Up & Coming Weekly

THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON It is that time of year again. The Social Security Administration has just released the most popular names for babies in our country last year. And the winners are…. Isabella and Jacob! Isabella edged out Emma after only one year, while Jacob continues his 11-year reign at the top of the list. There were more than 22,000 Isabellas born last year and almost 21,000 Jacobs. Rounding out the Top 10 in each category are: Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Ava, Emily, Madison, Abigail, Chloe and Mia for girls, and Ethan, Michael, Alexander, William, Joshua, Daniel, Jayden, Noah and Anthony for boys. In the greater scheme of things, what we name our children is not on the same level as the search for world peace, of course, but I fi nd it interesting as a refl ection of our culture. The Social Security Administration has been keeping up with this for us since 1880, and you can check out baby names and how they evolve at its Web site at www.ssa.gov/ OACT/babynames If you look at several years over different decades, it becomes clear that names are indeed a refl ection of our times. When the SSA started collecting this information in 1880, the Top 10 for girls were Mary, Anna, Emma (who is currently enjoying a strong resurgence), Elizabeth, Minnie, Margaret, Ida, Alice, Bertha and Sarah. We do not see most of those on many birth certifi cates in the 21st century. Winners for boys were John, William, James, Charles, George, Frank, Joseph, Thomas, Henry and Robert, each a sturdy Anglo-Saxon appellation. The year I came along the favorites had morphed to Linda, Mary, Patricia, Barbara, Susan, Sandra, Nancy, Carol, Kathleen and Sharon for girls and James, Robert, John, William, Michael, David, Richard, Thomas, Charles and Larry. Margaret had dropped to number 14 by then and is nowhere to be found on the 2009 list. So what, if anything, do our naming practices mean? Clearly, new parents are susceptible to the names we hear bandied about in our culture and to the names of people we admire. Miley, as in the teenaged performer Miley Cyrus, zoomed up the chart in 2008, but dropped 61 spots last year to the 189th spot. Spelling variations, Mylee and Marely, fell even more. Malia, as in Malia Obama, is the fastest rising name for girls, shooting up 153 spots to 192. Sasha, the name of the Obamas other daughter, is also on the fast track, moving up 101 spots to 261. of Michael, William and Daniel remain favorites across the decades. But they are not immune to the world around us. Barack, for example, a name many Americans had never heard until a few years ago, is not surprisingly on the rise. Last year parents named 69 boys Barack, moving the name up from the 2424th spot to the 1993rd. Whether Barack’s rise continues probably refl ects how Americans are satisfi ed with the performance of President Obama and his administration. I remember pondering for months naming possibilities for the Dicksons’ three precious jewels, one of whom had no name for several hours after arrival until the new parents negotiated an agreement on the issue. We wound up with family names, but other parents take other routes. Jennifer Moss, author of The One-in-a-Million Baby Name Book and founder of www.babynames.com , says “Anything can infl uence baby names, from pop culture to literature to music and celebrities.” Last year, for example, the fastest riser for boys was Cullen. Coincidentally or not, Edward Cullen is a major character in the popular Twilight series of books and movies about vampires. Edward Cullen is a vampire himself, and his fi ctional girlfriend is Bella, a common nickname for this year’s girls’ favorite, Isabella. It cannot go unnoticed that Jacob, the long-running fave for boys, is also a character in the Twilight series. A trick in naming, it seems to me, is not to saddle our precious jewels with names that will not stand the test of time for him or her. Will that name be just as appropriate when our bundle of joy becomes a testy teenager, a young adult, a professional and a grandparent? Jennifer Moss agrees. “Make sure the name Isabella, Jacob and Cullen all names from the popular series Twilight led in this year’s top names for babies. I venture to say they will be heading upward again next year. Boys’ names, it seems to me, are a little less volatile than those of their sisters. While they do go up and down in popularity, the old standards can grow with your child and make sure they can live with it,” she says. “Don’t make it too cutesy because, think, can it work in the board room? Can they be a CEO?” Moss’ fi nal piece of advice goes to the heart of being a parent and our hopes and aspirations for our precious jewels. “Don’t make the name a burden on your child.” MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com. Coupons Available High Speed Online • Online Games • Copy & Fax Service FREE COFFEE  Cape Fear Plaza II • 330 N. Eastern Blvd. #10 910-435-0869 Mon - Sat 10 a.m.-Midnight • Sun 1-10 p.m. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MAY 12-18, 2010 UCW 5 THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Calling All Chloes and Jaydens

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