New vintage names

One of the main precepts of naming trends is that every generation of parents needs to reinvent baby names. That’s true even when it comes to an established trend like the fashion for vintage names, which has been around since the parents of today’s parents excavated Jessica and Joshua, Amanda and Jacob to create a new middle path between old-school names like John and Mary and newfangled confections like Jodi and Troy.

Over the past decade, millennial parents have had to dig even deeper to find classic names that felt fresh again. Some of the new old choices that now appear in the top 1,000 (but did not a decade ago) include Willa and Wallace, Margot and Otis, Leona and Lionel. Harvey makes the list, too, but we have a feeling that one won’t last.

Dorothy

Eloise

Florence

Pearl

Thea

Clyde

Ira

Lionel

Otto

Wallace

Shorties

This trend toward giving babies antique nicknames that stand on their own started in Britain, where vintage short forms such as Evie, Elsie, Alfie and Freddie rank among the current top 25. As you may have heard, there’s even a young royal named not the forbidding Archibald or the nouveau Archer, but just plain Archie.

In their search for new spins on old names, parents in the United States have followed suit over the past 10 years, with vintage nicknames including Hattie, Rosie, Hank and Mack appearing by themselves on the most recent top 1,000.

Belle

Hattie

Mae

Millie

Rosie

Gus

Hank

Louie

Mack

Zeke

Contemporary gods and goddesses

Giving babies ancient names drawn from myth, legend and religion is one of the strongest and most surprising trends of the past decade. Major influences include “The Hunger Games,” the HBO series “Rome” and the move away from traditional religion toward more holistic spiritual beliefs.

Along with Freya, mythological names that became popular baby names in the past decade include Calliope, the Greek muse of poetry, and Titan, the immortal giant. This group of ancient names also includes off-road biblical choices such as Cain and Jaziel, the Quranic Maryam and the Homeric Achilles.

Aurelia

Calliope

Freya

Maryam

Rhea

Amos

Apollo

Cain

Magnus

Titan

Unique celebrity names

Parents have been naming their babies after celebrities since a certain dimpled movie moppet propelled the name Shirley to No. 2 on the charts in 1936. What’s new eight decades later is that no name is too unusual or even difficult for parents to adopt if it has a celebrity endorsement. Sometimes, the very uniqueness of the name seems to be the key to its appeal, with names such as Saoirse (Ronan), Idris (Elba) and Saint (son of Kimye) rising into the top 1,000 in the 2010s.

In a meta twist, celebrities themselves have inspired a trend for naming babies after dead (or should we call them vintage?) celebrities. Zoe Saldana has a son named Bowie (singer David), Carson Daly has a daughter named Etta (James), and Mariah Carey’s daughter is named Monroe (Marilyn).