Why Are Some Kids’ Names So Common?

baby namesAre there several ‘Ashley’s in your child’s class? Or perhaps several Aiden’s or Jayden’s or Isabella’s?

Why is it that some many names become such a hit with parents, and become so trendy for a while that every third child of a particular age seems to have that name? Well several reasons are propounded:

  • Parents copy one another. They hear a name they like and they want to name their child the same; particularly if the name is associated with a particular cache; social or economic or cultural. Parents would like to be seen as trendy too after all. For instance the name Emma became very popular at some point and many thought it was perhaps due to the name given to Rachel and Ross’s child in sitcom Friends. More recently characters from Twilight, Isabella and Jacob are among the most popular.
  • There is also a racial aspect to baby names. ‘Black’ names have seen a rise in the past few decades and researchers found that 40% of all African-American babies born in California are given a name that doesn’t appear on even a single white baby’s birth certificate.
  • Also people in a particular geographical location tend to name their children similarly.

Source: Time

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