The Future (and Past) of Baby Names

What we pitched to the Sharks, and why we're the only baby namers ever on Shark Tank

If you watched Nameberry on Shark Tank on Friday night, you heard me talking about the future of baby naming. We’re really excited to introduce you to all the innovations we plan to bring to Nameberry.

Along with where we’re going, we want to establish where we came from – and how we invented the culture of baby names as we know it today.

Nameberry launched in 2008, created from ten ground-breaking books about names coauthored by me and Linda Rosenkrantz. It seems crazy now that these ideas are so mainstream, but when we published our first book Beyond Jennifer & Jason in 1988, Linda and I were the very first authors to:

– Organize names into lists based on style, image, gender, origin, religion, and history.

– Tabulate a list of the most popular names in the US.

– Discuss cultural influences on name trends, creating the first lists of celebrity baby names and literary names and royal names.

– Predict name trends, identifying groups of names still trending today such as o-ending names, gender neutral names, and Irish surname names.

– Forecast the advent of place names and word names and nature names for babies, expanding the lexicon of names in common use.

– Advise parents on how to navigate all the factors like family pressure and couple disagreements and honor names that can influence their choices.

The concepts we invented, all in the baby-naming vernacular today, include:

– The Hundred-Year Rule – In Beyond J & J, we called the “The Hundred-Year Cycle,” writing, “A startling number of the names that sound fresh and appealing to us today were favored by the new parents of a hundred years ago.”

– Sibset Names – We wrote that siblings’ names should be harmonious in rhythm and style but different enough to avoid confusion, an accepted tenet of baby-naming today but a novel concept in the era of siblings named Larry and Harry, Ellen and Eleanor.

– Sweet Spot Names – We created the ideal of names that are neither too popular nor too unique favored by many parents today.

Nameberry is still a small, independently-owned company, managed by me and CTO Hugh Hunter, who built the original site. Our lean staff includes editor-in-chief Sophie Kihm, who is also a perinatal therapist, and senior editor Brynn McKeon, who also moderates our forums.

(Cofounder Linda Rosenkrantz has retired from baby naming but the movie based on her book Peter Hujar’s Day just debuted to rave reviews at Sundance. And the TV show based on my book Younger is a Top 5 show on Netflix!)

Nameberry has grown to become the biggest (in terms of content and audience) website devoted to baby names in the world. Last year, we hosted 31 million unique visitors from every country on earth. Visitors trust Nameberry to give them everything they need to choose the perfect name, an important decision that reverberates across the generations.

Now we’re reinventing baby names yet again. Hear our vision for the future of baby names on Shark Tank.

And sign up here for an exclusive invitation to be part of what’s next for Nameberry and the world of names.

On Nameberry This Week

Welcome to February!

If you’re expected a baby this month, check out this list of names perfect for February babies along with names for baby Aquarians. And if you’re an Aquarius, check out our insights on your naming style and compatibility with namers of other signs.

Baby Name Trends 2025

The essential guide to all the trends shaping baby names 2025, from Fast Fashion Names to Landscape Names to Otherworldly Names. Plus hundreds of name ideas trending now.

A New Beautifully-Named Celebrity Baby

Congratulations to Emily in Paris star Lily Collins and husband Charlie McDowell on their new daughter, Tove Jane. Tove is a Scandinavian name meaning beautiful. Tove is a popular girls’ name in Sweden but was used for only 20 baby girls in the US last year, the same number as were named Taisley, Tilda, and Wrigley.

What we do for fun besides working on Nameberry

We make Random Name Generator wheels! This was pretty fun but we have to stop spinning it. Your turn.