This week, when I got my local newspaper there was an article that interested me. It talked about the trends in baby names. It also related with the discussions on social class we've been having. The article reviewed the top baby names in America in the past four decades. One aspect of baby names is the way the media can influence them. For example on the TV show Friends, Rachel named her baby Emma. In the next two years, the name Emma exploded.
Another aspect of the baby names is the way class plays into what name you choose. For example, In Gatsby, when Nick listed all the names of the guests in Gatsby's house, they were not very average names. They had a certain air to them, and they were not common names. This is also true with celebrities today. Babies of celebrities are getting names like Apple and Suri; not really names you think of off the top of your head.
Now the interesting thing is that names have a tendency to trickle down the economic ladder. The name Amber for instance, started out as a upper class name. But over the next ten years, it trickled down and became a pretty common name for anyone to name their baby. Will names like Apple and Suri trickle down?
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