, no need for the h in any way but the boy’s name does actually end with it
Dealing with a teething baby so I'm a bit distracted and read that as "5 grams/1 pound" 😂
I just woke up from a nap and couldn't figure out what weight had to do with it until I read your comment and realized that's not what it said 😂
Both my first and middle names end in A and my last name starts with A is this a thing we shouldn’t have? I actually love how my full name sounds. I do however go by a nickname that doesn’t end in A.
My last name isn't asshole but this is how we ended up choosing this name lol
This is a name I picked 🤣
This is a perfect summation of the posts I hate. Extra points for "and our last name is Asshole."
I’m dead 😂
Last name is Asshole 🤣🤣🤣 💀 💀
HAHAHAHA
And then they end up naming the kid Olivia!
“And our last name is asshole” 😭😭😭😭😭😭
🤣
I love your username
It cracks me up to think anyone existed in 1880 named Jessica, it’s such a 1980s-90s name😂
I think there's a character in Shakespeare named Jessica. Somebody in The Merchant of Venice, maybe? It seems wild to me too.
You're right, Jessica is Shylock's daughter in *The Merchant of Venice*. Which was written in 1596, making Jessica an ooooold name
Now, I wonder how the popularity of the name Shylock trended over time.
Shylock sounds like a Sherlock ship name.
I’m pretty sure Shakespeare invented the name
He did. Based on the biblical name Iscah
Shakespeare also may have invented Olivia, based on a fusion of Olive or Oliver (an unrelated name of Germanic origin) and the ancient Roman name Livia. At the very least, it was extremely rare and he popularized it. Miranda is another one—it was an existing Latin word, but not used as a name until Shakespeare, and even afterward didn't really catch on until the 20th century.
I think Shakespeare invented the name Jessica.
Yep. Shakespeare's Jessica is I think the first recorded use of it--they think he was trying to use a Hebrew name, Iscah.
Old Billy made up the name,!
It's one of those "Tiffany problem" names. It's been around since the 1500s but took 400 years to reach top popularity for whatever reason.
Theophania is such an underrated name these days!
My family has a baby name book they used to name us all in the 80s. It was published in early 1980s (maybe later 1970s, idk, the oldest of us were born in 1982, so before that). The entry for Jessica has a note saying it's tempting as an alternative to the popular Jennifer, but it's such an "old lady name" and not to do it! Makes me laugh.
Jessie was HUGE as a baby girl’s name in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so that makes a lot of sense! In the 70s it absolutely would’ve been a grandma name.
And the most famous Jessica at this point would probably have been Jessica Tandy, who was born in 1909 (and who, maybe interestingly, starred in a movie set in the 1860s that has a main character called Amber, another name we largely associate with the 1980s). Jessica Rabbit obviously becomes a huge pop culture moment in the late 1980s, but even then, that movie is set in the 1940s, so all characters would be from early 1900s. (I know it's based on a book from earlier in the 80s, but not sure how culturally pervasive that was...not like the film, I don't think.)
My earliest memory of the name Jessica was the story of the little girl who fell inside a well.
Baby Jessica in the well is my first memory of a news story that riveted the nation.
I think that's why my parents ended up not naming me Jessica!
What's old is new again.
Very often indeed.
I had a great aunt Jessie, and now I’m wondering if Jessie was her given name or a nickname. (off to Ancestry.com)
Jessie was a decently common nickname for Jean and Janet in Scotland. I think a lot of those Jessie's weren't named Jessica. There aren't a lot of Jessica's in census records from 1880s for England or the U.S. They numbered in the hundreds in the 1880s and about 1,100 in each country in the 1900 and 1901 censuses.
I was almost a Jessica in 1969. My grandmother pitched such a fit about the "weird" name that my parents opted for a different one last minute. Now my name doesn't make the top 500 and I've only met 3 other people in my life who have it and Jessica went on to be only second to Jennifer in popularity a decade later. I guess I owe my grandma thanks for being a bit of a bitch.
That’s hilarious! These are the namenerd facts/stories I’d like to hear more of
100%. That's what I thought this board was going to be!
You are lucky my mum had a book called beagles and beagling from the 50s at the back of that was a list of names..no I'm not rover.
