Millennial parents are driving a surprising new baby name trend

When people started naming their babies after IKEA products, a bunch of millennial parents snorted and said: “hold my (craft) beer” … 

Welcome, babyJohnson.com!

A survey of 2,000 mums and dads found a unique new consideration has come into play when naming bubs – matching domain name registration. It’s a whole new type of baby register, and it seems that it’s coming in to play with lots of parents.

The research was conducted on behalf of web hosting and domain registration company GoDaddy and talked to 1,000 millennial parents (aged 24-38) and 1,000 Gen X parents (aged 39-53). 

It found that millennial parents were keen to snap up a domain name for their baby. Which was surprising and convenient considering the study was commissioned by a business that sells domain names, right? “Websites can grow with children into adulthood,” Go Daddy stressed as they released the research findings. 

Why tho?

Cynicism aside, the research asserted that 20 percent of surveyed millennial parents planned their baby name around the available domains. Yup. Some parents are checking out if the .com for their bub is available to be snapped up, and apparently deciding on names accordingly. (We explained that twice because it seems a leeetle bit unfathomable – especially to non-millennials.)

To many parents, it’s not unfathomable, and in fact, a legitimate way to ensure their child has all the opportunities they deserved.

A significant 20 percent of millennial parents had created a website for their baby. Three in four of those had actually “changed the top contenders for their baby’s name based on the availability of that domain name”, the Go Daddy study revealed.

“Whether it’s to give them a leg up on school or work, or just to hold their spot for some future use, we expect to see registering for a domain become as common as registering for a stroller for new parents,” Melissa Schneider of GoDaddy.

So there you go. * side-eye *