过去十年，火了哪些英文名字

blog, Newspaper / By

原作者：Pamela Redmond

原刊于：New York Times


If you named your child Freya or Theo at the start of this decade, I’m sorry. You probably put a lot of thought and energy into finding a baby name that was classic yet unusual, time-honored yet distinctive. And, 10 years ago, Freya and Theo were all of those things. Theo hadn’t appeared on the Social Security Administration’s official list of the top 1,000 American baby names since World War II. And Freya, the name of the ancient Norse goddess of love, beauty and fertility, had never been on it.

Now Theo stands at No. 243 on the official United States list of popular names, given to more than 1,500 baby boys in 2018. And Freya ranks at No. 266, used for more than 1,200 baby girls. Barring a deadly storm or a heinous criminal with one of those names, babies named Freya and Theo seem destined to fill nurseries for years to come.

What forces turned these two names into major stars over the past decade while thousands of others remain unknown?

To identify the naming trends that have most shaped parents’ choices in the 2010s, we analyzed the more than 500 names that ranked in the top 1,000 in 2018 — the last year counted — that were not on the list in 2008. Here are some of the names and the trends that have defined the past decade.


New vintage names  给老派名字加点新意

One of the main precepts of naming trends is that every generation of parents needs to reinvent baby names. That’s true even when it comes to an established trend like the fashion for vintage names, which has been around since the parents of today’s parents excavated Jessica and Joshua, Amanda and Jacob to create a new middle path between old-school names like John and Mary and newfangled confections like Jodi and Troy.

Over the past decade, millennial parents have had to dig even deeper to find classic names that felt fresh again. Some of the new old choices that now appear in the top 1,000 (but did not a decade ago) include Willa and Wallace, Margot and Otis, Leona and Lionel. Harvey makes the list, too, but we have a feeling that one won’t last.

  • Dorothy

  • Eloise

  • Florence

  • Pearl

  • Thea

  • Clyde

  • Ira

  • Lionel

  • Otto

  • Wallace

Shorties 名字还是短点的好

This trend toward giving babies antique nicknames that stand on their own started in Britain, where vintage short forms such as Evie, Elsie, Alfie and Freddie rank among the current top 25. As you may have heard, there’s even a young royal named not the forbidding Archibald or the nouveau Archer, but just plain Archie.

In their search for new spins on old names, parents in the United States have followed suit over the past 10 years, with vintage nicknames including Hattie, Rosie, Hank and Mack appearing by themselves on the most recent top 1,000.

  • Belle

  • Hattie

  • Mae

  • Millie

  • Rosie

  • Gus

  • Hank

  • Louie

  • Mack

  • Zeke

Contemporary gods and goddesses 故事里的名字

Giving babies ancient names drawn from myth, legend and religion is one of the strongest and most surprising trends of the past decade. Major influences include “The Hunger Games,” the HBO series “Rome” and the move away from traditional religion toward more holistic spiritual beliefs.

Along with Freya, mythological names that became popular baby names in the past decade include Calliope, the Greek muse of poetry, and Titan, the immortal giant. This group of ancient names also includes off-road biblical choices such as Cain and Jaziel, the Quranic Maryam and the Homeric Achilles.

  • Aurelia

  • Calliope

  • Freya

  • Maryam

  • Rhea

  • Amos

  • Apollo

  • Cain

  • Magnus

  • Titan

Unique celebrity names 致敬名人

Parents have been naming their babies after celebrities since a certain dimpled movie moppet propelled the name Shirley to No. 2 on the charts in 1936. What’s new eight decades later is that no name is too unusual or even difficult for parents to adopt if it has a celebrity endorsement. Sometimes, the very uniqueness of the name seems to be the key to its appeal, with names such as Saoirse (Ronan), Idris (Elba) and Saint (son of Kimye) rising into the top 1,000 in the 2010s.

In a meta twist, celebrities themselves have inspired a trend for naming babies after dead (or should we call them vintage?) celebrities. Zoe Saldana has a son named Bowie (singer David), Carson Daly has a daughter named Etta (James), and Mariah Carey’s daughter is named Monroe (Marilyn).

Vintage celebrity names revived this decade are scientific (Edison), literary (Anais and Langston), athletic (Landry, for both genders), musical (Lennon and Hendrix) and completely mystifying (Nixon and Thatcher).

  • Adele

  • Liv

  • Maisie

  • Octavia

  • Saoirse

  • Axl

  • Idris

  • Keanu

  • Legend

  • Tatum

Pop culture names 因为流行

If you named your son Kylo at the start of this decade — well, you probably didn’t, because the Social Security Administration recorded zero babies given that name 10 years ago. Then Adam Driver’s character in “Star Wars” happened, propelling the name not only to the top 1,000 in 2016 but making it that year’s fastest-rising name.

Anakin also makes the new pop culture name list, as do the names of fictional heroines Coraline, Esme, Lyra, Ophelia, Scout, Arya and Khaleesi, which may be second only to Harvey as the name causing the most regret.