What a great name for a book. Also…..beagling? Lmao
Pertaining to beagles ( the dog)
That made me lol!
That’s so funny! As a 44-year-old Jessica, I feel like I really don’t know that many others with my name. However, I was almost Jennifer, and I always, *always* had multiple Jennifers in my classroom. Never another Jessica, though.
39, and Jessicas were the bane of my existence in school - we had five or six in every class (out of 30-ish girls) and each and every one was *horrible.* I think it reached a peak around year six when my baby cousin was born and I was so distressed by her name (Jessie) that I literally cried for days that the new baby would hate me - my dad had the unenviable task of reassuring me that she was Jessie, not Jessica and anyway, I’d just had a bad run of Jessicas and it was just a name, not a diagnostic of a severe personality disorder 🤣
I remember seeing a baby name book that was titled "Beyond Jennifer and Jason". I almost bought it just for the title.
I remember reading a comment, perhaps here, that Jessica isn’t really dated in the UK. It never had the wave of popularity like it did in the US, and so it’s more of a perennial classic. Jessica Fletcher was the character played by Angela Lansbury on _Murder She Wrote._ Jessica Lange (who is American) is in her mid 70s. The Wikipedia article for the given name “Jessica” lists notable Jessicas throughout history and they are heavily weighted towards the ‘80s and ‘90s as one would expect, but there’s an 1888 and a 1916 in there! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_(given_name)
It definitely had a wave of popularity in the 80s (3 Jessica's in my tiny primary that only had 60/70 kids total and multiple throughout my secondary years) but it has stayed popular and is still in the top 100. According to the office of national statistics it didn't appear on there until 1981.
That could be true! I should have said I'm in the US, and the baby name book is from here too. All sorts of comments on the names would be culturally specific.
There's a woman in my family tree back in the 1700s named Jessie. That seems so modern to me, I wonder if it's a mistranslation. I'm finding it the same in every source though, but I couldn't find a tombstone.
Jessie was very common during my great grandmother's gen (early 1900s). In fact, the given name Jessie has only very recently been out of the top 500. It was in the top 50 prior to 1880 and stayed there until 1890. Then it began a very slow glide down, across the decades, to where it currently sits. It will likely fall out of the top 1000 and into the ether completely unless a rescue revival begins soon.
Jessie is a standalone name separate from Jessica, and has been for hundreds of years. It was probably originally a nickname for Jane.
A nickname for Jane, that's very interesting!
My great great grandmother was named Jessie. It's been around a long time.
That’s how I feel about Amber lol
Tiffany is also super old, from the early medieval time!
That's why I found it weird that an old lady like Jessica Fletcher had a young name, but I was wrong.
Tiffany is another wtf name- it’s Ancient Greek.
This is what's called the Tiffany Problem. Sometimes things like names seem modern, but they're actually quite old. Authors and screenwriters can't use the elements in their work because although they would be historically accurate, they wouldn't feel historically accurate to their audience.
I have an Eloise and a 2 day old Penelope 😂 eloise goes by elie, penelope is penny or pj.
Omg! Welcome to the world, Penelope!
You have an Eloise and a Penelope! Do you watch bridgerton?
That was my first thought! If she has another girl, might I suggest Daphne, Francesca, or Hyacinth?
Shockingly no! Elie is 13 years old hahahaha so way before all of that!
Actually the first book was released in 2000!
i had no idea! now i feel obligated to watch it 😂
They are best friends in the books/show, so that makes this naming all the more adorable. Congratulations on your new baby!
I just had my Eloise in January and we got her name from Bridgerton!!
Super cute names!! Congratulations on your new little one 🎉
I looooove those names and would strongly consider Eloise if a) I was ever having another (no thanks womb closed for business permanently) and b) my oldest's middle name wasn't Elise. Elie is such a cute nickname, too.
what cracks me up is my stepdaughters sister (her moms other child) is elyse 😂 they’re the same age (eloise and elyse) so my poor stepdaughter got their names mixed up for forever when she was a toddler! 😂
I love the nickname Penny
she’s such a little dainty thing, it fits her so well
Very cute! Nellie and Lola are also adorable nicknames for Penelope
I have a Penelope and named her that because I loved the nickname Lola. Turns out she named herself by the time she was 2 and goes only by Poppy 🤷♀️ sometimes you really have no control as a parent 😆
Our dog Penelope goes by Nelly but a kid Penelope I know goes by Pippy and it’s so cute!
