Includes Research Based Studies, an Interactive Worksheet, Name Meanings, Origins, and More!
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Ultimate Guide to Baby Naming in 2021 Includes research based studies, an interactive worksheet, name meanings, origins, and more! Table of Contents 3 Welcome Letter 4 Research Methods 5 Survey 12 Time to Begin Picking Your Baby’s Name 13 Baby Name Worksheet 15 66 Most Popular Baby Names Welcome & Thank You Thank you for your purchase of The Ultimate Guide to Baby Naming in 2021 I created this guidebook for you by studying decades of government statistics on baby names, surveying hundreds of parents and experts. All so you have the most useful information to decide on the perfect baby name for you and your child. While you’ll see inside that many parents use their family and heritage as a guide to name their baby, ultimately it’s your decision what your baby is called. It’s wonderful to honor your family, but a name is one of the first of the many hundreds of decisions you’ll make as you raise your child. Use this guidebook to help decide on your baby’s name, or if you’ve already picked it, on how and when to tell people about your choice. Use it to learn what others are doing, and then make your own choice about what’s best for you! And most of all congratulations on the baby in your life , whether already here or coming soon. That you’re willing to spend your time and money on research like this for your baby already shows that you’re invested in your child’s future. And wow, do investments in our children pay off. Thank you once again, and let’s get started! 3 | The Ultimate 2020 Baby Name Survey Research Methods You’re about to see several expressions of data that I collected by interviewing hundreds of parents. In total they named 422 children. I wanted to understand how they named their children, what their thought process was at the time, and advice they would give to someone naming their child today -- that’s you! You’ll also see some “crosstabs” of that data, which is where I present to you views of their responses across multiple questions, in order to make it the most useful to your decision making. 4 | The Ultimate 2020 Baby Name Survey How Did You Decide Your Child’s First Name? Of course, most children have three names: first, middle and last. Some kids have more, and that’s wonderful as well! Last names are usually more locked in, so first and middle names are the major decisions. So let’s start with the first name. HOW DID YOU DECIDE YOUR CHILD’S FIRST NAME? AFTER A PLACE FROM A BABY NAME BOOK AFTER A CELEBRITY AFTER A HISTORICAL FIGURE AFTER ME OR SIGNIFICANT OTHER BASED ON MY HERITAGE AFTER A FRIEND FROM THE INTERNET FROM A RELIGIOUS BOOK AFTER FAMILY 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% As we found in the study, around 35% of the parents surveyed want to name children after a family member, but is this always a good idea? Naming a boy after his father is a common decision for many parents, but stop first to think about whether or not there will be too much confusion. Will some people start calling your son Junior to differentiate the two? If you like that, you can go with it but, if you don’t, there is almost no way to stop that trend once it has started. To avoid this, you might also best decide to choose a nickname that you do like to offset the chances that this will happen. Key Advice: This is the name of a lifetime. It’s worth careful consideration as to how it might affect a child throughout his or her growing years. 5 | The Ultimate 2020 Baby Name Survey With that in mind, it might be a deterrent to name a child after a family member because you want your son or daughter to grow up feeling secure about his or her own identity. If other family members know the origin of the name choice, and the namesake is or was particularly bright or good looking, for instance, innocent comments like, “You need to study hard to be a successful engineer like your Uncle Bob,” may seem daunting to a child. It may imply to the child a need to measure up. This can put undue pressure on that child to be a replica of that person when the child may be very little, if at all, like the person after whom he or she was named. People are individuals with their own unique talents and characteristics. 6 | The Ultimate 2020 Baby Name Survey How Did You Decide Your Child’s Middle Name? And now let’s look at middle names. HOW DID YOU DECIDE YOUR CHILD’S MIDDLE NAME? FROM A BABY NAME BOOK AFTER A PLACE AFTER A CELEBRITY FROM THE INTERNET BASED ON MY HERITAGE AFTER A FRIEND FROM A RELIGIOUS BOOK AFTER ME OR SIGNIFICANT OTHER AFTER A HISTORICAL FIGURE AFTER FAMILY 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Some people will choose a middle name because it sounds good with the first and last names, in which case they might use a baby name book for a wide variety of ideas, but we see from the bar graph that the smallest segment uses this method. Most people never even know someone’s middle name, so the way the middle name sounds with the first and last is not of much importance; its personal significance is, though. Perhaps that is why it is very often a family name. Our study shows that 50% of people based their choice this way. Key Advice: Though a middle name choice is less important than a first name choice, making it a significant one can be an enriching addition, adding a deeper and more personal meaning to the complete name to be proud to carry throughout one’s life. It’s a good way to honor a family member without causing concern for identity confusion as we discussed with the first name, and it can be a way to forever cherish those childhood memories of time spent with a grandmother or grandfather long after they are gone or to remind them that they had a wonderful one they were never fortunate enough to have met. 7 | The Ultimate 2020 Baby Name Survey When Did You Decide on Your Child’s Name? WHEN DID YOU DECIDE YOUR CHILD’S NAME? THIRD TRIMESTER SECOND TRIMESTER FIRST TRIMESTER BEFORE PREGNANT AFTER BABY WAS BORN 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% I’m sure there are women who can remember slumber parties, discussing at the age of 13 or 14 the kinds of names they would choose for their children. Some were very emphatic that their minds were completely made up. I think females talk about this kind of thing and sometimes make “firm decisions” far earlier than males do. By the time they’re adults, though, some of those decisions are not quite so firm, and many become faint memories of something they once thought. Baby name choices can be one of those things. People sometimes mull over names while they’re still dating, one of the many things discussed to ensure some kind of agreement on matters for the sake of compatibility. As we see from the graph, around 25% don’t actually choose a name until rather late in the game, in the last trimester of pregnancy. Key Advice: There is no right or wrong time to decide on a name, but it’s a nice thing when that choice is a shared decision of both the parents. It can be a bonding experience for the couple. Consider the fact that it sometimes happens that both parents love the name they chose, but the child, at some point, expresses some distaste for it or at least wishes it were something more glamorous or heroic. Usually, this is a short-lived phase that can exhibit itself in the early teen or preteen years when they might wish instead that they had the same name as a favorite book or movie character or the name of a popular movie star. When parents remember back to when they chose that name together, this might be the time to tell children how their names were chosen and why. That shared explanation coming from two people they love and admire can make a big difference in their perceptions and appreciation of their own names. 8 | The Ultimate 2020 Baby Name Survey Did You Share Your Child’s Name With Others Before Birth? DID YOU SHARE YOUR BABY NAME WITH ANYONE OTHER THAN YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER? YES NO 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Our studies show that about half the people do, but is this a wise decision? It depends on the people with whom you’re sharing. If you’re telling someone whose name is Esmerelda, and she loves her name, she might not think Mary, Sue, John, or Michael are such hot choices. She’s most likely going to give her opinion on why a name like her own is much more unique. It might make you reconsider what you took a good deal of time to decide and agree upon with your significant other in the first place. This can bring on unnecessary over-consideration of the matter. Also, keep in mind that different generations have different ideas on what names are preferable. The question is really with whom you should share the name if you decide to do that, rather than whether or not you absolutely should or shouldn’t.