Freakonomics Prediction for 2015

Below is a list I found from the authors of Freakonomics with their prediction for the most popular baby names for 2015. What do you think? I am alarmed because one of my daughter’s names is on there and I SO do not want her name to be top 25!!
Boy’s Names Girl’s Names
[name]Aidan[/name] [name]Annika[/name]
[name]Aldo[/name] [name]Ansley[/name]
[name]Anderson[/name] [name]Ava[/name]
[name]Ansel[/name] [name]Avery[/name]
[name]Asher[/name] [name]Aviva[/name]
[name]Beckett[/name] [name]Clementine[/name]
[name]Bennett[/name] [name]Eleanora[/name]
[name]Carter[/name] [name]Ella[/name]
[name]Cooper[/name] [name]Emma[/name]
[name]Finnegan[/name] [name]Fiona[/name]
[name]Harper[/name] [name]Flannery[/name]
[name]Jackson[/name] [name]Grace[/name]
[name]Johan[/name] [name]Isabel[/name]
[name]Keyon[/name] [name]Kate[/name]
[name]Liam[/name] [name]Lara[/name]
[name]Maximilian[/name] [name]Linden[/name]
[name]McGregor[/name] [name]Maeve[/name]
[name]Oliver[/name] [name]Marie[/name]-[name]Claire[/name]
[name]Reagan[/name] [name]Maya[/name]
[name]Sander[/name] [name]Philippa[/name]
[name]Sumner[/name] [name]Phoebe[/name]
[name]Will[/name] [name]Quinn[/name]
[name]Sophie[/name]
[name]Waverly[/name]

They are mistaken. Names don’t move that fast. If you look at the top 10 names in 2004, they are quite similar to the top 10 names in 2009.

Absolutely not. Wrong, wrong, wrong. [name]Even[/name] the top names for 1999 are pretty similar to those on the 2009 list. Some of these are plausible, like [name]Liam[/name], probable, like [name]Ava[/name], or shoe-ins if you add in the variants and similar names, like [name]Aidan[/name]. Most are way off though. [name]Clementine[/name] and [name]Johan[/name]? Seriously? No way.

I think you should stop fretting over the popularity of your daughter’s name. It could rise on it’s own, which really isn’t bad because her name will be ahead of the curve- she’ll seem younger than she is and all the kids who share her name will be in different classes in school. Or a huge celebrity could use the name tomorrow causing an explosion in popularity. It could happen with any name and there’s no way at all to predict it. That’s why you can’t worry too much about popularity- it’s totally unpredictable and it’s really not the worst thing in the world for a name to be popular. It can even make life easier in many ways.

Are you sure? That’s only 4 years away! :o

I’m a bit upset about a few though. I know 2 beautiful little girls named [name]Philippa[/name] and [name]Lara[/name], and they are so uncommon it’s weird for me to imagine them on anyone else.

[name]Waverly[/name] is an interesting one.

I call shenanigans on this! Some are plausible but [name]Sumner[/name] and [name]Waverly[/name]? I doubt it.

This completely freaked me out when I read it AFTER I named [name]Phoebe[/name]! [name]Laura[/name] Wattenberg at babynamewizard.com has some interesting insights into this on her blog, though. Basically, they operated on the principle of the trickle-down effect of naming, but there seemed to be no real basis for the ‘upper class’ names they chose as the ones likely to filter down. They seemed to just choose a random sample of names from high-income areas of [name]California[/name] and New [name]York[/name], some of which were already showing big leaps in popularity ([name]Ava[/name], [name]Ella[/name], [name]Grace[/name]), without regard to any other factors. There are also some name sites I have seen where they keep track of the name statistics of this list and most seem to show that this is far from an accurate predictor.

If anything, I think you could get a feel for the style of names that were coming into popularity at the time.

I agree, daisy451. My one year old daughter’s name is [name_f]Adeline[/name_f]. This name does not even rank in the top 100 where I live, in Australia. [name_f]Every[/name_f] time we tell people her name, they comment that they’ve never heard it before (except for the occasional older person.) I was so excited to find a name that was absolutely beautiful, as well as being uncommon.

However, a girlfriend of mine told me there is a movie coming out this year starring [name_u]Blake[/name_u] Lively called “The Age of [name_f]Adaline[/name_f].” BOOM! Watch [name_f]Adeline[/name_f]/[name_f]Adaline[/name_f]/[name_f]Adalynn[/name_f] rocket up the charts now! Who on earth could have predicted that would happen?!

My first reaction was similar to the author of this post - I was really disappointed and saddened to think that [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] will no longer have the appeal of being “unusual.” I think that’s a natural reaction to have when you invest so much time and emotion into picking a name that you love.

However, I also came to realise that there is nothing you can do to control the direction of name trends, so why sweat it?

DH and I also thought that perhaps this movie will help people learn to pronounce [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] properly - we get a lot of people calling her “[name_f]Adelynn[/name_f]”, which can get annoying.

Hopefully we will also look “ahead of the trend,” because [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] will be that much older than any other [name_f]Adeline[/name_f]'s at her school. I just hope we don’t get the comment, “Oh [name_f]Adeline[/name_f], like from the movie?” Ugh, that will irk me!

I think as long as you pick a name that you love hearing and love saying, you can’t really go wrong :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t be surprised. These guys wrote some brilliant stuff about what to NOT name your child before.

  1. A names are huge, at least on nameberry.
  2. Male -o names seem popular now.
  3. Surname names are big now.
  4. Genderless names seem big too.

Some of these names thrill me — like [name_f]Clementine[/name_f], [name_u]Linden[/name_u], and [name_f]Maeve[/name_f] – but most do not. Not bad names, just not too exciting to me.

I hope I live long enough to befriend a [name_f]Wilhelmina[/name_f], [name_f]Forsythia[/name_f], [name_f]Henrietta[/name_f], [name_f]Enid[/name_f], [name_f]Demelza[/name_f], [name_f]Verbena[/name_f], and [name_f]Rowena[/name_f]! Now THAT would be something to freak out about! :slight_smile: