Typical Fundie name ?

[itaintmebabe]

To FJers interested in the popularity of names, a really handy site for US baby name data is the Social Security Administration website: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/ You can see the top 1000 names given to babies each year, top names given to babies in each state, track the popularity of individual names or see the 200 most popular names per decade. For someone interested in the study of names it's a fascinating resource.

The data there confirms that biblical male names are very 'in' at the moment, but biblical female names less so.

Great link.

I noticed on that site under Popular names for Twin Girls http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/twins.html That "Heaven and Nevaeh" was #6. Um...wouldn't that sort of doom one of the girls to being the Evil Twin? :twisted:

[chaotic life]

Biblical names have been traditionally popular on the SSN index. I tracked it back to 1879 once when I was bored and the all time top name for boys was John and Mary for girls. However, both started to fall out of favor in the 1970s, I think. I think John has been back in the top 10 list a few times since then but Mary now stays fairly firm below it.

I favored strong Biblical names for my boys (4 of the 6 had that added to a birthname that....wasn't necessarily English to begin with). For girls, it turns out that two of the three technically have "Biblical" names but that wasn't the criteria for choosing them. All of my girls were named for strong women they descended from. Might have been a sign I was a bad fundie when I was naming my girls for strong feminists in their family tree even as I was trying to be a "better" fundie though :lol:

[Mama Mia]

Regarding Calvinist Protestant fundies (obviously Mormon fundies or Jewish fundies etc do things differently!) often use the names of leading Reformation figures, especially VF people. Calvin, Cromwell, Knox etc. Protestant fundies also tend to use the more unusual New Testament names like Priscilla and Damaris as well as Old Testament names, but Old Testament names are also popular with hipsters ;)

If I didn't read here I would have placed almost all the baby names the fundies use as hipster kids.

The social security name link is awesome, really interesting for seeing differences between states too.

[PennySycamore]

Great link.

I noticed on that site under Popular names for Twin Girls http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/twins.html That "Heaven and Nevaeh" was #6. Um...wouldn't that sort of doom one of the girls to being the Evil Twin? :twisted:

I had a chemistry professor at Furman University who was a mirror-image twin. His first name was Noel and his twin's name was Leon. IIRC, Leon was a chemistry prof, too, but back home in Queensland.

[Roycroft]

The worst I've seen was the fundie who named her daughter Naphtalie. This is a travesty for the following reasons:

1. Naphtali is a boys name.

2. In Hebrew, the correct feminine versions would be Naphtalit or Naphtalah. Rare, but still correct.

3. This fundie tried to make the name feminine by adding the French "ie" ending to a Hebrew name.

It also sounds as though a box of mothballs was the inspiration (naphthalene). Who wouldn't want to be named after a potentially carcinogenic chemical than can also cause anemia? :lol:

[NovemberRain]

My name isn't popular at all in the last 50 years. My favourite name for a girl didn't show up in a search.

[Kittycathat]

Maybe Jubilee?

[Feberin]

To FJers interested in the popularity of names, a really handy site for US baby name data is the Social Security Administration website: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/ You can see the top 1000 names given to babies each year, top names given to babies in each state, track the popularity of individual names or see the 200 most popular names per decade. For someone interested in the study of names it's a fascinating resource.

The data there confirms that biblical male names are very 'in' at the moment, but biblical female names less so.

One thing to keep in mind is that they don't group various spellings of a name together so names like Aiden that are popular but have a lot of spellings are beat out by names like Ethan that don't have the numerous spellings.

[miffy]

Biblical names have been traditionally popular on the SSN index. I tracked it back to 1879 once when I was bored and the all time top name for boys was John and Mary for girls. However, both started to fall out of favor in the 1970s, I think. I think John has been back in the top 10 list a few times since then but Mary now stays fairly firm below it.

I favored strong Biblical names for my boys (4 of the 6 had that added to a birthname that....wasn't necessarily English to begin with). For girls, it turns out that two of the three technically have "Biblical" names but that wasn't the criteria for choosing them. All of my girls were named for strong women they descended from. Might have been a sign I was a bad fundie when I was naming my girls for strong feminists in their family tree even as I was trying to be a "better" fundie though :lol:

I checked Mary on the SSN index because its my middle name, it was in first place until 1961 & now its dropped back to 112 place . My first name didn't even make it into the top 1000 for most of the 20th century & had fleeting popularity in the 90s.

[Salamander]

I'm also enjoying the link to the SSA's page on popular twin names, though I'm vaguely alarmed at the amount of people that gave their twins rhyming or otherwise highly similar names. Jayden and Jaylen. Jayden and Kayden. Ayden and Jayden. Jayda and Jayden. Jayden and Jayla. Oliver and Olivia. Makayla and Makenzie. Mia and Mya. Jayla and Kayla. Just...why? The kids will grow up and it's not gonna be cute anymore.

And :lol: at the overlap between the baby names fundies give their kids and the ones hipsters give theirs. It's a Venn diagram that's close to a perfect circle!

[Megan]

I'm also enjoying the link to the SSA's page on popular twin names, though I'm vaguely alarmed at the amount of people that gave their twins rhyming or otherwise highly similar names. Jayden and Jaylen. Jayden and Kayden. Ayden and Jayden. Jayda and Jayden. Jayden and Jayla. Oliver and Olivia. Makayla and Makenzie. Mia and Mya. Jayla and Kayla. Just...why? The kids will grow up and it's not gonna be cute anymore.

And :lol: at the overlap between the baby names fundies give their kids and the ones hipsters give theirs. It's a Venn diagram that's close to a perfect circle!

While I rolled my eyes at those, it was the Paris and London combo that stood out to me. How 14 couples did that to their kids is beyond my comprehension.

[Free2BeMe]

Here's the names I like:

Boys:

Don Al

Thomas

Abraham

Jeffrey

Girls:

Rosalee

Ann

Martha

Elizabeth

[Irishy]

There are some dreadful catholic names that you don't see used any more but there are a whole lot of age 50+ women with names like Concepta, immaculata, Assumpta, and every variety of Mary. Marie, Maria, Marian, Miriam.

An aunt of mine (60ish) tells a story that one day, the mother superior came into her classroom and said stand up any girl not named Mary (or derivative). The those who had a sister named Mary could sit down. Then, the girls left over, a collection of Teresas, Bernadettes and Margarets, had to explain why they were not named Mary and go home and question their mothers.

[alba]

Hebrew names are popular--either with more exotic spelling than the more common versions (Rebekah instead of Rebecca) or finding really obscure ones. The worst I've seen was the fundie who named her daughter Naphtalie. This is a travesty for the following reasons:

1. Naphtali is a boys name.

2. In Hebrew, the correct feminine versions would be Naphtalit or Naphtalah. Rare, but still correct.

3. This fundie tried to make the name feminine by adding the French "ie" ending to a Hebrew name.

4. Everyone's going to misread it as Nathalie.

[Salamander]

4. Everyone's going to misread it as Nathalie.

5. Once they figure out it's not Nathalie, they'll probably mispronounce it: Naf-tha-lee, Nap-tha-lee, Nap-ta-lee...

[already hungover]

Hebrew names are popular--either with more exotic spelling than the more common versions (Rebekah instead of Rebecca) or finding really obscure ones. The worst I've seen was the fundie who named her daughter Naphtalie. This is a travesty for the following reasons:

1. Naphtali is a boys name.

2. In Hebrew, the correct feminine versions would be Naphtalit or Naphtalah. Rare, but still correct.

3. This fundie tried to make the name feminine by adding the French "ie" ending to a Hebrew name.

This is hilarious. Poor kid. I know a young (male) Naphtali and I really like the sound of the name, though I think it's one of those that doesn't quite "fit" on non-Jews, so I wouldn't be inclined to use it myself. Also, doesn't it mean "wrestling"? Sort of the last thing I imagine most fundies want their female children to do.

A personal favorite is when people use "Nevaeh" but spell it "Neveah". You'd think that if you were choosing a name because it spelled something in reverse, you'd check to make sure that it actually spelled that something in reverse.

