On the recent “Mom Names” blog post, which features some names that are more common among today’s parents’ generation than with the children, someone wondered why for example [name]Rachel[/name] or [name]Sarah[/name] would be on a “dated” list when they’re more classic than many of the other “mom” names. Here’s my explanation; first I’ll define the terms “classic” and “dated” as used in the name-enthusiast lexicon:
Classic: A name that has been used regularly for a long time, at least a century or two. A good test to determine if a name can properly be called a classic or not is the “genealogy test”: Would you be shocked to see the name on an ancestor from 100+ years ago or not?
Dated: A name that was common for an earlier (generally living) generation but less so for present-day children.
Now let’s rate a few names (some boys and some girls; the alphabetical pattern was unintentional until after I started):
[name]Amanda[/name] - Classic enough to not be surprising on an ancestral generation, but quite popular during the 1980s so it feels a bit dated.
[name]Brittany[/name] - Definitely not a classic, and now quite dated (peaked around 1990, plummeted a lot since then).
[name]Charles[/name] - Definitely a classic (one of the standard names throughout Anglo history), but may be slightly dated (not really associated with any one generation, but has gradually declined over the last few days as has many other English classics).
[name]Daphne[/name] - This name (at least in the U.S.) has never been popular enough to have any generational associations, but is one that you can see used throughout the ages.
[name]Elizabeth[/name] - Probably the archetypal example among girls’ names of a classic that has never (at least in modern times) been dated (now its nicknames are a different story).
[name]Fiona[/name] - This one falls between “classic” and “modern” since it was invented by an author, but is acceptable in that regard to all but the most anti-modern-name purists. In the UK it is probably on the dated side with its spike a few decades ago, but remains fresher on this side of the Atlantic.
[name]Gabriel[/name] - An example of a currently in-style (but in the past less common) classic (most Biblical names, at least those traditionally regarded as names for people, can be regarded as classics).
The point is some names can be both classic and dated (such as [name]Rebecca[/name]), not classic and dated (such as [name]Brenda[/name]), classic and not dated (such as [name]William[/name]), or not classic nor dated (such as [name]Ryan[/name], for a girl). That’s why there’s plenty of overlap between Nameberry’s “classic” lists and the “mom name” (or going back another generation the “mid-century name”) lists.
As for how this would apply to someone deciding what to name a baby, what that means is that among the “dated” names, a more classic one would work better as opposed to something that was trendy and modern of its times. For example, few if any of us would recommend naming a baby [name]Carol[/name] (not common for girls before its time), but some of us like the retro charm of [name]Susan[/name] (in the mainstream name pool before its baby boom peak) and have asked about and/or suggested it. Many of us would smile at a modern baby named [name]Amy[/name], but would feel more sorry for a [name]Brandy[/name].