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Name That Kid

The latest top baby names are in, via this article on PBS or directly from the Social Security Administration, and I guess I should not be surprised how much pop culture influences the choice of baby names. From vampires to glee clubs, football players to reality TV stars, ideas come to us from the tabloids and tubes.

What influenced your choices? Family, a list and some darts, rock-paper-scissors? At the SSA site above you can see how your choice ranks. Our kids get in at just over 500 and 700, respectively.

Tags: Glee, Obama, Twilight, pop culture

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Comment by TommysMommy on June 23, 2010 at 1:41pm: Himself is just out of the top 50 but he is number 5 after his dad, uncle, grandpa and great-grandpa. Herself's name is no higher than 608 in the past 10 years but we spell it with an extra "e." My name seems to be making a resurgence after stupid Grey's Anatomy. I always loved the name Emma and then Friends used it and that was it. There are going to be Emma X and Emma Z in schools like Sara(h)s were when I was a kid.

Comment by kommishoner on June 23, 2010 at 2:29pm: The little man has an epic hyphenated last name (his social security card had to use two lines for his name) so we needed something short and unusual. We picked it basically randomly off the SSN list. Sadly, it seems to have moved from the 600s to 390 in the last two years. Dammit. There's no good reason for it, either, unless people are naming their children for a celebrity's child who passed away under tragic and mysterious circumstances.

Comment by sockiboo on June 23, 2010 at 3:12pm: the morning after we shook on the fetus's name, i found three different internet articles that predicted his name would be the Aidan of the next twenty years. sigh.

he's a week overdue, by the way, and no signs of showing up soon. if anyone has anything for us to try other than sex, walking, eggplant parmesan, spicy food, evening primrose oil and fervent heathen prayer, i'm all ears.

Comment by kommishoner on June 23, 2010 at 3:19pm: Oh god, sockiboo, I feel for you. I went a week over as well and did all those things in spades. I think I walked (waddled) 7 miles in the weekend before the little man was born. About 30 minutes after the life duet and I had a conversation about how much longer we were going to wait before we "got bossy" about getting him out, my water broke. Hang in there, it'll happen!

Comment by Boring User Name on June 23, 2010 at 3:30pm: The Kid has a pretty common name. But as he was due at the end of May, I was able to check the SSA list to make sure he didn't move up to the top 10. If he had, there would have been re-negotiation.

And sockiboo, unfortunately, my tale doesn't end as happily as kommish's, but he made it eventually (2 weeks and 1 day late) and was a healthy, happy, albeit large, baby. I had to disappear from the Internet and sent out an email telling friends to STFU with the "is the baby here yet?" questions.

Comment by Bigkrygowski on June 23, 2010 at 4:00pm: The Achiever is in the high 300s. My name is still in the top 100 after all these years.

Comment by Gumbo Momma on June 23, 2010 at 4:26pm: Aw man, Sockiboo, I can so relate. I was over 2 weeks late with my first pregnancy and after trying all of the above, the only thing that got her out was inducing. Even after we induced it took 15 hours; Me, my mom and two nurses pushing, and the Doctor and another nurse pulling to get her out. I'm still convinced she was clinging to the placenta the whole time.

Comment by Kathleen on June 23, 2010 at 11:09pm: My son (2.5) is number 3 on the list, Michael. Oh well, we didn't choose it bc of how popular it is - it was after a dead relative, a name both me & my SO could agree on so Michael Henry it is! I really like it though, it suits him & I have yet to run into Michael's on the playground. (Give it time, I know) If he had been a girl it was going to be Anneliese, after my Great-Grandma. Never heard that one except for her.

Even my name is not that popular - I'm a Kathleen, not Katie, Kat, or any other variations. So the only other Kathleen's I've ever known are at least 55+. Number 564 in 2009! I don't want my name to be popular anyway!

And I have to say, as a preschool teacher, I really like it when parents come up with original names that mean something to them, not something just because it's popular. (Hello Madison's, Jackson's, etc..)

Comment by Floor Pie on June 23, 2010 at 11:40pm: I like how you can trace the popularity of a name over time. Check out #7 - Madison. It doesn't show up on the list until 1985. One year after Splash came out. And check out Trinity, which jumped from #209 to #74 the year after The Matrix came out. And how about Jennifer - #1 for fourteen years straight after Love Story came out. (Although it looks like its first year as #1 was the same year the movie came out.) Yes, I'm a geek. But I wonder if people will even remember the source of Isabella's popularity 20 years from now?

As for my kids, one is named after my grandmother and the other Mr. Black picked from a baby name book and it was the only one we could agree on. Both kids' names appear to be waning in popularity.

Comment by Mamawho on June 24, 2010 at 7:30am: FP - I named one of my Barbies "Madison" after I saw Splash.

Name That Kid

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