Grandmother/Mother Names: Criteria?

I’ve noticed that people often call certain female names “grandmother” names or “decidedly middle-aged” or “mom” names. I don’t have any problem with these classifications, but I do have some questions.

One question is are these classifications fluid according to age or are they static?

For example, my great grandmothers (Martha, Birdie) were born in the late 1800’s, my grandmothers (Marjorie, Marcelle, Marion) were born just after the turn of the century, my mother and her friends (Sandi, Joetta, Johnnie) were born in the early 1940’s, I was born in the early 1960’s, and my unborn children (Cordelia) would have been born in the 1980’s or 90’s or early aughts.

A young nameberry user would have very different dates for these births.

So is a name that [name_f]Pam[/name_f] and [name_f]Linda[/name_f] and I might call “middle aged” or “mom” or “grandmother” the same name as someone born 20 years ago would consider it? Sorry, I can’t seem to edit that sentence to good grammar. :slight_smile:

I’ve noticed this especially when a young writer will allude to a “mom” name as being something I might have named one of my kids. :slight_smile: “Mom” names to me are [name_f]Sandra[/name_f], [name_f]Susanne[/name_f], [name_u]Joyce[/name_u], [name_f]Barbara[/name_f], [name_f]Karen[/name_f], [name_f]Carol[/name_f], and the like.

I’ve also noticed [name_f]Pam[/name_f] and [name_f]Linda[/name_f] calling a name like [name_f]Belva[/name_f] “decidedly middle-aged” yet I am middle-aged (or a tad above, unless I plan to live to 106!) and there were no Belvas in my generation! We were all [name_f]Debbie[/name_f] and [name_f]Missy[/name_f] and [name_u]Lisa[/name_u] and [name_u]Kelly[/name_u] and [name_f]Susan[/name_f] and [name_f]Laura[/name_f], etc.

So maybe it is less about when our actual grandmothers and moms were born and more about names simply sounding like old ladies or middle-aged ladies or young mothers? For example, Heidi will always sound like a little girl to me and Eunice will always sound old (old with bad bunions, alas).

No criticisms, just curious what folks think.

Hm, I think it depends on the name. There are some names that have been popular when your mom was born, that were still popular when you were born but then dropped rather quickly in popularity; so to you they’re mom names and to someone in my generation they still would be mom names.
But you’ve heard some stories on here, where parent’s of expecting couples were saying how old fashioned their name choice was, how it was dated, while to the couple’s generation it was a sweet, vintage name, one of those that are coming back in style at the moment.

It definitely depends on your age. My grandparents were born in the late 40s/early 50s and my parents were born in the early 70s. Names from those eras sound very dated to me with a few exceptions. Great-grandparent names are much harder for me to pin down. My great-grandparents and their numerous siblings were born as early as the late 1870s and as late as the early 1940s. Quite the range.

Interesting. And yet the names in your signature are names I think of as being from those earlier eras. Maybe different for female names?

I think it’s a combo of certain names and when you were born. My grandparents were born in the 50s and 60s, my dad was born in 1971, and my mom was born in 1980. I was born in 2000. To me, mom names are ones that are mom-aged. Like, popular 70s names are mom names to me. [name_f]Amy[/name_f], [name_f]Jennifer[/name_f], [name_f]Heather[/name_f], [name_f]Amanda[/name_f], [name_u]Shannon[/name_u], and [name_f]Brandy[/name_f] are some examples of mom names as I think of them.

I don’t use the ‘middle-aged’ or ‘grandmother’ labels myself (mainly because I think that yes, this depends on the age of the person using these labels, and I find them rather unhelpful to others of a different age/generation), but rather seem to describe names at different decades of dated-ness (which often then depends on where a person is from). I think it all comes down to not only the age of the person, but also their location.

To give an example, to me, Heather is 1950’s because most every Heather I come across here nowadays would have been born in that decade, however, in the US, Heather was common for girl’s born in the 70’s. If I were to use the ‘labels’, I’d deem Heather a ‘mum’ name, as that is the decade my own mother was born in - you though being born in the 60’s would probably not deem that a ‘mum’ name at all as Heather would either have been a common name in your own generation (if you were Australian) or of a younger generation (if American). *Then you’ve got the factor of a person in America considering Heather a ‘mum’ name themselves too, the difference being that they are the daughter of a 70’s born parent, which then confuses both decade popularity & location popularity.

Does that make any sense at all (because I’m find it tough to describe…)? I hope you get something out of it at least…

Yes, the [name_f]Heather[/name_f] example is good. And the point about locations of names too. I’m really into specific names, but love pondering these other issues too.

I was born in the late 80s and grew up with several Heathers. I feel like that’s a very young name. To me ‘Mom’ or Grandmother names are names that sound a bit stodgy. Although I have in the past years met teenage girls with names like [name_f]Ruth[/name_f], [name_f]Gladys[/name_f], and [name_f]Edith[/name_f]. Which I think are a bit grandmother-y.

Well, when i was younger and first came into naming sites as a teen, I thought of names from my moms generation (50s/60s) to be “mom names”. Now, I think of them as grandma names, because they’re the names of the new grandparents I know.

My BF still makes comments about the (what I now consider vintagey or even “old lady” names) being “grandma names” ([name_f]Beatrix[/name_f], [name_f]Henrietta[/name_f], [name_f]Eleanor[/name_f]) and names I now consider “grandma names” ([name_f]Barbara[/name_f], [name_f]Donna[/name_f], [name_f]Nancy[/name_f]) to be “someone’s mom” (he forgets I’M someone’s mom, along with lots of the [name_f]Jessica[/name_f]'s and [name_f]Jennifer[/name_f]'s and [name_f]Brittany[/name_f]'s we know).

I’m assuming my kids will also think of names from 50 years ago as grandma names and 80s/90s names as mom names. As for other adults, I guess it depends on how much you think about it.

Yes it really just depends on age and location. My father was born in the 40s, my mom in the 60s, and all of my grandparents in the 1910/20s (I’m only 19, I just have a really old dad haha). I usually see names from the 70s/80s/early 90’s as “mom” names though, because most of the people who currently have children under 18 were born in that period of time. Most of my friends and classmates while growing up had younger parents than I did.
I’m Dutch but living in Spain and the differences between names are quite intriguing. For example, [name_f]Maria[/name_f] is strictly a grandmother name in the Netherlands, but here it has been a top 10 name for basically forever and anyone is just as likely to be named [name_f]Maria[/name_f] (and there’s so many of them!), from 80 year old women to a newborn baby. Same with [name_f]Marta[/name_f] and [name_f]Paula[/name_f]. Latin names that are on the rise in the USA like [name_f]Ariana[/name_f], [name_f]Emilia[/name_f], [name_f]Aurora[/name_f], [name_f]Catalina[/name_f] etc are all considered old-fashioned here and are not even on the top 100 lists. Some names like [name_f]Carla[/name_f], [name_u]Andrea[/name_u], [name_f]Claudia[/name_f], [name_u]Carmen[/name_u] etc were part of a wave of “exotic” names in my home country in the 70s (same with many [name_m]French[/name_m] and Italian names) and are now completely out of style there, but in Spain they’re still very common on young people. And I can’t believe [name_f]Berta[/name_f] actually consistently ranks in their top 100, haha.