Julia Roberts named her twins Phinnaeus and Hazel; Brad and Angelina have named their daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Choosing names for children has apparently becomes more of 'branding' practice, and decisions have much to do with the desire of being unique, rather than family traditions or cultural values.
According to a WSJ article, "in 1880, Social Security Administration data show that the 10 most popular baby names were given to 41% of boys and 23% of girls. But in 2006, just 9.5% of boys and roughly 8% of girls were given one of the year's 10 most popular names - a combined decline of about 33% from the averages in the 1990s."
2 comments:
I gather that non-European names have become more common in the States. Uma Thurman's siblings, for example, all have Indian or Tibetan names.
I completely agree with the statement that "Choosing names for children has apparently becomes more of 'branding' practice, and decisions have much to do with the desire of being unique, rather than family traditions or cultural values." In my family, we are all named in the traditional, family history-oriented way. I don't understand how some parents nowadays can inflict ghastly names on defenseless children in the name of "uniqueness" or "originality." After all, it's the children who have to live with these dumb names.
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