rec.arts.theatre.musicals

Greetings:

Vogues in baby naming always been a source of great fascination to me.
My name was wildly popular in my generation, much to my parents' utter
shock - they genuinely thought they were being creative, and were
horrified when I started school and they saw scores of little Amys
running around (plus the fact that there is a whole group of people
who know me simply as Amy A. - to distinguish me from all the other
Amys in the class) The only girls in my age group who had it worse
were the Jennifers.

I don't understand how names fall in and out of fashion so quickly -
seems like there were a million Jessicas born in the 1980s, but that's
not a name you hear that much anymore. Same with Brittany. Now we have
a very bizarre influx of Madisons which I simply cannot fathom - where
did this name come from, and why are people so enamored of it??? I,
for one, cannot imagine having a friend name a baby and thinking,
"Wow, that was a cute name, I think I'll name my baby that, too," but
it seems like this is the only explanation - at least, the only one I
can come up with.

If you want to see how your name stacks up through the years, google
"baby name wizard" and check it out - it is a fascinating graph of the
popularity of names through the past 100 years. Just type in your name
of choice and prepare to be amazed. For a real laugh, google "bad baby
names" - there is a whole blog devoted to horrifying names people have
posted on the internet on which to solicit opinions. Half the fun is
seeing these terrible concoctions people have decided the curse their
children with - the other half is seeing the snarky comments of the
blogger about said names.

Thanks to everyone who submitted suggestions and comments. At the
moment, the front runners are Charles and Celeste, but we have a good
5 months to continue mulling over the prospects, so keep those
suggestions coming!

Cheers!
Amy :)




On Oct 3, 9:31 pm, vic...@ (Victor S. Miller) wrote:
> If you haven't read "Freakonomics" (which I found very entertaining
> and thought provoking), you should. The last chapter is an
> interesting discussion of popular names for babies in various eras,
> and predictions about what will be the popular names in the the years
> to come.
>
> Victor