I feel like lately, using "Bethany" is a dead giveaway that a family is fundy.

[Marianne]

There are some dreadful catholic names that you don't see used any more but there are a whole lot of age 50+ women with names like Concepta, immaculata, Assumpta, and every variety of Mary.

This is Spanish :) Normally there is a nickname for each of this names. Lola, for example, come from dolores. My name is Paloma (which means dove, symbol of freedom, etc ...), but the Spanish say Palomita.

I see that in America it's like here : the hipsters / bobo appropriated different and old names or biblical). I need to find my sociology class, but it is a process to differentiate themselves from the "plebe. Here, bobo give names "vintage", to differentiate than the middle classes that give American names (Liam, Bryan... )

Oh, and laugh a little Here, the English name "Justin" and "Jason" are sometimes written "Djustine" and "Djésone". To that we say with an English accent :?

Oh, and just one question: is Judith common in fundamentalists? When you know the story of Judith and Holofernes, it would make me laugh if many girls wear this name.

[uber frau]

The only Judiths I've run across have been Catholic.

[Knight of Ni]

There are some dreadful catholic names that you don't see used any more but there are a whole lot of age 50+ women with names like Concepta, immaculata, Assumpta, and every variety of Mary. Marie, Maria, Marian, Miriam.

An aunt of mine (60ish) tells a story that one day, the mother superior came into her classroom and said stand up any girl not named Mary (or derivative). The those who had a sister named Mary could sit down. Then, the girls left over, a collection of Teresas, Bernadettes and Margarets, had to explain why they were not named Mary and go home and question their mothers.

Concepta, Immaculata, and Assumpta remind me of names in the Life of Brian. I can imagine one of them naming their child "Incontinentia"

[moodygirl86]

Concepta, Immaculata, and Assumpta remind me of names in the Life of Brian. I can imagine one of them naming their child "Incontinentia"

One of the nuns in Father Ted was called Assumpta:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_God_Cr ... her_Ted%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarettes ... lerblading

[louisa05]

I taught in an evangelical school in the late 90s. I had multiple girls named Bethany in every class. From 2000 to 2010, I taught in a Catholic school. I never had a single Bethany. Not one. However, I had about ten Marys in that time period yet had not had a single Mary at the evangelical school.

Go figure.

[jaynie]

I'm also enjoying the link to the SSA's page on popular twin names, though I'm vaguely alarmed at the amount of people that gave their twins rhyming or otherwise highly similar names. Jayden and Jaylen. Jayden and Kayden. Ayden and Jayden. Jayda and Jayden. Jayden and Jayla. Oliver and Olivia. Makayla and Makenzie. Mia and Mya. Jayla and Kayla. Just...why? The kids will grow up and it's not gonna be cute anymore.

And :lol: at the overlap between the baby names fundies give their kids and the ones hipsters give theirs. It's a Venn diagram that's close to a perfect circle!

Thankfully it's a relatively small number of parents actually naming their twins things like that. It's just if you give them names that aren't obnoxiously themey (eg, i dunno, Persephone and Olivier), it's not likely someone else will hit on the exact combination. (That it happens at all, though, does speak to a terrible tendency to treat multiples as a novelty rather than as people.)

On another note, I remember reading (on Nameberry.com, maybe?) that if you add up all the variants on Aidan (including Jayden, Caiden, etc), something like 1/10 boys born in the USA have rhyming names. What's hilarious is when you meet someone who is naming their kid Xaiden because it's unique and they want them to stand out. At this point, John would be a better option for that.

[ILoveJellybeans]

The -ayden name trend is going a bit far. I know an Aidan, Aden, Jayden, Kayden, Cayden and Haydn.

[curlytoes79]

I'm waiting for some fundy family to name their kids Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Song of Solomon.

[Savoring Samsara]

The -ayden name trend is going a bit far. I know an Aidan, Aden, Jayden, Kayden, Cayden and Haydn.

The one that kills me is Raiden/Rayden. My only association for that name is the Mortal Kombat character. :lol: