I've seen in my circle of friends a trend away from these types of names. Getting back to old style stuff. I know a Fred and a newborn named Franklin, and I can't tell you how many Charlies are out there.

/my F1s are named Jason and Ryan

Sophia
Emma
Isabella
Olivia
Ava
Lily
Chloe
Madison
Emily
Abigail

At least six of those are familiar to me as porn star names.

LeFort III: I've seen in my circle of friends a trend away from these types of names. Getting back to old style stuff. I know a Fred and a newborn named Franklin, and I can't tell you how many Charlies are out there.

/my F1s are named Jason and Ryan

That's been a trend for some time now, actually.

People try to find the "quirky, but classy and old-sounding" names, so they go for names that are from slightly before today's living elderly people and grandparents. That's how Emily and Olivia and the like got popular. Lots of "Max" and "Otto" too.

CitizenTed: The next couple I know who conceive are going to get a $100 encouragement to name it Steve or Karen. We must bring balance back to the Force!

Steve and Karen won't be popular for a while yet, because right now they're common among middle-aged people. Names that sound like middle-aged people tend to get shunned. Give it a few decades when the all the Steve and Karen and Suzanne and Linda people are old and start dying off, and those names will be the new "old and quirky, so classier than all those silly names the Wal-Mart set is using" trendsetters and take off again.

Meanwhile 2011 popular names in Japan can be found here (link pops, Japanese only)

For boys, #1 is Hiroto, followed by Ren, Yuuma, Souta, Sora, Syouta, Yamato, Haruto, Riku, and Haruto again (spelled with different characters).

For girls, #1 is Yui, followed by Aoi, Yua, Rin, Hina, Yuina, Sakura, Mana, Saki, and Yuuna.

Names ending in "na" for girls are a huge trend for a while. Names ending in "ko" for girls are long since dowdy and middle aged, but middle aged people often make comments about how the new names are weird and made up (and this doesn't even get into the various sites that have the local equivalent of "Wal-Mart names" over there).

"Mana" is the name of a really popular child actress this year, hence the popularity.

I have a cousin named "Yui" born in the 80's when it was a weird name, but now it's popular I guess...

There's certain characters that get popular (and show up in names read various ways, so unless you read Japanese it's kinda pointless to talk about it here) but right now 翔 "flying, soaring" is huge. It's the "to" in "Hiroto" and the "syou" in "Syouta" above.

Andromeda: It was pointed out to me once that if you want to give a kid a good name look at popular ones from 30-40 years ago- your kid will definitely be the only one with the name, but everyone will recognize it. So basically now is the time to name your kid Brian or Melissa.

Sounds about right to me, yeah - 30 to 40 years is usually in the unpopular zone (all the "quirky!" hunters aren't going there).

Andromeda: I have a foreign name too but never got teased for it-

I always just used an alias. But yeah, finding stuff with my actual name on it isn't happening in the US (in Japan it's trivial, but).

There's always those names that are perfectly normal in one country but then in another end up not only hard to say or weird, but actually meaning or sounding like something bad.

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: Murray says Snooki has yet to make it on the list

God help us all when that happens.

Snookie is a g-d nick name. Her real name is Nicole. Don't name your kid after a pseudoceleb guidette frankentitty nick name.

I applaud my siblings for naming their kids normal names.
Chris
Amanda
Zachary
Peter
Samuel
Lilian

Andromeda: Funny how that stuff can matter so much when you're a little kid.

Yeah. Luckily for some stuff like pencils there's always been companies where you mail them an order form with your name (or message) on it and they do the embossing to order.

But even now I have to admit, when I'm back in Japan I'll get stickers with my name on it or whatever, just because I can!

Leafing through all the piles, I see the new names, and I remember two old ladies next to me complaining last time that all the new names are just so weird. Heh.

When I was in high school I knew three girls who got pregnant(oddly enough they were the ones that went to private catholic school with me. Take that however you will.) They all gave their children the same name and that name was Aiden. And now i will always associate that name with unwed teenage mothers.

RminusQ: Earguy: We're already seeing the effects of these weird names. I chose hockey to avoid a roster full of African-American names to avoid skewing the results, so we'll have to excuse the French/Canadian names. But:
Not knowing what your criteria are:

Philadelphia Flyers Roster, 1969
Reg Fleming
Lew Morrison
Garry Peters
Rosaire Paiement
Dunc Wilson
...are some pretty silly names

Also, what the fark is wrong with "Sean"? Other than that he shares a name with that shiatface Sean Avery?

You just hate him because he's not on your team.



You jelly?