Nameberry Through the Looking Glass🪞
Longtime Berries be warned: serious nostalgia incoming!
If you’ve never fallen down the rabbit hole of Nameberry time travel via the Internet Archive, you’re in for a treat. The bright colors, the popular names cloud, the “Names Searched Right Now” ticker 😭
We were especially impressed to stumble across the Nameberry popularity charts from March 2016 – so many names the Berries were seriously ahead of the curve on!
Big risers in recent years that were already high on the Nameberry charts include Astrid, Aurelia, Birdie, Clementine, Daphne, Harlow, Luna, Maeve, Elodie, Esme, Sloane, Willa and Wren for girls.
For boys, choices like Archie, Arlo, Atlas, Bodhi, Brooks, Callum, Cosmo, Elio, Jasper, Luca, Maverick, Milo, Otis and Wolf were already flying high on Nameberry seven years ago.
If you’re eagle-eyed, you’ll spot several names in there that were ostensibly boosted later by TV, film or celebrity usage – think Archie, Cosmo, Daphne, Elio, Otis, Maeve, Wolf. But the Berries called them even earlier!
The moral of the story: make the Nameberry charts your first port of call if you want to avoid choosing the next big baby name.
20 Questions Every Namer Should Ask
While we’re dishing out naming advice, today’s blog is a great place to start if you’re feeling a little (or a lot!) overwhelmed at the ever-expanding universe of names to choose from.
Among families we speak to, we’re seeing a shift away from “We can’t find anything we like!” towards “Our list is too long, how do we narrow down?” as the biggest problem many parents are wrestling with.
Pam explains:
When I was a waitress, we had a trick to help indecisive customers make up their minds about what they wanted to eat.
If it was the main course that had them stumped, we asked, “Meat or fish?”
And if it was dessert, the question was “Fruit or chocolate?”
Now, I realize that those two choices don’t cover the entire universe of options. There’s pasta, and caramel. Vegetarian, and blancmange.
But in general, dividing the world – of food, or yes, of baby names – can be a fast efficient first step to helping sift through a dizzying number of options.
If this problem sounds familiar – and as a fellow name nerd, I hear you – try the 20 questions quiz for yourself and get a description of your perfect name in just five minutes.
More Fun Stuff
Good names with bad, bad meanings (“misshapen head”, anyone?) 😬
Or alternatively: the most breathtaking name meanings around 🧚
A treasure trove of Welsh names to celebrate St David’s Day 🏴
1930s names we want to see come back (and a few we don’t!) 🕰️
100 picture-perfect twin boy pairings for 2023 👬🏽
Short, sweet, stylish mini names for girls 😍
