‘Peak popularity’: Why names go in and out of vogue

For decades, it was all about Margaret. Sure, Norma, Joyce, Betty and Beryl had their moments in the sun, but in mid-20th century Australia, Margaret was overwhelmingly the most popular girl’s name. There was barely a year between 1929 and 1952 when Margaret wasn’t top of the heap for newborn girls. Worldwide, too, it was the era of Margarets: Thatcher (the PM), Windsor (the princess), Atwood (author of The Handmaid’s Tale), Olley and Preston (artists), Court (tennis star) and, at a pinch, actress Ann-Margret (of Bye Bye Birdie fame – YouTube it).

Then, in 1953, this incredible reign just ended. Having already slipped to second spot in NSW, in Victoria the drop was precipitous. Margaret was pushed aside by Susan, Christine and Jennifer. By 1956, according to state records, Julie and Karen were more popular too; the year after, Debra and Wendy squeezed Margaret further down the ranks. Just over a decade later, she couldn’t make the top 50, buried in a sea of Lisas, Sharons, Susans and the new frontrunner, no doubt inspired by the Beatles song of the same name from 1965, Michelle.

Margaret occasionally made the top 100 – just – in the early 1970s and mysteriously popped up in Victoria’s top 50 in 2000, incongruously surrounded by her Generation Z cousins Taylah, Mia, Chelsea, Zoe and Maddison. And then she was gone from the top of the charts from then on.

Audrey, an ancient Anglo-Norman name, similarly prevailed through the 1930s only to vanish, notwithstanding the popularity of Audrey Hepburn’s 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Yet despite being sent to Siberia for decades, Audrey suddenly reappeared in 2007 and last year, hers was the 26th-most popular baby name in Victoria and 33rd in NSW. Why do names fall in and out of favour? Why do some get “upcycled” through the generations (Daisy, Jack, William, Ruth) while once “It” names like Donald, Phyllis, Doreen, Roslyn, and Frank don’t so much? How much does your own name date you?

Did we have names when we were living in caves?

If you believe the 1966 Hollywood caveman epic One Million Years B.C., whose promotional material confidently promised “this is the way it was”, prehistoric people had names such as Tumak, Sakana and Nupondi. In her breakout role, Raquel Welch played the animal-skin-clad tribeswoman Loana. It’s not completely outlandish, evolutionary social psychologist Francis McAndrew tells us from Knox College in Illinois. “There really is no historical record that goes back far enough to document this,” he says. “In our early prehistoric societies, everyone knew everyone else personally, so names would not have been necessary to identify someone in the modern sense. However, there had to be some way of referring to individuals when they were discussed, so some sort of naming had to occur pretty early.”

First, or single, names (think Madonna, Maradona, Plato, Elvis) were the norm by the time writing was scratched into clay tablets in Egypt, China and Mesopotamia around 3200 BC. Some historians cite the first mention of a name as probably that of a public servant in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk (in present-day Iraq) who “signed” their tablets “Kushim” in cuneiform script. Tablets from the Sumerian empire of 3100 BC record the names of slave owner Gal-Sal and slaves Enpap-x and Sukkalgir.

Those may have dropped out of common usage (actually, why not Enpap-x?) but a handful of ancient monikers are still relatively common: the Greek names Alexander and Alexandra are in records kept by the Hittites around 1280 BC; Theodora dates from at least this time; in Scandinavia you might have met a Freya (named for the Norse goddess of love, fertility, battle and death). Susan is believed to have its origins in the ancient Egyptian word for water lily, sSn, possibly via the Hebrew Shoshanah and the ancient Greek Sousanna. Noah, the second-most popular boy’s name for babies born in NSW in 2023 and the most popular name in several European nations, dates back to the ark, of course.

Single names today are usually the preserve of celebrities, either because they adopt their own (Rihanna, Sting, Bono, Morrissey) or that’s how they become known (Bowie, Jagger, Adele). Brazilian soccer players, too, commonly choose to go by a single name, or mononym (Ronaldo was born Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima; Pelé, Edson Arantes do Nascimento). In 1970, a Brazilian child was named Tospericargerja after the football team that won the soccer World Cup that year: “Tos” from Tostão, “pe” from Pelé, “ri” from Rivelino, “car” from Carlos Alberto, “ger” from Gérson, and “ja” from Jairzinho.)

