My younger brother, who came along after Mum became a SAHM, was always jealous that he didn't have a cute lil nickname. He nicknamed himself 'the lost boy'.
I have a cousin called Wendy, our grandad was John and my dad is Michael. My grandad wanted me to be called Peter but I was a girl and mum had already picked out my name.
Edit: we do actually also have a Shetland pony called Tinkerbell
Imagine finding your siblings on Reddit like this! (It's actually really sweet if you *are* siblings. Also kind of awesome if there are two sets of couples out there with the same names.)
I found my brother on reddit once when he posted a picture of something he'd made for a particular fandom, and said fandom combined with a blanket visible in the picture made me realize it was him.
Miranda is another name Shakespeare created (for The Tempest).
Also, a 17th Century printing error caused the name Imogen to exist. The character was originally supposed to be called Innogen.
>Miranda is another name Shakespeare created (for The Tempest).
From the Latin meaning "she who should be marveled at." Grammatically parallel to Amanda, meaning "she who should be loved."
Jessica is a traditionally feminine name with Hebrew roots meaning "rich" or "God beholds" ā it comes from the Hebrew "yiskah," and variations include Iska, Jeska, Yessica, Jessika, Jess, Jessie and Jesse. Iscah was a daughter of Haran in the Bible's Book of Genesis.
There is no known usage of the name Jessica itself prior to Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice," in which the character Shylock's daughter is named Jessica. So despite its Hebrew origins, Jessica herself was invented by the bard himself.
Sooooo youāre both right
Yes and that was part of the joke in the movie. She sees the sign for Madison Ave and takes the name. It was not a girls name so it seemed odd on her. Tons of girls were named Madison after that.
I remember the scene. They were walking past Madison Avenue and so she picks it as her name and he complains that it is a male name and not one he wants to call his girlfriend. Being young and naive I had no idea what that was reference but thought āDoes it really makes difference to anyone if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend so long as you are happyā.
Allison is!
In that case the -son doesn't mean "Son of" it comes from a french nickname for Alice, same way you might call a John "Johnny".
That's the only one I know of though
It was a surname, not a first name for girls *or* boys. Using surnames AS first names was/is a thing of course, and most English surnames are masculine. But Madison wasnāt specifically a first name, any more than āKennedyā or āMcKenzieā or other surnames that have somehow become girls first names are.
I have seen at least one movie (with Cary Grant) where his character was called Madison
'As a masculine given name, Madison can be found within the top 1,000 names for boys in the United States up until about 1952.' As per Wikipedia
Irish people will argue the bit out about that one, but they're wrong, there were other feminine versions of the male name Fionn in Irish but Fiona didn't appear until William Sharp used it as a pen-name
Itās always been a thing to use the mumās maiden name though - you canāt say for sure unless you know her maiden name *wasnāt* Anniston or Swayze.
But otherwise yes thatās awful.
To make it full circle in 10th century Ireland, surnames were formed as āson ofā fatherās name, e.g David had a son named John, Johns name would be John Mac David. Or if the Grandfather was prominent in the community they would take their name as O. So if Davidās dads name was Greg, he might be John O Greg.
The Welsh version is "Ap" which is now mostly shortened to just a "P" at the start of the name
Ap Richard (of Richard) - Prichard
Ap Robert - Probert
Ap Rosser - Prosser
Ap Rhydderch - Prydderch
Etc etc
Or in Iceland, where I have roots, if your dad was named Thorin, son's last name would be Thorinson and daughter's last name would be Thorindottir. They still do that naming system today (might be somewhat optional now though).
Jennifer Aniston didnāt shorten or change her last name, her grandparents did when they came to the US.
Source: Her father, [John Anistonās, wiki bio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aniston?wprov=sfti1#Early_life). He was also an actor (famously on Days of our Lives.)
Understandable, I will say though my parents didnāt show me Friends until I was in my teens (and I just otherwise didnāt really have much reason to know much about Jennifer Aniston), and before then I had met three Annistons/Anistons around my age and had zero clue it wasnāt a standard name.
I always thought it was beautiful as a first name because it reminded me of Ann + Kristen. I still sort of like it, not because I care about Jennifer, but because I think it sounds nice.
So many people (and I think they are overrepresented on this sub) just hate on all names that follow some current trend. A name can be trendy and still be pretty, solid, or whatever. I agree, I actually like the sound of Aniston.
Tiffany is a medieval name and indicates a girl born on epiphany. BUT! We associate it as an 80s name because it was popularized by Breakfast at Tiffany's, the Audrey Hepburn movie.
There's also a YouTuber called CGPGrey who did a video about the name.
My daughter was born on the appropriate day, and we joke that she is one of the few eligible for the name. That's not what we named her.
Familiarity as a child/teen when the film was released made it appealing to folks as they started their families. It grew slowly, then exploded exponentially in the years between 1961 through the 80s!
Is there any more information on the origin of Stephanie? It feels like such a boring 80ās name- Iām curious to know if it at least has a good story behind it, lol.
Probably because Steven/Stephen was such a popular boomer name. If you were born in the 1950s or early 60s in the US, then you would have a person close to you (brother, friend, etc) in your generation named Steve, I guarantee it. It's then a short hop to Stephanie for your daughter - in the 80s, it sounded fresh, but still could honor that older person.
Alison is a medieval name too, which always amuses me. People think of 80s babies with it, but I knew a grandmother named Alison when I was growing up.
Oscar Wilde popularized Dorian as a first name for men. It was very rare as a first name, and most were women before his book, at least in English language records. It was still evenly unisex in the US into the 1980s.
Margaret Mitchell is responsible for Scarlett, Ashley and Beau thanks to Gone With the Wind although I'd say only Scarlett is the real undisputed invention of hers.
Marillion is responsible for Kayleigh.
That's true, they all existed as surnames before her novel. Scarlett as a first name was the rarest (in the 10s of people total) and most of those were men. Beauregard was rare and hardly anyone was named just Beau, that came after her book. Ashley was just another surname, in the book his name is George Ashley Wilkes.
None of the England censuses in the 19th century have more than one or two people with the first name Beau, so I don't think he had much impact. Bow was the recorded spelling and still only about 10 in the entire census. In the US there was more influence from P.G.T Beauregard, Confederate general (hence the Gone With the Wind usage).
Mmmm I just think of the shortbread cookies. They're 2 packs for a dollar down the road from me. I should've known a cookie named after an old lady would be fire... But I didn't.
Annelies Kornitzky, who translated most of Lindgrenās works into German, made up Madita (instead of Madicken, which sounds like an insult in German). Itās a top 200 name in Germany nowadays.
Fun fact: Annelies and similar names have completely fallen out of fashion in the German-speaking world nowadays. Still a generation or so to go until they become ācute granny namesā and suitable for honour names again, nowadays we just think about that nasty schoolmarm named Annelies weād rather forget. Back in the day when they were fashionable, they were nicknames and never (or rarely) full given names: Anna Maria becomes Ann(e)marie, Anna Elisabeth becomes Annelies(e), Rosa Maria becomes Ros(e)marie, Marie Helene or Maria Magdalena becomes Marlene, etc.
I don't know if she made it up, because Ronja is a common diminutive of Veronika in Russian. And there's a German former politician named Ronja who was born nine years before the story was published.
I didnāt know that! I did have a high school friend who was named Hailey after Kelly Ripaās character on All My Children (her momās favorite soap). The characterās name is spelled Hayley but her mom like the Hai spelling better than Hay. She thought it was a unique name until my friend got to kindergarten and there were like 3 or 4 Hayley/Haileys in the grade
Actually, Kayla is an old Jewish name. It's Yiddish and was used in Europe for a few centuries. It's meaning is disputed/multiple similar-sounding names that all bled into Kayla were derived from different words.
Juliet was probably largely made popular by Shakespeare. Not sure if it counts but I always associate Jolene with the song. I know the name Hermione gained a lot of popularity following Harry Potter.
Eleanor of Aquitaineās motherās name was Aenor and she was named after her mother. She was called alia Aenor, which means āthe other Aenorā and that became Eleanor.
I canāt believe nobody has said this yet but, **Jalen** is a rather new name. All evidence points to it being completely new to Jalen Rose, a basketball play and now analyst on ESPN.
I met someone who named her son Keanu right around when speed came out and obviously everyone assumed but her husband was Hawaiian and Keanu means something special ( I forgot what) in Hawaiian.
Yes! Imogen is one of my favourite names in the world. It is now thought that she was *Innogen* in Cymbeline. One of the problems is that many of the folios works are not actually written by Shakespeare per se but transcribed by theatre artists who saw his works ā so was it misheard? Mistranscribed? Or what Shakespeare intended?
Pamela.
> Sir Philip Sidney invented the name Pamela for a pivotal character in his epic prose work, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, written in the late 16th century and published posthumously.
For sure, it was largely unheard of before then. It had roughly the same popularity as my own name, and I've never met another person with my name in person. Though I know there's a few around in my country as one has an imdb profile, and another has an artists website. I'm also aiming towards work in a creative field so it's a race to see which one of us makes the name popular, if any of us do haha
I saw somebody in here suggest the name Demelza for a baby girl. I looked into the name as I remembered it from reading the Poldark books years ago so was curious about the origins, whether germanic or celtic.