While the names of characters from books, TV and movies are the most influential from pop culture, this group includes names inspired by fashion: Alaia, Dior and Boden.

  • Arya

  • Cataleya

  • Collins

  • Ophelia

  • Scout

  • Anakin

  • Arlo

  • Boden

  • Creed

  • Kylo

Dictionary-inspired names 一个单词，一个名字

Word names became a thing only in the new century, and this decade saw a booming expansion of the genre, with gentle flower names like Violet and upstanding virtue names such as Justice giving way to wild animal names, royal and military names, aspirational spiritual names, and in at least one case, a name inspired by a hat.

Among the words that have become newly popular baby names in the 2010s are nature names Briar, Fox, Juniper and Wren; royal and military names Duke, Kaiser, Major and Queen; and spiritual names Heavenly, Legacy and Promise. That hat name you’ve been waiting for: Stetson.

  • Baker

  • Fox

  • Juniper

  • Legacy

  • Magnolia

  • Major

  • Royalty

  • Shepherd

  • Wilder

  • Winter

Adventurous place names 去不了远方，就给孩子取个远方的名字吧

Place names aren’t exactly new, but parents ventured into unexplored territory in the 2010s, with a new world of place names making the top 1,000. Holland has risen for girls, Harlem for boys, Caspian for boys and Malaysia for girls.

Some of the newest place names carry a spiritual element: Canaan, Galilea, Jericho. But as with Camden and Dakota before them, some new place names are decidedly down-to-earth, such as Brixton, the name of a once notorious, now hip London neighborhood. But then again, there’s also a trendy hat called a Brixton, so along with Stetson we may have the makings of a mini-trend.

  • Cairo

  • Canaan

  • Caspian

  • Egypt

  • Galilea

  • Harlem

  • Holland

  • Jericho

  • Malaysia

  • Vienna

Gender-neutral names  看到这些名字，别轻易用she/he

The newest wave of gender-neutral names, which have been around as long as Gloria Steinem, are rising in tandem for both boys and girls. Another welcome change is that we see more boys receiving gender-neutral names, with some names that had veered far onto the girls’ side, such as Robin and Dominique, becoming used more equally for boys and girls.

Another new twist is that unisex names that have risen for one gender have not always done so in predictable ways. Ezra is newly hot for girls, for instance, while Tatum is popular for boys.

A subset of gender-neutral names is surname names, but these have become more popular mostly for boys. The new spin is that they’re more diverse, with choices such as Coen and Flynn rising along with Crosby and Wells.

Unisex names that are newly popular for both genders:

  • Azariah

  • Briar

  • Emory

  • Leighton

  • Lennox

  • Milan

  • Nova

  • Oakley

  • Reign

  • Remy

  • Royal

  • Sutton

More diverse international names 加点h，加点j，是不是很国际范儿

Diversity is more evident every year on the list of popular names, with new choices entering the top 1,000 over the last decade not from established sources such as Ireland and Latin America, but from all over the world.

New international entries to the United States list in the last 10 years include the Scandinavian Astrid and Bjorn, the Arabic Noor and Mustafa, the French Sylvie and Vivienne, the Japanese Kenzo, the Scottish Lachlan and the Sanskrit Bodhi.

  • Alessia

  • Noor

  • Rivka

  • Sylvie

  • Veda

  • Bjorn

  • Bodhi

  • Kenzo

  • Khalid

  • Zev

Invented names 不一样的烟火

The total number of names used for five or more babies in the United States — the cutoff due to privacy concerns — decreased by almost 10 percent in the past decade, to about 32,000 from just over 35,000. But that’s still nearly three times as many names as those that were in general use in 1960, so it stands to reason that many of the 20,000 names that have appeared in the past half-century are respellings and new variations of established names along with complete inventions.

Among the name inventions that are new to the top 1,000 over the past 10 years are Avalyn, Bexley, Haisley, Kace, Kamryn, Kye and Paisleigh.

The question for parents looking for baby names today, of course, is how to choose a name that will be as unusual and distinctive at the turn of the next decade as it is today. A few guidelines:

  • Don’t try to outwit other baby name treasure hunters by choosing a name so uncool and outmoded that you think nobody else could possibly choose it. Today’s clunky Bertha and Orville may well become tomorrow’s stylish Pearl and Clyde. And if they don’t, that might be worse.

  • If you pick the name of a literary, biblical or mythological figure, choose one you know and love rather than one (looking at you, Scout) that everybody knows and loves.

  • Ditto surnames, nature names, place names and word names: If they carry personal meaning, they’ll transcend the ups and downs of fashion.

  • If you really want a name that’s going to stay out of the limelight, avoid names that start with A or L, contain the letters Q, X, V or Z, or end in S, N, O or R.

  • Don’t worry about the Kardashians. They’re going to keep giving their babies highly unusual names (Psalm? Really?) that may well trespass on your child’s highly unusual name. But you can’t predict that, and there’s nothing you can do about it. They are a baby naming force beyond mortal control.

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