In everyday life, a person who changed his birth name to a mononym tells us, a single name can be problematic – filling out forms online, for example, usually requires two names in two boxes. “Every system should cope with the full variety of naming practices that exist in Australia, and most don’t,” says Stilgherrian, a freelance journalist and commentator from Sydney, who legally changed his name decades ago. “I get into lots of conversations about, where did it come from? One of the most popular guesses is that it’s Armenian. If nothing else, it’s a conversation starter.”

The widespread adoption of surnames arrived much later, possibly first in ancient China, about 2000 years ago, to facilitate census-taking. The Romans, too, favoured multiple names, which might relate you to your clan or tribe. He of Brutus fame was Marcus Junius Brutus; a fellow assassin, Gaius Cassius Longinus. By the early Middle Ages in the Arabic-speaking world, it became common to take a surname that referenced both your lineage – “son of” – and your origins, perhaps from a famous ancestor or place. It’s believed the Norman conquest of 1066 popularised the idea of surnames to the early Britons; the invading Frenchmen referenced their home towns in a surname.

Meanwhile, as the human population grew, along with growth in trade and the desire to collect taxes, it grew increasingly difficult to identify people by their first names alone – “John who?” Says McAndrew: “Many, if not most, surnames developed as a way of identifying people either by occupation or by the geographical location from which they came.” Think Hill or Craig, from crag, or de Porta. And, at least in English-speaking lands, Archer, Baker, Cook, Constable, Farmer, Fisher and Hunter. “It seems like people had to start talking about John the carpenter to distinguish him from John the tailor or John from Kerry.” Francis McAndrew’s own surname derives from one of his ancestors being the “son of Andrew”.

What are the rules and customs about names?

Some countries and cultures are relatively laissez-faire about names. In Australia, while rules vary from state to state, you can be pretty creative – with a few caveats. In NSW and Victoria, for example, you can choose whatever you like as long as it is not obscene or offensive; not more than 38 characters long (in Victoria) or 50 (in NSW); does not contain characters that are unpronounceable, such as “A!3xand3er Brown”; and is not misleading, such as “Commander” or “Duke of Edinburgh”. (The singer Prince would have failed on several counts, especially when he changed his name to an indecipherable symbol.) In both states, the registries of births, deaths and marriages can scotch “impractical” names, such as “Alexander is the Best Brown” or “A.L.E.X.A.N.D.E.R Brown”.

Overseas, Chinese first names traditionally consist of one or two characters that are given to symbolise the parents’ aspirations for a child’s characteristics, such as 欣妍 (Xīn yán, meaning “vitality or beauty”) and 可欣 (Kě xīn, “merits admiration”). It’s not uncommon for Chinese nationals to change their given names several times during their lifetime or for younger people, particularly students of English, to adopt a Western-sounding nickname, such as Eric or Wellington. “I have had students who change nicknames three times in one year,” says Peyman Sabet, who teaches at Curtin University in Perth. “It’s as simple as, one morning, they will say they’re changing their nickname.”

‘Names given to girls often drew inspiration from resilient plants such as pine, cedar, bamboo and chrysanthemum, symbols of strength, health and longevity.’

Arabic names are generally divided into three parts: given, middle and family. The middle names reference forebears: the Saudi ruler commonly known as “MBS” has the full name Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud (“bin” meaning son of). Many Muslims will give their sons Muhammad (or a variant spelling) as a first name, then, to distinguish them from other Muhammads, a second name they use in daily life, such as Muhammad Firas or Muhammad Hosni. Muhammad is the most common name in the world, but only recently began to chart in the most popular names in Australia; it’s now the 36th-most popular boy’s name in NSW, and 27th in Victoria. Arabs might also be known by their kunya, an alternative name that references their oldest child, traditionally the eldest son (but not necessarily today). This follows the style “Abu (father of) Ali” or “Umm (mother of) Fatima”.

In Japan, naming can prove controversial. There was outrage in 1993, for example, when parents wanted to call their daughter Akuma, meaning devil; and, in 2019, an 18-year-old named Prince told interviewers his life had been filled with shame and embarrassment as a result of his parents’ decision. The government has recently clamped down on unconventional choices.

Parents’ choices have reflected societal changes, says Ivona Baresova, a Czech researcher who has studied Japanese and Taiwanese naming conventions. “At the end of the 19th century, names given to girls often drew inspiration from resilient plants such as pine, cedar, bamboo and chrysanthemum, symbols of strength, health and longevity, which were vital in an era marked by high infant mortality and challenging living conditions. Today, plant-inspired feminine names reflect a different ideal. Modern names often feature flowers like jasmine, cherry, or apricot blossoms, evoking an image of beauty, affection and kindness, qualities appreciated in contemporary life.”