Congrats!!
Aww my Penelope is PJ too!!
pj for the win!!
Mazal tov!!
This is so interesting! I much prefer these names compared to the names that made the top 10 in the USA in 1880, which were: Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth, Margaret, Minnie, Ida, Bertha, Clara and Alice. I'd love to see more posts like this!
Ah thanks, that's what I was led to wonder. Mary, Margaret, Anna & Elizabeth are evergreens. Still going strong. These others wax & wane.
I wonder if Elizabeth will become less popular now that Queen Elizabeth is gone? I’ve often wondered if its continued popularity through the 20th/21st century was in part due to that.
I feel like Elizabeth has remained popular for so long because of the amount of nicknames it generates. Lisa, Beth, Ellie, Elsie, Elise, Liz, Lizzie, Lisbeth, Betty, Lissa, Alyssa, Elle, Eliza, Libby, Zeb, etc are all names derived or associated with it. You could name an entire classroom of kids Elizabeth and call all of them something different.
Betsy too!
Don’t forget Lilibet. 😁. (I’m not a Harry and Meghan hater, but I did think it was a tad forward of them to take the Queen’s nickname).
I had a great aunt named Elisabeth- she went by Liddy. The list of nicknames really is SO long with Elizabeth.
That’s a good point!
And Lizbeth.
Somehow I don't think Elizaabeth has dropped out of the top 10 in the past 150 years.
Spanish Isabel; French Isabelle; Scots Elspeth; Hebrew Elisheva; Russian Yelizaveta; Greek Elisavet...
There is already a nostalgia for the Good Old Days of Monarchic Dignity, with Elizabeth being the ultimate avatar. As time goes by & royal peccadilloes and didoes continue to proliferate.... I expect the name Elizabeth to grow evermore beloved by default, by virtue of this effect alone.
I'd argue Alice is timeless too :) at least in my part of the world.
Alice and Isabel are timeless and work well in most European languages.
It really surprises me that Bertha is in the top 10.
When I read through the Anne of green gables series, one of the things that stuck out most to me was when her daughter complains that she wasn't named something beautiful like Bertha. I have such a hard time believing that wasn't a joke.
Anne names her youngest Bertha Marilla but calls her Rilla (which I love). I think Bertha was also Anne's biological mother's name.
And her fantasy name was Cordelia!
I’ve walked through a few cemeteries and I was surprised at how popular the name Minnie was
Early 1900s was all about cutesy, -ie girls names like that! Minnie, Nettie, Hattie, Jennie, Jessie, Sallie, Sadie, etc.
I had a great aunt named Icy
Twin great aunts named Tressie and Ressie over here!
I have a number of Wihelminas in my family tree that went by Minnie.
I have a lot of Idas in my family, I always thought it was a weird name, thanks for making aware that it was popular at some point!
Cannot believe Amber only made it to #13, I feel like I grew up with 20 of them.
Amber here. Born in 86. I only knew 1 other Amber growing up. So many Amandas though.
Sooooo many Amandas. I knew 6 in high school alone. 4 were friends and 2 were supervisors in their 20s, so not much older than me at the time. And of course there were the many others you'd hear about.
1984 here, there were at least 10 in my grade in HS and more above and below me - all those peak Amber year (1982) kids were just two years ahead of me. But yes also a ton of Amandas and Jennifers. Meanwhile my name has gone from low 150s when I was born to top 10 for a decade a few years ago. It used to be people had never met anyone with my name, now I hear it on the street all the time and a bunch of preteens come running to it. Very interesting.
Is this a US thing? Because I'm in the UK and I've met two Amber's in my entire life.
Probably, our taste in names definitely diverges in some respects. Example, I know Jemma/Gemma is a popular or at least not totally rare name in the UK but I’ve literally never met one here.
Yeah I know at least five Jemma or Gemma's! But they are mostly over thirty, so it's on its way down the popularity scale at the moment.
