The most Trendy name ever
And hen party namespotting
I’ve been at a friend’s hen party this weekend. It was pretty low-key — we’re in our thirties, after all — but we did have these guys hanging on our glasses as drink markers.
Meet Brad, Cody, Mitch, Chad, Ryan, and Josh. Perfect names for buff white bros.
Except… some of them are approaching their best-before date. Chad, the ultimate surfer dude name, was at peak popularity in 1972-3. Tens of thousands of Chads are now in their fifties, and many of them are probably grandpas. Which is great, but I wonder if the name is starting to lose its appeal to the younger hen party attendee.
Brad is also increasingly likely to be the father of the bride: Bradley was at its most popular in the 1970s.
Mitch is a borderline choice: it peaked in 1961 — solid grandpa — but formal Mitchell was even more popular in the early 1990s.
Cody reached its height between 1991-3, making this a decent choice for a buff thirtysomething man.
Ryan and Josh(ua) are the ultimate everyguys: both enjoyed a long run near the top of the charts from the 1970s through to the 2000s. Long may their names remain on questionable party décor.
Word Names of the Future?
You know who else likes short, punchy names — albeit in a very different style? Nara Smith. We talked about her in last week’s newsletter, but this week she mentioned some of the other names she considered for her new daughter, Whimsy Lou.
They include Tink, Plum, Pip, Dot, and Ivy for a girl, plus longer Lemon and Clementine; and for a boy, Dust, Dew, Mercer, Flick, and Halo.
Some of these might seem out-there now, but remember Dream and Legacy were barely known ten years ago, and now they’re in the Top 500 with thousands of namesakes. While we’re not likely to see Tink at #1 any time soon, a little endorsement from a celeb could be enough to give any of these names a boost.
How Trendy is this name?
Speaking of word names, the only truly surprising name in these siblings is Trendy. It sounds like a name — I mean, it rhymes with Wendy —but ironically, it’s never been used enough to feature in the US charts. This makes Trendy far less popular than Unique, which was even in the Top 1000 for several years.
Trendy’s siblings — Zaylee, Sunny, Truly, Journey, and Rocky — certainly stand out for their modern word style and matching “ee” endings. But they’re all established as names, and besides, there are plenty of siblings named, say, Henry, Aubrey and Chloe.
Short Names Rising
When I updated our Ultimate Guide to Short Names recently, I had to remove some “unique short names” from the list because, well, they’re not quite so rare any more. The following went from under 20 babies in 2021 to over 20 babies in 2022.
Bibi, Clea, Evi, Jens, July, Khan, Leda, Lee, Loa, Mica, Mimi, Niko, Reba, Vale, Yuli, Zai
Don’t worry: they’re still uncommon, so if you’re crushing on any of these, the secret’s not out yet. As for whether they’ll keep rising? Just a few more weeks until we find out!
More fun stuff
We reveal our most-viewed names in countries around the world. Bet you can’t guess which word name is most popular in China! 🪄
Berries in the forums are loving this word name (I didn’t mean to make it all about word names, but they just keep coming!) 🏰
Guess which country just released its new name data: the top names are perfectly-matched Eino and Aino 🦌