Parents can run foul of naming regulations in Scandinavia, too. In 1999, Finns Mika and Jaana Johansson named their son “Axl Mick” but were refused by the Population Registration Authority as the spelling did not comply with Finnish naming practice. The couple pursued the authority through the courts, arguing that Axl was common in Denmark and Norway (usually as Aksel or Axel) and was pronounceable in Finnish. In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights found that their rights had been breached and the name was acceptable, despite it missing its usual vowel. “The name was not ridiculous or whimsical, nor was it likely to prejudice the child.”

Terhi Ainiala, professor of Finnish language at the University of Helsinki, tells us many rules apply to name-giving in Finland. “It is forbidden to give a name that is clearly of the surname type as a first name,” Ainiala says, of one rule.

In Iceland, surnames are usually either parents’ first name, followed by -son (son of) or -dottir (daughter of) … Singer Björk Guðmundsdóttir is the daughter of Guðmundur.

Which brings us to Iceland. Surnames there are not fixed but are usually either parents’ first name, followed by -son (son of) or dottir (daughter of). As in: Ólafsson (son of Olaf) or Jónsdóttir (daughter of Jon). Singer Björk Guðmundsdóttir is the daughter of Guðmundur. Inga Arnadottir, Iceland’s honorary consul-general to Australia, is Inga, “daughter of Arni” (Arna is the feminine case of Arni). So, how do Icelanders know each other’s lineage? Well, they might not, says Arnadottir: “How do people know which family you’re from and who you’re related to? I mean, it is a small country, less than half a million people there now.” Though she notes: “You meet a guy at the bar and … and you think, well, I just wonder how related we are.” (Icelanders can check their genealogy on a database going back to the 9th century.)

Choosing a first name can be complex. To protect Iceland’s cultural heritage, the Mannanafnanefnd (Human Names Committee) maintains a register of some 4200 allowable names (based on grammar, spelling and whether they may cause the bearer harm) and meets to adjudicate on the introduction of new ones. (The Icelandic alphabet has 32 letters, including the unique characters Þ, ð and æ, which can produce some confounding names for the unfamiliar, such as Blær, Snævarr and Álfdís.) In July, the committee approved six new names: Núri and Foster for boys, Roj, Ana, Ahelia and Maríabet for girls.

Why do some names get recycled over generations?

Amelia, an ancient name with Latin roots meaning industrious or fertility, was popularised with the birth of Princess Amelia in 1783, the 15th and last child of England’s King George III. Alas, by the 20th century, Amelia had all but vanished. Yet in Australia, she reappeared in the 1980s, creeping onto the top 100 register in Victoria in 1988 in 99th place. By 1999, she was in the top 50. She had hit the top 20 by 2004, and today is regularly first or second in NSW and Victoria, usually accompanied by her similarly revived cousins Audrey, Charlotte, Matilda, Ruby and Ava. Meanwhile, Oliver, another ancient name (Oliver Cromwell brought it into disrepute in the 17th century), regularly claims the top spot among boys’ names these days but didn’t even begin to chart in the top 100 until the late 1980s.

It’s all about timing, says Ainiala. “Parents generally do not want to give their children the names of their own generation or their parents’ generation, as they feel too familiar and worn out and may be associated with unpleasant personal images,” she says. “Instead, these older-generation names are seen as fresher alternatives.”

Not that long ago, you’d find several children in a classroom sharing the same name – David, Mary, Susan, Kylie, perhaps. It’s less likely today, says Jean-Francois Mignot, who researches demographic trends at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. “More and more parents are choosing relatively original, distinctive and individualising first names for their children, which allow them to appear unique or to stand out from the crowd,” he tells us.

It’s a long-running trend. In the 1810s, most newborns in France were given one of the top 10 most popular names (Jacques, Marguerite); today, there is much more variation: think Lina and Romy, Gabriele and Jules. From the 1900s to the 2010s, the number of different first names given at least once to each sex at the French civil registry increased from about 1500 to about 6500 per year. “Fashion for first names has also been changing more quickly since the early 20th century,” says Mignot.

This is just as true in Denmark, says Birgit Eggert, a linguist at the University of Copenhagen, with “fewer people having the most common names and more people having very rare names and alternative spellings of names”. At the same time, she says, “A kind of wave motion in name fashion can be seen, such that many names reappear in every third generation. Newborn children are thus often given names that are known from their great-grandparents’ generation.”

