What’s in a name? Supposedly plenty. Parents spend serious time pondering names for their newborns. Popular baby names change through the eras….. well, mostly. Let’s go back to the middle of the Fab Fifties in Canada, 70 years ago, the beginning of Rock & Roll. The Top 5 names for girls in order? Mary, Marie, Deborah, Susan, and Linda. Top 5 boys names were David, Robert, John, Joseph, and James (I see Victor was the 87th most popular name for a boy. At least I made the Top 100!). Jump ahead 20 years to the start of the Disco era where the top names for a girl were Jennifer, Michelle, Lisa, Angela, and Marie and for a boy they were Jason, Michael, Christopher, David, and Robert. 20 years later in the mid-90’s we were naming the last of our Millennial girls Jessica, Sarah, Emily, Nicole, and Samantha and the boys were Matthew, Michael, Brandon, Ryan, and Tyler. Jump to the mid-2000 teens and for girls we see Olivia, Emma, Ava, Sophia, and Emily. A decade ago, for boys it was Liam, Ethan, Lucas, Benjamin, and Noah. How about today? Well, they say currently the Top 5 names for girls are Olivia (for the 9th year in a row!), Emma, Sophia, Charlotte, and Ivy and the Top 5 names for a boy are Oliver, Noah, Liam, Leo, and Jack. When it comes to names, sometimes what’s old is new again and what’s new isn’t really.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.
