Posted on 02/03/2011 12:49:03 PM PST by Alex Murphy
Washington D.C., Feb 3, 2011 / 03:04 am (CNA).- A new analysis shows that although Biblical and saint names are still popular among parents, the use of “Mark” and “Mary” as baby names has sharply declined over the decades.
Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) tracked the popularity of baby names in America from 1910 to 2009 with data from the Social Security Administration website.
A Jan. 20 post on the center's research blog showed that from 1910 to 1965, Mary was either the top or second most popular name for girls in the U.S.
In 2009, however, the name Mary dropped out of the top 100 for the first time and is currently listed as number 102. The name Joseph has remained consistently popular, however, coming in at number 16, it's lowest rating since since 1910.
Similar to Mary, the name Mark has decreased in use over the years. A top 10 name from 1955 to 1970, Mark fell below the top 100 in 2003 and is now listed as number 154.
CARA researchers have previously documented how Mass attendance increases the likelihood of parents choosing Catholic names for their children.
In their 2004 study “Don't Call Me Ishmael,” featured in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, researchers Paul Perl and Jon Wiggins stated that “worship attendance does increase Catholics' likelihood of choosing specific names that are disproportionately common within their tradition.”
“This suggests that committed Catholics perceive certain names as 'Catholic' and represents one instance in which names do retain religious connotations for believers,” they added.
The importance of parents choosing Christian names for their children was recently addressed by Pope Benedict at a Mass at the Sistine Chapel on Jan. 9, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
During his homily, he underscored that every baptized child “acquires the character of the son of God, beginning with their Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit causes man to be born anew in the womb of the Church.”
A name, he explained, is an “indelible seal” that set children off on a lifelong “journey of religious faith.”
I thought you might be right but in the last 30 years it went from 37th to 71st.
http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
Hillary was the 131st most popular name in 1992. Within 10 years it had fallen out of the top 1000.
A poe fan!
Thanks for that page link. To my relief, I got the following message when I did a search:
Barack is not in the top 1000 male names for any year of birth in the last 100 years.
Please enter another name.
I feared that in 2009, there might have been a huge surge in babies named Barack—a lifetime ball-and-chain if ever there was one. Sort of like being named “James Earl ????” in 1977. Anyone named after the Peanut Man surely has got a very legitimate beef to take up with the parents for selecting such a loser name.
So nobody’s naming their kids Maria, either. I have a Mexican friend who just named her baby “Wendy.” Her first one is named “Jill.” Go figure.
That was my beginning of people naming their poor children with horrible monikers. I can only imagine what kind of ribbing she took in high school.
Wendy was actually a name invented for “Peter Pan”.
And it is a derivative of Gwendolyn.
I think my negative visceral reaction to “Gertrude” came from looking at my mother’s high school yearbook. They had a Gertrude in their class whose picture appeared by the dictionary definition of “hideous”. And I had an Aunt Gertrude who was a saint of a person, very warm and friendly, but again was less visually appealing than the south end of a northbound horse.
Just never dug “Gertrude” after that. But it beats “Shamika” or some of the other faux names.
Candace is a Biblical name—see Acts 8.27 (queen of Ethiopia).
I suspect it has a lot to do with young couples today wanting their child to have a ‘different’ name (i.e., Apple). The top 10 in 2009 for girls were almost all unheard of 20-30 years ago.
Our parents were more into tradition, using family names, saints names. These parents don’t want their kid to be “MaryB” OR “MaryS” in their class. They want them to stand out! Instead, now it will be “EmmaB” or “EmmaS” because names are still being used commonly just a different group of names than our parents’ generation.
We have a Mary, a Matthew, and a John. So untrendy.
But there are PLENTY of Shaliquas!
But dey be PLENTY uv Shaliquas!
“You ever notice there aren’t many Chinese guys named ‘Rusty’?” - George Carlin
Google the phrase and an online version of the text is the first item on the page.
Oh that’s sad.In my first comminion class I was one of only 3 girl who were not named some sort of Mary *middle name*.
Oh that’s sad.In my first communion class I was one of only 3 girl who were not named some sort of Mary *middle name*.
Did you MIL appreciate your using a name so similar to hers for your daughters’ middle names? My MIL didnt appreciate my BIL/SIL using a derivative of her name for one of their daughters, instead of using HER name.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see my daughter use her grandmother’s original name that was too plain for our generation to use. I suspect (hope) that the upcoming generation of parents will return to more traditional names for their kids. This whole ‘being different’ business has gotten so out of control, the names have become ridiculous.
Rusty would come out as "Lusty".
I tried to convince my wife to allow me to do just that...well, Thor or Freya...It was met with a resounding NO!! So we settled for Anthony.
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