Perhaps, as Andrew Colman from the University of Leicester concluded in his 1983 study on the attractiveness of names: “When names are either very unfamiliar or very familiar, they are not generally liked very much, but at some intermediate level of familiarity they achieve peak popularity.”

Increasingly, parents are also choosing names that translate internationally, Iceland possibly being an exception, linguist Anna-Maria Balbach tells us from the University of Münster in Germany. “In most European countries, especially in Central and Western Europe, there is a strong trend towards common name favourites and thus a strong internationalisation of the most popular first names in Europe.” Sofia is currently top across several nations (or Sophia, Zofia, Sofija) followed by Mia. For boys, Noah, again, is in first place in five countries, with Luka (or Luca) second. Biblical names, in particular, travel well: Adam, Eve, Noah, Daniel, Luke and Mia (from Mary).

Katrine Kehlet Bechsgaard, also at Denmark’s University of Copenhagen, tells us the educational background of parents can factor in name choices. In one study of naming motives, she found “parents with longer educations tended to choose more historically established names whereas parents with shorter educations were more likely to choose less established names.”

In Australia, too, parents are travelling back through time to seek unusual names, such as Maxwell, Elliot, Theodore, Eleanor and even Harriet, observes Mark McCrindle, a demographer who has studied naming practices in Australia for decades. “People are going for more traditional names,” he tells us. “So they’re reaching back to their grandparents’ era, which is quite interesting, rather than using the very contemporary names. It’s a trend that’s emerged in the last decade, and it’s amazingly consistent.” Victorian-era botanicals are popular right now: Ivy, Daisy, Rose, Poppy, Lily, Jasmine and Violet (though Heather, Iris and Hyacinth, not so much).

Falling out of favour, says McCrindle, are those creative or phonetic spellings, such as Taylah, Charli and Maddison, that emerged in the early 2000s. “These new names died off quite quickly. And we suddenly discovered some history. Partly it’s that people recognise that their children are going to live for a long time and that contemporary trends might eventually seem old and dated. And people realise this is a tricky name to spell the non-traditional way, [and] they’re going to be forever spelling it out.”

Absolutely, says Pierre-Louis Plumejeau-Wilby, who grew up in Australia and is the son of a French father and English mother, now working as a parliamentary assistant in Britain. “I reckon I still get asked once a week, ‘How do I pronounce your surname?’” he tells us from London, explaining that his double-double-barrelled name is a result of his parents taking an old family name, Pierre, from his father and adding to it his mother’s choice, Louis, in a compromise deal – while also combining their surnames. If he eventually has a son of his own, he says he will maintain the “Pierre” tradition, if not the double-double barrel. “Especially since my dad died. I just think it’s good to continue it.” Oh, and he has a middle name, too – John.

Can your name determine your future?

Viennese psychoanalyst Herbert Silberer wrote: “A man’s name is like a shadow … it follows him all his life.” But what effect does it have on your destiny? The concept of nominative determinism, how your name might determine your life’s path, is believed to have first appeared in a humorous article in New Scientist magazine in the mid-1990s, no doubt to debunk the idea that a baby with the surname “Taylor” would be fated to endure a lifetime of cutting cloth. Yet hunt around, and you can find some famously appropriate examples of the name fitting the career: urology researchers Splatt and Weedon; polar author Daniel Snowman; the high jumper Nathan Leeper; a firefighter called Les McBurney. Cardinal Sin was a Filipino cleric, and there’s the Bulgarian Olympic gymnast Silviya Topalova.

Earlier this year, science author Jesse Singal did a deep dive into the notion for The New York Times, uncovering research that suggested people’s names not only influenced their decisions about which professions to go into but also about where to live, drawing them to towns and streets with names similar or identical to their own. But he also found a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who comprehensively dismantled the idea, showing that “implicit egotism” was more likely at fault. Still, writes Singal, “the continued interest in the idea – across centuries and, arguably, against the evidence – is in itself revealing, highlighting humans’ deep-seated desire for order in a chaotic universe and the role science plays in satisfying that need … In a strange, mystical way, isn’t it comforting to think that you ended up in San Francisco not because of the vicissitudes of geography and employment but because you’re named Fran?”