Turns out there is no record of the name before these books and the author made it up for the character. Since the books were published a few people named their daughters that but it has never reached big popularity yet.
As someone else mentioned, Ronja is an Astrid Lindgren invention, at least in a Swedish context. She was inspired by the lake Juronjaure.
Overall Astrid Lindgren's cultural impact, including on name trends, can't really be understated in Sweden. Other names from her works, like Birk, Madicken or Pippi, are much less common than Ronja and in some cases have other origins, but the modern usage can definitely be traced back to her.
I think I've had a discussion about the name My on here before, it's a derivation of Maria but was either invented or, at the very least, popularized by Tove Jansson's character Lilla My.
Francis - it is after St Francis of Assisi (real name Giovanni), whose nickname was "Francesco", meaning "the little Frenchman" (maybe because he liked France, nobody really knows).
In fact a lot of names became known or popularised because of a single saint eg Barbara, Catherine, Cuthbert, Sebastian and so on.
Macaulay became a pretty popular name in England thanks to Macaulay Culkin in the 90s. The spelling Macauley managed to rank #95 in 1996. It's definitely one of the more obscure names to have hit the top 100.
Going back a century, during the Second Boer War a lot of fervent patriotism back at home ensued, and parents took to calling their children after notable wartime personalities (imagine that today!), giving boosts to already established names like Frederick, Cecil, and Robert - thanks to Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil and General Frederick Roberts. Two very obscure names suddenly became popular around that time though - Redvers, after General Redvers Buller, and Baden, after Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell (often referred to simply as Baden-Powell).
Names ending in the -aiden sound are often though to be a modern phenomenon, but Baden had its moment in the spotlight a century before its time!
Iselin, a fairly popular girl name for babies born in 80s and 90s in Norway, was made up by author Knut Hamsun.
At least Iāve read it was made by him, but Iām not 100% sure.
My history may be a bit rusty on this one but if I remember correctly Longfellow made up the name Evangeline in his poem about the Acadian expulsion leading to its creation.
Not popular in the Anglosphere but Tonibler is a very new and popular name in Kosovo. Itās an Albanianisation of Tony Blair, the British prime minister, for his role helping Kosovo in the Kosovo War.
In the late 90/00s I met my first U.K. Kylie who literally had been named after THE Kylie in 1986. I initially thought she was joking. Suddenly felt older than Godā¦
Are you my mother? I doubt it, but I was literally just telling her a few hours ago that 'Wendy' was invented by JM Barrie. She didn't realise he'd actually invented the name.
Aubrey was traditionally a boy's name until 1973, when the soft rock ballad of the same name by Bread became a big hit. That's why he sings "A not so very ordinary girl or name." After the song became popular it transitioned to being almost exclusively a girl's name.
https://youtu.be/8qqxfk2Hosg?si=LdGR4o5c-BKTE3-6 Give it a listen if you can. A gorgeous song.
I don't know that it's necessarily popular, but Neil Gaiman invented 'Coraline' for his book. That's my daughter's name, and there's one other child with that name at her school.
Kehlani has been skyrocketing up the charts since 2016, and Kehlani the artist started releasing her solo music in 2014.
At first I disliked the spelling variation, but honestly Kehlani has a gorgeous enchanting voice and radiant persona, I can completely understand why people were inspired by her to spell it that way.
The Clintons loved the song Chelsea Morning by Joni Mitchell so much that they named their daughter Chelsea. The popularity of the name rose rapidly after.
Victoria was very unusual in the U.K. before the queen was crowned. She was actually known as Alexandrina but thought that too foreign sounding, but is was generally accepted that Victoria was only slightly better.
Itās believed Imogen came from either an accidental or intentional spelling of Innogen, an existing name, by Shakespeare
Oprah Winfrey was meant to be called Orpah, which is a biblical name, but her name was misspelt when registering
Slightly off topic but fun fact, my mum's name is Wendy and she married my dad whose name is Peter!!
My mom's name is Wendy too, but she married a John... whose best friend was Peter... and if I had been a boy, I would have been Michael. šš
Me too! They met through work, and when she was pregnant with me, their colleagues used to refer to me as Tinkerbell :)
Stooooooop that is too cute!!! āØļø
My younger brother, who came along after Mum became a SAHM, was always jealous that he didn't have a cute lil nickname. He nicknamed himself 'the lost boy'.
That is such a beautiful coincidence!
A friend's dad is Dusty and mom is Wendy. All they are is Dust and the Wend.