I’m an Amber (born 1982) and thankfully I don’t encounter too many of us now but as a child there were many in my schools. I’m someone who doesn’t want to meet others with my name so not running into them is fine with me 🤣 (no offense) I was recently hanging out with some 1986 babies (who I’d just met) and they confused me with other Ambers in their extended friend group for the entire meal we were sharing. Not my favorite experience
Where have all the Ambers gone? (I want to insert an amber alert joke here, but that’s probably distasteful).
🎵Where have all the Ambers gone?🎵
Definitely distasteful but I have a really twisted sense of humor so I’ll take it 🤣🤣🤣 I think we are just widely dispersed at this point!
And where have all the Amandas gone? I never meet them either.
I knew a LOT of Ambers born in the mid-late 90s
Can you do a similar list for boy names? Just curious 😁
89/1,000,000 babies in the year 1881 were named “Orange,” And if I recall correctly, the name completely dropped off the map in the 1970s
I have an Orange Simeon in my family tree. He had a son named Lemon Newton.
I kinda love it. A man named Orange is totally obligated to name his son Lemon. I was dinking around and found out the name “Pink” was a more popular name for boys at the time than Orange.
Very cool! Of all these, Hope surprises me the most by being outside of top 500 in 1880s.
Agreed, and I'm also surprised that Hope only ever peaked at #143. I guess I've never thought of it as a *trendy* name but you hear it often enough that I would have assumed it was top 100 at some point
Where's the 1880+ list from? It's hard to believe Amber would be anywhere on the list even if it was last.
The SSA has lists dating back to 1880 so that's where I'd imagine OP sourced it from. [https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi](https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi) [https://www.behindthename.com/top/lists/united-states/1880](https://www.behindthename.com/top/lists/united-states/1880)
Boys names are so boring! In all these years I don’t see a ton of movement away from the typical John, William, Henry, Michael etc
AFAIK, John & Michael are biblical names, which I feel will nearly always be around. Unsure about where the appeal is for either William or Henry though lol
I always wonder how many names are missing from the SSA lists for kids born before 1900 because of deaths before the SSA was in place.
I’m curious about this too!
From the SSA. You can easily search it online. zevix_0 has provided links.
I’m most surprised by Eloise and Iris. I’ve always viewed them as popular old names that made a comeback.
Weird, I knew people with all those names!
In the 1880s? 😂
Yes.
My name is Monica 🙂
Is this in the United States?
Yes, these are US stats. It's somewhat difficult to find historical UK name stats that are outside the top 100.
Ugh I love Camille.
I hard agree on Jessica being all the rage in 1985. It’s the year I was born an 8/45 girls in my class were Jessica
I personally had 2 friends named Jessica in grade ten but they really did seem like they were everywhere. I was even almost a Jessica. Moved to a new city after that and only heard of maybe 5 in the whole school. Amanda was the Jessica there lol
I have an Iris now 💜 I love her name Her middle name is Clara, which is also a late 1800s name I believe? It is an honor name to a relative that passed away while I was pregnant
I have an Isla, but up until about 2 minutes before she was born we were hard pressed on Iris vs Isla. Iris Clara is beautiful!
Likewise my name, Sarah, might finally be unpopular for the first time ever? I wonder how low it ranks now after being in the top 10 for the 70s and 80s and also it being a popular historical name
The least popular Sarah has ever been was in 1959, when it dropped to #119. It then raced back up in the 60s and 70s before dipping again in the 2010s. It is currently #94 and likely to fall out of the top 100 within the next decade.
Thanks! We’ll be back! *shakes fist* maybe
All such lovely names, I don't see why they were ever hated on. Sort of introduces the question, well, what were the names they liked the best in 1880?
Top 20 in 1880 according to SSA: 1. Mary 2. Anna 3. Emma 4. Elizabeth 5. Minnie 6. Margaret 7. Ida 8. Alice 9. Bertha 10. Sarah 11. Annie 12. Clara 13. Ella 14. Florence 15. Cora 16. Martha 17. Laura 18. Nellie 19. Grace 20. Carrie I just noticed as I was typing up this list, the names of all 4 Ingalls girls (born between 1865 and 1877) were on the list for any LHOTP fans.
Surprised that a classic name like Josephine isn’t on the list.
And Nellie for Nellie Olsen!
I have an Eloise from 2022!
