Gasp! Are some of 2017’s ‘hottest baby names’ simply made-up words?
The expert folk from baby name focused site Nameberry have released their list of the most on-trend baby names for 2017 and we might just be raising a tiny bit of eyebrow at a few of the results.
Wait, what?
Don’t get us wrong. We are all for creativity and individuality. In fact, we applaud uniqueness in many forms.
It’s just that some of the names on Nameberry’s carefully (and expertly) researched “Hottest Baby Names of 2017” seem to take the concept of dubbing our kids to a whole new realm.
From what we can tell, you can pretty much smoosh any old letters together and your name may be in the running for most “on trend”.
Say again?
Note that many of the names featured do seem to be lovely and appear to be actual names (the girls’ names faring better in the legitimacy stakes than the boys, we feel.) Some of them, however, seem like the results of a particularly wild game of BOGGLE.
We’re fairly certain you’ll easily judge which is which (unless you have a child called Pumice or Womb or Snoopeek or something…!)
On-trend name? Or random Scrabble letter pick? You decide.
Nameberry’s Hottest Baby Names of 2017 list
Boy’s names
Kyd
Benajah
Sulien
Koa
Gunther
Cassian
Beauregard
Albie
Issac
Lucien
Ragnar
Alden
Dante
Marcel
Xander
Bowie
Kane
Arrow
Sherlock
Mateo
Girl’s names
Tatjana
Alizeh
Tahiti
Moana
Ines
Seren
Rosamund
Alisha
Samara
Lilian
Kyra
Sutton
Noor
Arielle
Reina
Calista
Marisol
Arcadia
Ophelia
Zoey
Gender neutral
Quincy
Remi
Winter
Ellis
Baby name trends for 2017
To be fair, some interesting trends (aside from the whole random letter-pick one) have popped up for 2017, too.
Celebrity and media-influenced names are popular:
Moana made an appearance (name-checking the animated character) up a whopping 467 percent in searches and visits on the Nameberry site.
The name Ines (moniker of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ second daughter) is up 338 percent.
Sherlock and Bowie are also rising in the popularity stakes, up 41 percent and 48 percent respectively.
European and mythology-influenced names featured strongly:
Tatjana, Ophelia, Calista, Marcel, Dante, Portia, for example.
Aristocratic and traditional names were also prominent on the list:
Lucien, Beauregard, Franklin, Lilian, Sutton.
Boggle suspicions aside, we love the work the Nameberry gang do to keep us abreast of baby name trends.
Are any of these on your list? (Or perhaps they’ve popped up there, in the past?)