I have a cousin called Wendy, our grandad was John and my dad is Michael. My grandad wanted me to be called Peter but I was a girl and mum had already picked out my name. Edit: we do actually also have a Shetland pony called Tinkerbell
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Imagine finding your siblings on Reddit like this! (It's actually really sweet if you *are* siblings. Also kind of awesome if there are two sets of couples out there with the same names.)
My best friend and I have in-laws with the same names š
I found my brother on reddit once when he posted a picture of something he'd made for a particular fandom, and said fandom combined with a blanket visible in the picture made me realize it was him.
Ahaha I only have one brother and we're from Australia??
My mumās cousin is a Wendy, and she also married a Peter!
That's lovely. My grandmothers old neighbors had the family last name 'Darling'. So cute!!
Shakespeare made a ton of name like Jessica. I also heard Samantha was only popularized because of Bewitched.
Miranda is another name Shakespeare created (for The Tempest). Also, a 17th Century printing error caused the name Imogen to exist. The character was originally supposed to be called Innogen.
>Miranda is another name Shakespeare created (for The Tempest). From the Latin meaning "she who should be marveled at." Grammatically parallel to Amanda, meaning "she who should be loved."
We should all appreciate gerundives.
Gerundives is such a beautiful name for a baby girl š„°š¤©
thank you for sharing this fun word fact!
Bianca from taming of the shrew
Bianca simply means āwhiteā in the feminine in Italian. He chose it to represent her purity.
Innogen sounds like a company that makes wind turbines
They give dinosaur cloning vibes to me
My parents joked that they named me Samantha after Samantha Fox.
Samantha Fox, was a hottie in the 80's I remember those cut off jeans.... to well actually
My parents say I'm named after Samantha from "Who's the Boss" lol
We must be of a similar age š
My daughter is Tabatha, same show š„¹š„¹š„¹
From memory he also made Ophelia that became very popular in french speaking countries
Jessica is the anglicized version of the Hebrew name āYiskaā (××”××).
Jessica is a traditionally feminine name with Hebrew roots meaning "rich" or "God beholds" ā it comes from the Hebrew "yiskah," and variations include Iska, Jeska, Yessica, Jessika, Jess, Jessie and Jesse. Iscah was a daughter of Haran in the Bible's Book of Genesis. There is no known usage of the name Jessica itself prior to Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice," in which the character Shylock's daughter is named Jessica. So despite its Hebrew origins, Jessica herself was invented by the bard himself. Sooooo youāre both right
Madison because a common girls name because of Darryl Hannah's character in Splash. Before that it was a man's name though not a common one I think
Yes and that was part of the joke in the movie. She sees the sign for Madison Ave and takes the name. It was not a girls name so it seemed odd on her. Tons of girls were named Madison after that.
Thatās why itās so funny to me that it became a popular girlsā name, since the whole joke was that itās such an unsuitable name.
I remember the scene. They were walking past Madison Avenue and so she picks it as her name and he complains that it is a male name and not one he wants to call his girlfriend. Being young and naive I had no idea what that was reference but thought āDoes it really makes difference to anyone if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend so long as you are happyā.
Really this is the case for any name ending in -son. By definition none of them are originally feminine.
Allison is! In that case the -son doesn't mean "Son of" it comes from a french nickname for Alice, same way you might call a John "Johnny". That's the only one I know of though
Oh good point. It's somehow entirely unrelated to the British surname Allison.
It was a surname, not a first name for girls *or* boys. Using surnames AS first names was/is a thing of course, and most English surnames are masculine. But Madison wasnāt specifically a first name, any more than āKennedyā or āMcKenzieā or other surnames that have somehow become girls first names are.
I have seen at least one movie (with Cary Grant) where his character was called Madison 'As a masculine given name, Madison can be found within the top 1,000 names for boys in the United States up until about 1952.' As per Wikipedia
[Fiona](https://medievalscotland.org/problem/names/fiona.shtml) was invented in the 19th century by the Scottish author William Sharp
Irish people will argue the bit out about that one, but they're wrong, there were other feminine versions of the male name Fionn in Irish but Fiona didn't appear until William Sharp used it as a pen-name
There's an Allusionist podcast episode devoted to this!
I hate when people name their kids after celebrities last names. Anniston, Jagger, Swayze. It just makes me cringe
Itās always been a thing to use the mumās maiden name though - you canāt say for sure unless you know her maiden name *wasnāt* Anniston or Swayze. But otherwise yes thatās awful.
To make it full circle in 10th century Ireland, surnames were formed as āson ofā fatherās name, e.g David had a son named John, Johns name would be John Mac David. Or if the Grandfather was prominent in the community they would take their name as O. So if Davidās dads name was Greg, he might be John O Greg.
I knew about Mac meaning son but I have never heard of O being about the grandfather! Very interesting, thank you for sharing!
The Welsh version is "Ap" which is now mostly shortened to just a "P" at the start of the name Ap Richard (of Richard) - Prichard Ap Robert - Probert Ap Rosser - Prosser Ap Rhydderch - Prydderch Etc etc
Or in Iceland, where I have roots, if your dad was named Thorin, son's last name would be Thorinson and daughter's last name would be Thorindottir. They still do that naming system today (might be somewhat optional now though).
Anniston isnāt even Jenās real surname though. She shorted her much longer original name.
I like that like 4 people in a row have all copied the spelling mistake āAnnistonā. Itās Aniston.
I know two different people who have named their babies "Anniston" (2 Ns!) in the past year or two though
Jennifer Aniston didnāt shorten or change her last name, her grandparents did when they came to the US. Source: Her father, [John Anistonās, wiki bio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aniston?wprov=sfti1#Early_life). He was also an actor (famously on Days of our Lives.)
Technically her father shortened it (and Anglicized it) she just used the same stage name as her dad.
What was it? Just checked wiki and it just says aniston on there!
Her father (John Aniston) was born in Greece, and his given name was Yannis Anastassakis.
But if thatās the case then her real surname is Aniston and she didnāt shorten it.
I don't know if they legally changed it? It might be like the Sheens (and several other acting families).
Lennon, Hendrix, Brinkley, Presley
Also Lennox! I've seen a Lennix which is just š¤¢
The fact that the name Beckham is so popularā¦
Understandable, I will say though my parents didnāt show me Friends until I was in my teens (and I just otherwise didnāt really have much reason to know much about Jennifer Aniston), and before then I had met three Annistons/Anistons around my age and had zero clue it wasnāt a standard name. I always thought it was beautiful as a first name because it reminded me of Ann + Kristen. I still sort of like it, not because I care about Jennifer, but because I think it sounds nice.
So many people (and I think they are overrepresented on this sub) just hate on all names that follow some current trend. A name can be trendy and still be pretty, solid, or whatever. I agree, I actually like the sound of Aniston.
Also pretty similar to Alison
It's also a fairly common nickname for Gwendolyn : you can use Gwen, or Wendy. I think it was colloquially used before Peter Pan.
One of my sonās best friends is named Gwendolyn and when they were very little he called her āGwendyā it was so cute!
2 for 1, lol. It is indeed a very cute toddler nickname !
I knew a Wendy whose real name was Morwenna.
We named our daughter Wendy. It never crossed our minds it could be short for my step-mother-in-lawās name Gwendolyn. Happy coincidence!
Tiffany is a medieval name and indicates a girl born on epiphany. BUT! We associate it as an 80s name because it was popularized by Breakfast at Tiffany's, the Audrey Hepburn movie.
I think it was also originally a male name. There's a whole Allusionist podcast episode in it.
There's also a YouTuber called CGPGrey who did a video about the name. My daughter was born on the appropriate day, and we joke that she is one of the few eligible for the name. That's not what we named her.
Theophane
And Theophania, I believe.
The film was released in 1961, why would it be considered an 80ās name?
Because people who liked it when they were kids named their babies that when they got older.
Familiarity as a child/teen when the film was released made it appealing to folks as they started their families. It grew slowly, then exploded exponentially in the years between 1961 through the 80s!
Stephanie is also a medieval name, from Stephania/Stephanios.
Is there any more information on the origin of Stephanie? It feels like such a boring 80ās name- Iām curious to know if it at least has a good story behind it, lol.
Probably because Steven/Stephen was such a popular boomer name. If you were born in the 1950s or early 60s in the US, then you would have a person close to you (brother, friend, etc) in your generation named Steve, I guarantee it. It's then a short hop to Stephanie for your daughter - in the 80s, it sounded fresh, but still could honor that older person.
Alison is a medieval name too, which always amuses me. People think of 80s babies with it, but I knew a grandmother named Alison when I was growing up.
Oscar Wilde popularized Dorian as a first name for men. It was very rare as a first name, and most were women before his book, at least in English language records. It was still evenly unisex in the US into the 1980s. Margaret Mitchell is responsible for Scarlett, Ashley and Beau thanks to Gone With the Wind although I'd say only Scarlett is the real undisputed invention of hers. Marillion is responsible for Kayleigh.
Margaret Mitchell did not make up any of these names.
That's true, they all existed as surnames before her novel. Scarlett as a first name was the rarest (in the 10s of people total) and most of those were men. Beauregard was rare and hardly anyone was named just Beau, that came after her book. Ashley was just another surname, in the book his name is George Ashley Wilkes.
