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Baby Names
Where did the trendy names come from
I understand that Emma became popular because of Friends and now Bella because of Twilight but really I have never seen a TV show or heard of a famous person with the names Cade, Jade, Caden, Jaden or Landin/Landon but every where I go someone has named their baby that. All these names are in my sister's inlaws family and I have a daycare with 3 Landins in it. I have 2 old school friends who named their son's Landon and now my cousin also. The only time I have heard of these names were ,one a movie Walk to Remember which was about 9 yrs ago and the others I only seen as Crib Collection names. So how did this trend start.
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Re: Where did the trendy names come from
I think bella / isabella has been popular for like 5 years, but I think Emma definitely came from friends.
Good question, though, on where the hayden/jayden/cayden trend came from. It seems to have appeared out of nowhere.
Um, my nightmares? ?I think that's where the -aden stuff came from, MY WORST NIGHTMARES. ?
?
Britney probably contributed to the madness with her Jayden.?
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
I *think* Aiden came from Sex and the City. The Jayden/Caden/Haden (however you choose to spell them) may have come from trying to make Aiden different?
Landon was a last name to me, as in Michael Landon. Now I see it a lot. I don't even think its a bad name, just terribly trendy.
The good news is that this too shall pass.
BFP #1 11/28/09 ~ EDD 8/6/10 ~ DS Born 8/9/10
BFP #2 8/27/13 ~ EDD 5/8/14 ~ Natural MC 9/18/13 at 6 weeks, 6 days
BFP#3 3/28/14 ~ EDD 12/7/14 ~ DD Born 11/21/14
BFP#4 6/15/17 ~ EDD 2/20/18
LOL, they came from my nightmares, too!
Yeah, it was weird, Aidan was around for years, I think, becoming more and more popular each year. And then all of a sudden, boom: Caden, Hayden, and Jayden showed up all at once. Wacky. And yucky. IMHO.
Will Smith has a Jaden and Britney Spears has a Jayden.
Aiden/Aidan exploded after "Sex and the City." The actor Aidan Quinn never set off a trend like that.
I'm not sure about Landon.
Isabella (what most Bellas are named) was already #6 when the first Twilight book came out.
Regarding Aiden and SATC, Emma and Friends and Addison and Grey's, I think TV shows REFLECT trends more than make them. They may make them EVEN more popular, but they don't usually make a name come out of nowhere, they help a name along.
The Office is one of the most popular shows on TV right now, and you don't see a lot of new babies named Pam. If Jim and Pam name their baby something that already fits in with existing trends, then that name will likely rise. But it doesn't happen in and of itself.
Addison was introduced to Grey's in 2006 if I remember correctly. It was already 100 in 2005. She was introduced at the end of the season, so 2006 was already half over. Granted, it did jump to 26, but other names have done that.
I think the reason Addison is so popular is because it's a natural flow from the surname trend and Madison.
Emma was introduced on Friends in about 1998 I'm guessing. It was already #22 at that point. Actually, I was corrected and it was 2002, but by then it was a top ten name, so even more to the point...
It's hard to tell with Aiden b/c there are so many spellings but Aidan's biggest jump was in the 1990s, before SATC was even on the air.
Also, FWIW, Will and Jada Smith named their son Jaden (sp?) in the late '90s. That was the first time I heard that one, but well before Britney.
The first time I heard Jaden/Jayden was when Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith gave the name to their son...
I thought Emma was pretty popular before Friends (or maybe it was Emily and then it switched to Emma after Friends...)
My BFF's maiden name is Emma. She thinks it's strange that it's so popular. I also have a friend (mid 20s) named Emma. Her parents picked it because they didn't want a popular name! LOL
I know an Isabella who is Italian. She was named this LONG before the trend started. I met her years and years ago and thought "what a pretty name," now it's so overused.
Wow, it WAS that late? That was the only one I didn't look up. My bad. But actually it proves my point even more; it was rising in popularity significantly between 1998 and 2002, as well as the 8 years before that.
I think part of the Emma thing might have been with Friends, but I think it was also "Emily-like". People didn't want to sound cliched by naming their kid Emily, so they opt for Emma as a fresh but classic twist... only to find out that everyone else was thinking the exact same thing.
I think there are many factors that make a name rise in popularity sharply. I think there's somewhat collective ideas about what meanings names carry, and there's always kind of a go-to set of names that represents any "feel."
Take the name suggestions for example. Somebody asks for ideas on a classic boy's name that sounds strong and intelligent... they are very likely to hear from other posters William, Michael, James, and Matthew. Spunky, independent girl's name? Madison, Avery...
Though we don't mean to be copycats, there's a certain comfort in suggesting and using names that have a degree of familiarity and have an unambiguous connotation.
I completely agree.
I think it's silly to say (this is just an example pulled from the OP, I can't think of another at the moment...) "Emma became popular from Friends." There is much, much more to it than that. I've found that people who say comments like that are generally 5-10 years behind the trend... for example, people who are just now realizing the Aidan & friends trend when really, it's been popular for quite some time.