Either way, parents have, for millennia, sought advice before naming their children. The ancient Romans believed “nomen est omen”, the name is an omen. In China, parents might go to a fortune teller for guidance, says Shuge Wei, a senior lecturer at ANU. “They try to fix what might be in difficulty in the future, and try to fix that problem by giving a name then addressing that effect. [There’s a] huge industry behind it.” In Taiwan, says Ivona Baresova, “a poorly chosen name is thought to bring misfortune to the bearer’s future life. When asked about the origin of their name, many Taiwanese simply state that it was chosen by a fortune teller.”

Hindus traditionally choose a name through the elaborate ritual of the Barasala. In the first few days after the birth of a child, a birth chart is plotted by astrologers to select the initial syllable of the child’s name, explains Thilagavathi Shanmuganathan in Names, the International Journal of Onomastics (the study of names). Then, on an auspicious day, “rice grains are spread on a bronze dish, and the father writes the chosen name on the rice grains using a stick rolled in gold wrapper while chanting the name of the main deity. This is drawn from the traditional saying that in every grain of rice, your name is written. The baby’s father then whispers the selected name into the child’s right ear thrice and says a prayer. The need to repeat the name three times symbolises the three main deities in Hinduism.”

Researcher Jean-Francois Mignon calls himself Jeff in English ‘because in English, Jean is a female first name, and because this first name is hell to pronounce for English speakers.’

In the West, religious or spiritual aspects of naming might have waned, but many parents still agonise to the extent they will hire a professional naming expert. Social media has only added to the anxiety, says Colleen Slagen, a US-based naming consultant who charges up to $600 for a consultation (note that an Australian-based rival charges up to $4999 for a “bespoke” package that includes Zoom calls, ongoing naming support and unlimited revisions for up to three months). “If someone posts that they had a baby named Eloise, even if they’re not someone you interact with in person, it may feel ‘taken’,” Slagen tells us. “Social media has also sped up the exchange of ideas and the speed with which trends come and go … This can cause a paradox of choice that makes it harder to settle on the one.”

Conversely, some parents, particularly in the United States, don’t bother picking a name at all, instead just adding “jnr” or “III” to the father’s name: Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump Jr, William Randolph Hearst III. It can be advantageous, says Francis McAndrew, and can strengthen the bond between fathers and their kids, although it can also carry “high expectations for the son on the part of the father”. Some people change their own names to increase a family bond: in Britain, TV presenter Dawn Porter switched to Dawn O’Porter after marrying actor Chris O’Dowd, and Brooklyn Beckham took his wife’s surname as a new middle name.

It was a common migrant experience, meanwhile, in the 1950s and 1960s to Anglicise or change a Greek or Italian name to assimilate or simply end the torturous ritual of explaining pronunciations. Indeed, researcher Jean-Francois Mignon calls himself Jeff in English, he says, “because in English, Jean is a female first name, and because this first name is hell to pronounce for English speakers”.

People are so aggrieved by mispronunciations, says cultural diversity consultant Fiona Swee-Lin Price, that she is contracted by universities to correctly read out the names of students at graduation ceremonies. Awkward mispronunciations are hard to avoid, though, Price says, as it’s essentially trying to speak an unfamiliar language. “There’s a lot of preaching going on and not a lot of teaching. I think people are a bit too quick to make it an individual’s responsibility to get someone’s name right.”

Research suggests employers still discriminate on the basis of names. In a study in 2023, Monash University economist Andreas Leibbrandt and a colleague sent 12,000 job applications to over 4000 job advertisements in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, using identical resumes but with confected names drawn from six different ethnic groups. The results showed ethnic minorities received 57.4 per cent fewer callbacks for leadership positions than applicants with English names. “If you look at the impact of the name in the Australian context and compare it to international studies in other countries,” Leibbrandt tells us today, “it’s certainly one of the most pronounced differences as compared to other countries.”

It’s unsurprising, then, that in Australia’s Muslim community, some people still feel pressure to change their names or go by names that are easier for Anglo-Australians to pronounce, says Adel Salman of the Islamic Council of Victoria. “People do it for various reasons, just to fit in, for fear of being teased at school, because they believe it will increase their job prospects or their prospects of securing rental accommodation,” he tells us. “Some people in their work life, they’re called ‘Mo’, but in their family and social circles, they use the proper name, ‘Mohammed’.” And, no, Adel’s name is not pronounced like that of the English singer Adele. “For a lot of my life, he says, “People would call me ‘Adele’, and I never corrected that. But maybe 15, 20 years ago, I actually started to tell people, ‘Actually, no, it’s pronounced AH-dull.’”

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