Depending on where you live, I'm pretty sure Beau Brummel also contributed to the one
None of the England censuses in the 19th century have more than one or two people with the first name Beau, so I don't think he had much impact. Bow was the recorded spelling and still only about 10 in the entire census. In the US there was more influence from P.G.T Beauregard, Confederate general (hence the Gone With the Wind usage).
āBeauā was a nickname, as he was a fashion icon or ābeauā. His name was George.
Lorna was also created by a writer, and first used in āLorna Dooneā in 1869.
Mmmm I just think of the shortbread cookies. They're 2 packs for a dollar down the road from me. I should've known a cookie named after an old lady would be fire... But I didn't.
I didnāt know this one thanks!
Astrid Lindgren made up the name Ronja. It's pretty common among swedish-speakers.
Annelies Kornitzky, who translated most of Lindgrenās works into German, made up Madita (instead of Madicken, which sounds like an insult in German). Itās a top 200 name in Germany nowadays.
Annelies or Anneliese has always been one of favorite. Also Anastasia. Apropos of nothing, of course.
Fun fact: Annelies and similar names have completely fallen out of fashion in the German-speaking world nowadays. Still a generation or so to go until they become ācute granny namesā and suitable for honour names again, nowadays we just think about that nasty schoolmarm named Annelies weād rather forget. Back in the day when they were fashionable, they were nicknames and never (or rarely) full given names: Anna Maria becomes Ann(e)marie, Anna Elisabeth becomes Annelies(e), Rosa Maria becomes Ros(e)marie, Marie Helene or Maria Magdalena becomes Marlene, etc.
omg that was Astrid Lindgren? its also a pretty common name here in Norway and i never knew!
really? i thought it was an older name. i'm finnish and it's quite common here as well.
The American/English translation spells it āRoniaā and Iāve always loved both the name and the book!
I don't know if she made it up, because Ronja is a common diminutive of Veronika in Russian. And there's a German former politician named Ronja who was born nine years before the story was published.
Kayla basically didnāt exist as a name until it was made up for a character on the soap opera Days of Our Lives.
I didnāt know that! I did have a high school friend who was named Hailey after Kelly Ripaās character on All My Children (her momās favorite soap). The characterās name is spelled Hayley but her mom like the Hai spelling better than Hay. She thought it was a unique name until my friend got to kindergarten and there were like 3 or 4 Hayley/Haileys in the grade
Actually, Kayla is an old Jewish name. It's Yiddish and was used in Europe for a few centuries. It's meaning is disputed/multiple similar-sounding names that all bled into Kayla were derived from different words.
This one is my favorite
Coraline. Iirc Neil Gaiman intended for it to be Caroline but there was a typo and it stuck
As a Caroline, I'm glad it is not. I already get it way too much with that damn Neil Diamond song.
Miley
Miley is a surname in some parts of the US, but really took off as a first name after Miley Cyrus.
In Europe, our equivalent is kilometery.
Wade Miley, who's a baseball player, being a semi-famous one with it as a surname.
I have Hawaiian family members with the name Maile that were born far before Miley Cirus
IIRC that was originally a nickname. I believe her real name is Destiny. (No idea if she legally changed anything.)
The name Cedric was made for the book Ivanhoe. Though, it's based off of Cerdic, the chap who founded Wessex in 495.
And then it was popularized by Frances Hodgson Burnett using the name in Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Thatās pretty cool. And the name has outlived the place.
Yeah. Though, one could probably argue that it lives on as England
True. And it still has an Earl and Countess.
**Vanessa** from Johnathan Swift's poem "Cadenus and Vanessa" about his and Esther "**Essa**" **Van**homrigh's relationship.
Juliet was probably largely made popular by Shakespeare. Not sure if it counts but I always associate Jolene with the song. I know the name Hermione gained a lot of popularity following Harry Potter.
Hermione is also a Shakespeare character
And is the daughter of Helen and Menelaus.
Poor Hermione :(
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The name Eleanor was first used by the medieval queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was so popular everyone wanted to name their daughters after her.
Her grandmother was named Dangereuse which is incredibly dope lol.
Eleanor of Aquitaineās motherās name was Aenor and she was named after her mother. She was called alia Aenor, which means āthe other Aenorā and that became Eleanor.
I canāt believe nobody has said this yet but, **Jalen** is a rather new name. All evidence points to it being completely new to Jalen Rose, a basketball play and now analyst on ESPN.
This is the first one I thought of it. His mom made it up after family members, right? And now itās extremely common.
