I’ve been seriously considering [name_f]Alice[/name_f] and [name_f]Ada[/name_f] for our baby girl, or maybe some of the other names that descended from [name_f]Adelheid[/name_f] / [name_f]Adelaide[/name_f]. I don’t have a strong sense for what is popular (beyond just pulling the social security name lists).
I was under the impression that [name_f]Alice[/name_f] was familiar, classic, and also being used in large numbers. This is true. There were about 3600 Alices in 2016.
What surprises me is how many babies were named [name_f]Adeline[/name_f], [name_f]Adaline[/name_f], [name_f]Adalyn[/name_f], [name_f]Adalynn[/name_f], [name_f]Adelyn[/name_f], or [name_f]Adelyn[/name_f] last year. [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] is several positions over [name_f]Alice[/name_f], and if you add all these similar names together, you get around 11,000 babies.
[name_f]Ada[/name_f] went to a smaller group (~900 girls).
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you perceive [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] or [name_f]Ada[/name_f], or both, as actually trendier than [name_f]Alice[/name_f]? This won’t make the decision for us, but we are curious. Or would you say that are all on-trend, but not “trendy”?
[name_f]Adeline[/name_f] is SUPER trendy sounding to me. [name_f]Alice[/name_f] is also pretty trendy, but the difference is that [name_f]Alice[/name_f] is a classic name with a long history of use and popularity that just happens to be having a big moment, and [name_f]Adeline[/name_f]–while first attested in [name_f]England[/name_f] in 1189–has basically never been used heavily before right now. It’s the same as [name_f]Alice[/name_f] vs [name_f]Mildred[/name_f] in [name_f]Alice[/name_f]'s past big early 20th century moment.
[name_f]Ada[/name_f] isn’t trendy, but it is on-trend.
I’m not sure if this bothers you, but I also perceive a class difference between [name_f]Alice[/name_f] and [name_f]Adeline[/name_f].
I would say [name_f]Alice[/name_f] and [name_f]Ada[/name_f] are on-trend (popular on-trend and medium on-trend, respectively) while [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] is…borderline trendy. It has enough history that it’s not unpleasantly trendy, but I suspect it will rise and fall fairly quickly over the next few years. Then again, who really knows? I think you’re right not to let these factors make the decision for you, though they are useful to consider.
I have not met an [name_f]Alice[/name_f] or an [name_f]Ada[/name_f] (under the age of 30, that is), but I’ve met many, many [name_f]Adeline[/name_f]/[name_f]Adalynn[/name_f]/etc. So yes, I see it as very popular and much more trendy.
[name_f]Adeline[/name_f] is trendy, and vintage, because it has had some strong peaks of usage but not continual usage.
[name_f]Ada[/name_f] is vintage and ‘on trend’ as it’s not commonly used but is still currently used and has same sounds as other current names ([name_f]Adeline[/name_f], [name_f]Adelaide[/name_f]).
[name_f]Alice[/name_f] is classic in that it has been used almost continuously for not only decades, but centuries - though I must say it’s rare to come across an [name_f]Alice[/name_f] of my generation (aged in their 50s). [name_f]Alice[/name_f] still has peaks of usage though and now seems to be one of them.
I find our language around these terms interesting though - trendy has become a slightly negative term but in some sense isn’t every name in the top 100 trendy, in that these are the names currently popular? Some of those names though are also vintage eg Adeline (in that they’ve had previous peaks of popularity, usually around 1900 as the term vintage is currently used). Some of them are traditional eg Penelope or Ella in that they’ve had a long history of use, others modern eg Hadley or Avery, as used as a girls fn only recently, others classic eg Elizabeth, Anna, as they’re hard to tie to a particular time period and have pretty continual usage. Are they all trendy as well?
I find [name_f]Adelynn[/name_f] (or any variants of the name) trendy however [name_f]Adaline[/name_f]/[name_f]Adeline[/name_f] pronounced [name_m]Add[/name_m]-Uh-[name_f]Line[/name_f] as more similar to [name_f]Adelaide[/name_f]. [name_f]Ada[/name_f] is a biblical name so I find it more classic than trendy. Tbh I find [name_f]Alice[/name_f] more trendy than [name_f]Ada[/name_f].
Thanks, all. I think this confirms my own understanding from what I know of the usage.
I feel like [name_f]Alice[/name_f] is doing very well in recent years, but although its fortunes have changed quite a lot in the last 100 years, it never really leaves the top half of the 1000 names so it can’t really become a fly-by-night and then never-heard-again choice.
By contrast, [name_f]Ada[/name_f] has a very long history, but I’ve only ever met one. [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] has history too but I had no met one and didn’t know it was a name until consulting the name lists. So my sense or them and their recent good fortune is duller.
If I was 6 year old, I would rather be called [name_u]Paisley[/name_u] than [name_f]Mildred[/name_f], and if I was twenty-eight I would rather be called [name_f]Georgina[/name_f] than [name_f]Gladys[/name_f]. Trendy doesn’t necessary need to be bad.
I would personally go for [name_f]Alice[/name_f]. Both are on trend names, but better to be ahead of trends than behind.
I think [name_f]Adeline[/name_f] is trendy, [name_f]Alice[/name_f] is classic and [name_f]Ada[/name_f] is also classic, but very rare. Part of it is how many different spellings a single name has spawned and how popular each one of those are…[name_m]How[/name_m] much each of those alternate spellings are aimed to make the name fit trends -lyn/n ending names or such. In all trendy is a ‘know it when you see it sort of thing’.