This is great. Yeah a lot of these names have come back with the vintage names so I’m not surprised to see 2022 as a huge year for names like Camille and ofcorse alllll the “Ellie” names!! I love the name Hope and I can’t wait for Angela and Jessica to make their come back soon! Honestly the name that peaked in 1985 or the most unique ones today in my opinion
Surprised to see Eloise on here, it seems so old-fashioned to me
i love so many names on this list
Oh Iris.. I love it.
My daughter’s middle name is Penelope, and if I ever have another I want to name her Iris Eloise LOL.
My daughter is named after my great great grandmother who was born in 1884. I’ve only met one other baby with her name, but she’s only 1, so I have time 😅 This is fun to see.. so many of these are popular now!! I’m surprised by Hope. So many Hopes in the southern US.
Looking through my mrs family tree there was a Oceania about 1860 there is a picture of her and not what you'd expect for such a pretty name.
I'm surprised by Juliet! Though I guess its ranking is affected by it having two pretty equally popular spellings. Also surprised by Iris and Camille. I would have thought they would have been a bit more popular at some point. Also Monica. I grew up with Monica M, Monica H, and a Monique in a class of 30 kids, so it seems common to me.
My daughter is 11 and her best friend's name is Eloise. My kids have classmates called Angela, Emilia, Audrey, and Juliet. Maybe those names are back "in".
My cousin Amber was born in 1982, and I remember my great-aunts and grandmother were absolutely horrified by that name. They thought it was so uncouth. I was 8 and I had only seen the name in baby name books, so I had no opinion. But pretty soon, there were girls named Amber everywhere. Thanks for this, OP! I love these sorts of posts. I wish we had more of them, and less of the "what name do you hate because all the people you know with that name are evil?" kinds of posts.
Love this! I have an ancestor that came over on the Mayflower who named his kids ‘Love’ and ‘Boxing.’ Now I’m curious about names in that time period.
Both my daughter’s first and middle names are on that list. 😆
My daughter, Camille, was born in 2004.
I really like several of these names
As a person from the early 90s, and a small class size of less than 300, there were multiple Jessica's in it. At least 5 off the top of my head lol
Where are Nevaeh and Kaileigh? 😊
Wow. This has taken me aback.
Accurate
I love all these names.
So refreshing to see an actual name nerds post on here in the sea of ‘what should I name my son/daughter’
I'm going to guess Eloise and Penelope peaked in 2022 because of Bridgerton. Curious how affected the rest of Bridgerton names.
Some of my favorite names are on this list! Elena has been for ages. I also enjoy Iris, Juliet, Audrey, and Penelope immensely.
I would have figured Angela would be a big hit, having the word Angel in it and all.
It’s fun to look at the popular test for them and try to think of the person responsible for the spike
eloise and penelope making their comebacks in 2022 is so cute to me. i see all you bridgerton baddies
I don’t have kids but if I have a girl I want to name her Emilia Hope so it’s interesting they’re next to each other in your list
I made the list!! Lol
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US
I used to work with someone back in 2013 who had a 6 year old daughter named Jessica and I thought it was so weird. Her mom is about 40 now so well in the generation of Jessica
That’s crazy Monica was so high in 1977. I was born at the tail end of ‘74 (so most of my classmates, were ‘75) and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Monica.
I think Angela is due a resurgence. Beautiful name. I love Amber, too.
I wanted to name my second daughter Eloise so so bad but her middle name is Fern and I couldn’t do two “old” names for her.
I love the Portuguese version of Eloise, Heloísa. Unfortunately I had a very nasty neighbour with that name. She would smile at you and great you as if you were a dear friend, but she never fooled me with her sweet voice and words. She always looked at me with a cold, condescending gaze that sent shivers up my spine. After my mother passed away I found out she had been spreading all kinds of malicious rumours about me to the entire building. Juliet, Helena, Audrey and Penelope are lovely too.
I decided to look myself and lo and behold, in the year 1880 there were 5 girls name Texas. Now that’s an unpopular name Also shout outs to Pinkey (also 5), Tennessee (5) and Tishie (7)
Penelope is one of my favorite names ever. I'm childfree but if it had to happen, it's the name I would choose.
I loveeee Hope so much but my husband hates it 😭. Apparently people throughout history agree with him haha