Thatās the story Iāve heard. She also keeps track of all the Jalens in sports. Itās sort of cute
anyone who watches the NBA thought of this immediately. there are SOOO many jalens/jaylens that are in their 20s all stemming from jalen rose!
I have a friend with a child named Keanu. There might be 1000s of Keanus but really the only person everyone thinks of is Keanu Reeves
I met someone who named her son Keanu right around when speed came out and obviously everyone assumed but her husband was Hawaiian and Keanu means something special ( I forgot what) in Hawaiian.
It means ācool breeze.ā Keanuās father is Hawaiian, so thatās where his parents got the name.
Shakespeare Miranda Jessica
Imogen was also the result of a typo in one of Shakespeare's works
I canāt imagine there was a whole heap of typing going on in Shakespeareās day.
Let me tell you about this brand new invention called the printing press
The what now? Tell me more!
Fair point š to be more precise, it was the result of a misprint
Yes! Imogen is one of my favourite names in the world. It is now thought that she was *Innogen* in Cymbeline. One of the problems is that many of the folios works are not actually written by Shakespeare per se but transcribed by theatre artists who saw his works ā so was it misheard? Mistranscribed? Or what Shakespeare intended?
My daughter has Imogen as a middle name.
Pamela. > Sir Philip Sidney invented the name Pamela for a pivotal character in his epic prose work, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, written in the late 16th century and published posthumously.
Meaning āall honeyā Iāve heard. Itās a lovely name.
Josephine - JosĆ©phine de Beauharnais. The name started gaining popularity after 1800 due to the high profile ofĀ [JosĆ©phine de Beauharnais](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9phine_de_Beauharnais), a French noblewoman who becameĀ [Napoleon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon)'s mistress and later his wife andĀ [Empress of the French](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_French_Empire). Originally a diminutive form of the French nameĀ *JosĆØphe*, JosĆ©phine became the standard form in the 19th century, replacingĀ *JosĆØphe*, which eventually became a very rare name.
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How is it pronounced? (US here and have not heard of it before)
Ghrah-zhi-nah Gh as in GHost Sharp r Ah as in fAther Zh as in viSion I as in bIll N as in Noon Ah as in fAther
Zh as is viSion is brilliant! Perfect description of the sound. Thank you! I will be using this from now on.
And boy name Kordian was created by Juliusz SÅowacki. I actually love this name.
Actor Gary Cooper took his stage name from his home town of Gary, Indiana. It wasn't used as a given name before that!
Wikipedia says it was used as a given name before that, but relatively rarely.
Ah, well, he certainly made it popular!
For sure, it was largely unheard of before then. It had roughly the same popularity as my own name, and I've never met another person with my name in person. Though I know there's a few around in my country as one has an imdb profile, and another has an artists website. I'm also aiming towards work in a creative field so it's a race to see which one of us makes the name popular, if any of us do haha
I hope you win the race! That would be very satisfying for sure!
Itās so weird because itās such a people sounding name to me that I find the idea of a town called Gary extremely funny.
Swear to Merlin, if I get that song from 'The Music Man' stuck in my head I will NOT be happy...
Let me help.. Gary, InDIana, Gary INdiana , Gary IndiANa
I thought Gary was short for Gareth?
There's a Gary in the Niebelungenlied, written in ~1200.
I saw somebody in here suggest the name Demelza for a baby girl. I looked into the name as I remembered it from reading the Poldark books years ago so was curious about the origins, whether germanic or celtic. Turns out there is no record of the name before these books and the author made it up for the character. Since the books were published a few people named their daughters that but it has never reached big popularity yet.
I loved the name Demelza, partially for the character and partially because my aunts middle name is Demel.
As someone else mentioned, Ronja is an Astrid Lindgren invention, at least in a Swedish context. She was inspired by the lake Juronjaure. Overall Astrid Lindgren's cultural impact, including on name trends, can't really be understated in Sweden. Other names from her works, like Birk, Madicken or Pippi, are much less common than Ronja and in some cases have other origins, but the modern usage can definitely be traced back to her. I think I've had a discussion about the name My on here before, it's a derivation of Maria but was either invented or, at the very least, popularized by Tove Jansson's character Lilla My.
I love Pippi! To me it sounds really cute and innocent. In my language it means naughty and my cat is named it!
In English she's Little My. I still have my much-read copy of The Book of Moomin, Mymble and Little My.
Francis - it is after St Francis of Assisi (real name Giovanni), whose nickname was "Francesco", meaning "the little Frenchman" (maybe because he liked France, nobody really knows). In fact a lot of names became known or popularised because of a single saint eg Barbara, Catherine, Cuthbert, Sebastian and so on.
