Gen Alpha has decided their version of 'old people' names
I think there are three facotrs which make a name very dateable. Firstly, any name which was top 20 popular in the 90s, but did not remain in the top 20s through the 00s and into the 10s is now going to become an old person name. This is because those names are more obviously dateable as they can be tied to a period in time. So for example, even though they're both in the NZ top 10 for 1998, Caitlin is much more dateable than Olivia (which has persisted in the charts to this day). Also, any names from 20-30 years ago which fit a pattern. For example, for our parents generation it was the karen/sharon or brenda/kendra/Linda pattern. I'm not sure what this is in todays terms - Hannah, Anna, Emma? Even though those names weren't individually super popular, they're more easily noticeable as "old names" because we associate them with other similar names of the era. And of course, any names that are celebrity or character driven e.g. Hermione and Daenerys, as these kids grow up their names will be very obviously from a certain era.
Expand full comment
ncG1vNJzZmirmJ7BurvUrJ%2BorZyZsKK%2BxJqZqK2kY8C2rtKtmJyjXpi8rnvPaJ6epl2WubG0wGafmqtdmbKktcOem2asmJq2s3nVnqmsoZ%2BjfKS7zKacp6yj