[name]How[/name] popular does a name have to be to be labeled as such, in your opinion? Where does it fall on, say, the US Social Security list of names? Top 10, sure, but top 100? 200? 500?
I see a lot of names get called too trendy or popular, and I’m wondering what that means to you.
Popular to me isn’t US social security list top 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever because I don’t live in USA so it’s irrelevant. [name]Nor[/name] is it any list that my government releases. A name is only popular to me once I’ve actually heard it used on people my age or younger more than, oh I don’t know, 20 times. And even then, it doesn’t put me off. I love [name]Hannah[/name] despite there being at least three Hannahs in all my classes. Popularity doesn’t bother me.
As for ‘trendy’, well I don’t have a definition for that. The closest I can come is trends like [name]Braden[/name]/[name]Aiden[/name]/[name]Jayden[/name]/[name]Zayden[/name]/[name]Caden[/name]/[name]Kaden[/name] and I don’t like that. I wouldn’t use a name that screamed a certain time, for instance [name]Neveah[/name] = early 2000’s because that’s not attractive to me. [name]Emma[/name] is different, although it’s really, REALLY popular now, in 20 years [name]Emma[/name] won’t = early 2000’s because it has been around for ages.
[name]EDIT[/name]: Oh, I forgot to say, invented names seem ‘trendy’ to me. They are apparently all the rage at the moment. Honestly, I don’t like them. I need names with history and background.
Many people don’t like names that are very popular (meaning that they rank high on the SSA list), but I tend to not like names that are overly trendy, as in they define a generation. I do think there is a difference, even though obviously there is considerable overlap between the two categories. For instance, [name]Emma[/name], [name]Olivia[/name], [name]Ava[/name], and the likes that are at the top of the 2008 SSA rankings are not trendy in my opinion (unless you call girly names ending in -a a trend, which I don’t), but, by nature of the number of parents who choose them, they are popular. I think popular is within the top 50 or so names, but you could limit it or widen it depending on your style. As for trendy, these are the names that define an age of naming - a generation. For instance, names of the 90s are names such as [name]Megan[/name], [name]Lauren[/name], and [name]Jordan[/name], [name]Jessica[/name], and [name]Lindsay[/name], whereas names of the the 50s and 60s may have been [name]Donna[/name], [name]Karen[/name], [name]Susan[/name], [name]Linda[/name], [name]Nancy[/name], and the likes. A few years ago, perhaps at the dawn of the 2000s, the trend was [name]Hailey[/name], [name]Bailey[/name], [name]Kailey[/name], and their various alternate spellings (the birth of the yooneek time period, in my opinion). However, keep in mind this isn’t necessarily reflected in the popular names, as [name]Emily[/name] and [name]Hannah[/name] were at the top in 2000. Nowadays, many of the trends solidified in the 2000s are active and thriving, with parents choosing names with alternative spellings (changing S to Z, -ly to -leigh, -a to -ah, and so on…), yet there are also many savvy parents, like those on Nameberry, who are starting to change the trends toward names popular in the 1900s, 1950s, and newer trends such as the surname name, unisex name, nature name, color name, nickname name, place name, etc. The naming scene is more varied now than I think it has ever been! I guess the point of this story is that it is the trend that counts, not the number. Classic names like [name]Sarah[/name], [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]Margaret[/name], [name]Catherine[/name], [name]Henry[/name], and [name]James[/name] will always be rather “popular” by SSA standards, but they are certainly not trendy. I hope this makes sense, and I wish you the best of luck in finding that one perfect name!