Boy Names...timeless or dated

Boy names sometimes remain fresh and evergreen as
time marches on. Other times they alter into “time stamp”
territory and become “dated” for the general public. What,
if any, are some boy names that you believe will always remain
“fresh” while others might appear “dated” sometime in the not so
distant future? Got any ideas? A list of names would be great
to see! :slight_smile:

Several of the classics seem to have remained fairly constant, timeless and in use! The ones that come to mind include:

[name_u]James[/name_u]
Charles/Charlie
[name_m]Thomas[/name_m]
[name_u]Henry[/name_u]
[name_u]William[/name_u]
[name_m]Nicholas[/name_m]
[name_m]Samuel[/name_m]
[name_u]Daniel[/name_u]

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Interesting… what currently popular names, as of now, will sound “dated” within ten years from today?

i think milo & dante will be dated in my country. they are so popular now but i see them being dated in a few decades

in the us maybe theodore, liam, noah & lucas
i think leo, benjamin, oliver which are very popular now are classics and will not be dated but im not sure

and for girl names i think emma will be dated

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Not sure if I want to say dated, but based on the UK list, I wonder if names like [name_u]Arlo[/name_u], Jaxon/Jaxson and [name_m]Kylo[/name_m] will feel of their moment

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Hmmm so for the top 10 in the US most are I consider classics, [name_u]Oliver[/name_u], [name_u]William[/name_u] (Liam which is number one I think could also be considered but [name_u]William[/name_u] is far more classic than just [name_u]Liam[/name_u] and has always been much more popular), [name_u]James[/name_u], [name_u]Benjamin[/name_u], [name_u]Henry[/name_u], [name_m]Alexander[/name_m], but then there’s others than have always been popular like [name_m]Theodore[/name_m], [name_u]Gabriel[/name_u], [name_m]Jonathan[/name_m] and tons more that I think will always be popular or at least in the top 500

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I think it’s likely that a lot of the trendy, non-traditional names will start to identify people as being a certain age. The ‘creative’ names (like Phoenix), names with new/cool spellings (like Jaxon) and potentially some of the currently-popular vintage names that tend to skip generations seem like names that will fall out of popular use.

I don’t see that as an inherent problem, or think that means those sorts of names should be avoided, but if I had to make a guess, those are my guesses :slight_smile:

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Interesting comment, so which boy names
do you think are able to cross generations?
[name_m]Just[/name_m] wondering.:slightly_smiling_face:

I guess I think it’s probably about picking something that sounds good at the time you pick it, without being too trendy? Names like [name_u]Oliver[/name_u] and [name_u]Liam[/name_u] are popular now, but they’re not really of this moment like some of the ‘trendier’ names are, like [name_u]Arlo[/name_u] or [name_m]Jax[/name_m]. I think being the hit thing for right now is probably what makes a name generational, although even then there are definitely cycles, like how [name_f]Mabel[/name_f] was a ‘grandma’ name but is now being used a lot more for babies. So, maybe the names that have only just become popular for the first time recently will fade out and become cyclical as well, who knows.

For names that endure… I think you always have your traditional names that never really go out of vogue, like [name_u]Oliver[/name_u]. There are always enough people of all age groups with those names that they don’t really date people. I think you’ve also got the names that people are familiar with, but which were never *so * popular that there are a generation of grandpas with that name making it seem dated, although to me those ones are a bit more ‘I’ll know it when I hear it’ and I’m having trouble bringing too many specific examples to mind.

Then again, there’s also a definite chance I have no idea what I’m talking about :crazy_face:

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Where I live, the following names have been used for generations and will probably in the future:

[name_m]Alexander[/name_m]
[name_u]William[/name_u]
[name_u]Oliver[/name_u]
[name_m]Thomas[/name_m]
[name_u]Edward[/name_u]
[name_u]Charles[/name_u]
[name_u]Gabriel[/name_u]
[name_m]Raphael[/name_m]
[name_m]Philip[/name_m]
[name_m]Justin[/name_m]
[name_u]Michael[/name_u]
[name_m]Nicholas[/name_m]
[name_m]Lucas[/name_m]
[name_m]Xavier[/name_m]
[name_m]Zachary[/name_m]

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I think the names of my generation, which are now “grandpa” names (oy!) feel dated to me and I don’t hear many of them in school, especially with the more traditional spellings:
[name_u]Michael[/name_u] (Mical, [name_u]Michael[/name_u], etc seem more common spellings now)
[name_m]Christopher[/name_m]
[name_u]Robert[/name_u] (you esp don’t hear [name_u]Bobby[/name_u] anymore)
[name_m]Alan[/name_m]
[name_m]Brian[/name_m]
[name_m]Kenneth[/name_m]
[name_m]Kevin[/name_m]
[name_m]Richard[/name_m] (Dick and [name_m]Dicky[/name_m] are permanently gone here in the US)
While names like [name_m]Thomas[/name_m], [name_u]James[/name_u], and [name_u]William[/name_u] are classics, you know longer hear [name_m]Tommy[/name_m], [name_m]Jimmy[/name_m], or [name_u]Billy[/name_u].
[name_u]John[/name_u] and Johnny; [name_u]Jack[/name_u] was a dad name when I was a kid.
[name_m]Craig[/name_m], [name_m]Gregory[/name_m], [name_u]Jerry[/name_u] (Gerald), [name_m]Larry[/name_m] (Lawrence), [name_m]Steven[/name_m], [name_u]Gary[/name_u], [name_m]Mark[/name_m], [name_u]David[/name_u], [name_m]Frank[/name_m] – these are all names that seem too dated for use today in the forms they were found when I was young, in the 60s and 70s.

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