Reply to Why are people in the DC area so weird about name popularity?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't get these comments that are like "oh they thought they were being so unique by naming their kid Milo but he's one of three in class." First of all, Milo is ranked #120 -- if there are three of them in one class, it's a freak accident unlikely to be repeated in that child's life. And second, since name popularity is published online and widely reported on, I doubt anyone is using a popular name without knowing it's popular. Parents giving their kids more popular names know they are more popular and are okay with it, and thus by definition cannot think they are being "so unique." If anything, they are bucking the apparent trend of obsessing over giving your name a totally original, rare name and just saying "screw it, we just really like this name and it's okay if our special snowflake sometimes shares a name with a classmate or coworker."[/quote]

Milo is ranked #120 in the nation, but do you think it is ranked #120 in Little Rock? In Arlington, VA? In Arlington, TX? Names differ in popularity by  region, and that is why we had 2 girls named Xanthe, 2 girls named Sage, and 2 boys named Gray in my kid’s 1st grade year in ny (45 kids total). Not a single Jacob. [/quote]

... and? Who cares? Why does the popularity of the name matter? All of the names you just mentioned are not very popular overall, too, so even if the kid winds up in a little bubble where there are a couple in school with them, in the rest of their life they will have a fairly uncommon name.

So why does it matter? Why fixate?[/quote]

Answered in the first comment posted-status. Giving your kid a trending name is often judged as low class. DC is a pretty status obsessed place and no parent here want to use Milo and in three years see it has become the next Brayden. [/quote]

Brayden may be considered a "low class" name but it's not particularly popular. It's ranked #190, not far on the list from names like Finn, Oscar, Nico, and Max, all names used by people I know who valued a name that wasn't "too popular."

The popularity of a name is not what makes it low or high class. If anything, an obsession with choosing an "original" name is precisely what leads to those Utah manglings like Brayden/Jayden/Kayden or Kinsleigh/Paisley/Brynleigh. Those are efforts to be unique. It would have been been classier to just name their kids William and Sofia.[/quote]

Popularity is similar but not the same as trends. Did you not read what I wrote, or can you not understand the difference?

A name Brayden is not as popular as James, but it is absolutely more trendy. Any name chart curve can show this information. It’s not popularity that makes a name low class (to some people) it’s trendiness. [/quote]

Thank you, my reading comprehension is fine. This thread is about popularity, if you wanted to make a distinction about "trendiness" then you should have said so. Brayden is not that popular of a name. It might be trendy, but I think the real issue is that it trends among people who lack status. It is popular among middle class families in places like Utah, which makes it "low class" to a UMC person living in a coastal city. The issue is not its popularity but its social coding.

By comparison, look at the trend of the name Ezra, which has recently followed the same trajectory as Brayden but a few years behind: https://www.behindthename.com/name/brayden/top/united-states?compare=Ezra&type=percent

It's a similarly "spiky" name reflecting a very sudden interest in the name -- a trend. Yet Ezra is coded as intellectual, coastal, and cosmopolitan. It is currently much more popular than Brayden. But it's considered as more "high class" than Brayden.

So no, it's not just that popular names are viewed as more "low class".[/quote]

Ezra is only viewed (by some) as more cosmopolitan and intellectual because it’s  “a few years behind”, as you yourself acknowledged.

Soon enough the masses will catch on that “cosmopolitan intellectual” parents are using it and use it too and it will be just as plebeian as Mason or Braydon or something. This phenomenon has been widely documented. [/quote]

I disagree. People in coastal cities will view Brayden and Ezra totally differently even when they have similar popularity because of other associations. Ezra is one of those "old person" names that have become popular recently.[b] A lot of people using it are likely naming after a relative (fun fact: Ezra is a Hebrew name and in Ashkenazi tradition, you are not supposed to name children after living relatives, so there's kind of a built in name cycle in some Jewish communities as people name children after great-grandparents but rarely after grandparents) [/b]or have positive associations with famous Ezras like Ezra Pound.

Meanwhile, Brayden is one of those invented names that didn't exist before the year 2000. It has no history and thus has a much narrower association with the sorts of people who choose names like Brayden now, who are largely not well-educated elites in large cities.

They may have similar popularity spikes, but they will never have similar cultural or class associations because they are simply very different names. [/quote]

It's trendy because it has a trendy sound (ah ending). Plenty of Jewish kids have great grandfathers named Irving and Morton and no one is using those names.[/quote]

According to the PP, this makes Irving and Morton very "prestigious" names that will confer a high social status on you and your family.[/quote]

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