You may not think of genealogy as something that is affected by trends. However, there are some trends that your descendants will be talking about long after the trends have come and gone. Why? Because trends for baby naming become part of the information that is recorded as part of your family’s history.
Naming a baby is no small task. Each set of parents must decide what kinds of things are important to them when selecting their children’s names. For example, is there a favorite relative whom you would like to honor by choosing their name as a child’s first or last name? Are there more than one such relative? Is it important to you to choose a name with a meaning that you like or do you care more about how it sounds? Is it important to choose a name that originated from a particular culture that is a part of the baby’s heritage? What about the potential for other people teasing your child because of their name- you may want to avoid that, too. These are just some of the things that parents to be think about when selecting names for their children.
Also, the process of naming a child is not complete until the child is born and the parents decide that the name fits them. There are a couple of reasons that parents may go back to the drawing board to find a new name for their new little one once they are able to hold them in their arms. One reason is that the baby’s gender may have been predicted incorrectly. One of the stories in my family is how my name was going to be Kyle James until I arrived and my parents realized that a name change was in order. They ended up giving me the eighth most popular girl’s name for the year that I was born. There is also the possibility that baby may arrive with a personality or an appearance that simply does not fit with the name that the parents picked out.
As 2011 draws to a close, many expectant parents (including myself) are focused on naming babies who will be born some time in 2012. If you do like to look to trends for inspiration, the folks at Parents magazine have said that Olivia, Grace, Emma, Charlotte, and Amelia are predicted to be among the favorite choices for girl names in 2012. If you will be having a boy, Max, Ted, Frank, and Gus are classic names that are making a strong comeback.
Photo by kakisky on morguefile.com.