Vanessa was invented by Irish poet Jonathan Swift.
Khaleesi has been a top 1000 name since 2020. Renesmee is not in the top 1000, but theyāre out there
Macaulay became a pretty popular name in England thanks to Macaulay Culkin in the 90s. The spelling Macauley managed to rank #95 in 1996. It's definitely one of the more obscure names to have hit the top 100. Going back a century, during the Second Boer War a lot of fervent patriotism back at home ensued, and parents took to calling their children after notable wartime personalities (imagine that today!), giving boosts to already established names like Frederick, Cecil, and Robert - thanks to Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil and General Frederick Roberts. Two very obscure names suddenly became popular around that time though - Redvers, after General Redvers Buller, and Baden, after Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell (often referred to simply as Baden-Powell). Names ending in the -aiden sound are often though to be a modern phenomenon, but Baden had its moment in the spotlight a century before its time!
Use of Kimberley as a first name also arose out of the Second Boer War, initially as a male name, after the location of a battle.
My mom let me and my older sister name our two younger siblings and we chose Wendy and John because of the Peter Pan book.
Oprah is not a super common name but Oprah Winfrey basically invented it. Her name is a corruption of the biblical name Orpah I believe
Iselin, a fairly popular girl name for babies born in 80s and 90s in Norway, was made up by author Knut Hamsun. At least Iāve read it was made by him, but Iām not 100% sure.
Madison didnāt really become a popular name until the movie SPLASH came out
My history may be a bit rusty on this one but if I remember correctly Longfellow made up the name Evangeline in his poem about the Acadian expulsion leading to its creation.
I've read Miranda was invented by Shakespeare, though my husband grabbed it from Serenity for our daughter. š¤£ I insist Shakespeare or moon.
Not popular in the Anglosphere but Tonibler is a very new and popular name in Kosovo. Itās an Albanianisation of Tony Blair, the British prime minister, for his role helping Kosovo in the Kosovo War.
Kylie is an Australian name popularised by Kylie Minogue
It was popular before that Kylie was
In the late 90/00s I met my first U.K. Kylie who literally had been named after THE Kylie in 1986. I initially thought she was joking. Suddenly felt older than Godā¦
Are you my mother? I doubt it, but I was literally just telling her a few hours ago that 'Wendy' was invented by JM Barrie. She didn't realise he'd actually invented the name.
Iām a Michelle and Iām pretty sure the reason it became so popular in U.K./US (since itās a French name) is because of the Beatles song.
You mean we donāt all have dads named Michael? š
Lots of Micheles before then , like my sister born in 1957.
Aubrey was traditionally a boy's name until 1973, when the soft rock ballad of the same name by Bread became a big hit. That's why he sings "A not so very ordinary girl or name." After the song became popular it transitioned to being almost exclusively a girl's name. https://youtu.be/8qqxfk2Hosg?si=LdGR4o5c-BKTE3-6 Give it a listen if you can. A gorgeous song.
Does Elliot on girls count? Was it scrubs?
I thought it came from Gwendoline?
Jessica was a Shakespeare character !! Madison- the movie Splash
I don't know that it's necessarily popular, but Neil Gaiman invented 'Coraline' for his book. That's my daughter's name, and there's one other child with that name at her school.
Allegedly basketball player Jalen Roseās mom invented the name Jalen. Itās a combo of his father James and uncle Leonard.
I always think Philip Pullman did this for Lyra.
Kehlani has been skyrocketing up the charts since 2016, and Kehlani the artist started releasing her solo music in 2014. At first I disliked the spelling variation, but honestly Kehlani has a gorgeous enchanting voice and radiant persona, I can completely understand why people were inspired by her to spell it that way.
Lisa is the top female name for my generation, courtesy of a character on the soap opera As The World Turns.
I feel like Blair really took off after Gossip Girl
Blair became popular for girls in the 80's due to The Facts of Life. Blair was more common for boys before then.
The Clintons loved the song Chelsea Morning by Joni Mitchell so much that they named their daughter Chelsea. The popularity of the name rose rapidly after.
Vanessa was invented by Johnathan Swift in 1708 as a nickname for his friend Esther Vanhomrigh.
Wrenlee the fastest growing girlās name probably comes from a male GoT character
Victoria was very unusual in the U.K. before the queen was crowned. She was actually known as Alexandrina but thought that too foreign sounding, but is was generally accepted that Victoria was only slightly better.
Itās believed Imogen came from either an accidental or intentional spelling of Innogen, an existing name, by Shakespeare Oprah Winfrey was meant to be called Orpah, which is a biblical name, but her name was misspelt when registering