Names by Style

By Era

• Vintage

  22,357

  Names that were everywhere a century ago and then were not.

• Classic

  530

  Names that have never really left.

• Midcentury

  166

  The names of the 1940s, 50s and 60s — currently in the dead zone, too recent to read as vintage and too dated to read as current.

• Traditional

  166

  Names with centuries of continuous use behind them, usually carried by the church, the crown or the family Bible rather than by fashion..

• Modern

  38,600

  Names that did not exist, or barely existed, before the twentieth century.

• Seventies

  74

  The names of the 1970s.

• Eighties

  67

  Names that peaked in the 1980s, when the American charts turned over faster than at any point before.

• Nineties

  72

  The 1990s peak group.

• Millennial

  75

  Names that crested around the turn of the century.

By Sound & Shape

• Short

  361

  Four letters or fewer, or one syllable.

• Unisex

  179

  Names given to boys and girls in real numbers, not merely in theory.

• Nickname Names

  40

  Short forms registered as the full legal name.

• Respellings

  46

  A familiar name written a new way.

• Romantic

  51

  Long, flowing, vowel-heavy names, usually with three or four syllables and a soft ending.

By Where It Came From

• Biblical

  227

  Names borne by someone in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.

• Surname Names

  265

  Family names used as first names.

• Place Names

  93

  Names taken from somewhere on a map.

• Nature Names

  98

  Flowers, trees, weather, stones and creatures.

• Mythological

  59

  Names from Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic and Egyptian myth.

• Literary

  80

  Names invented or popularised by a book or play.

• Saints

  43

  Names carried by the calendar of saints, which is how most Latin and Greek names reached northern Europe at all.

• Religious

  58

  Names carrying a devotional meaning rather than merely a scriptural bearer — praise, mercy, blessing, faith.

• Invented

  52

  Names with a traceable moment of creation.

By Where It Is Going

These four follow the birth records: a name is rising, fading, enduring or reviving by how its recent years compare with its earlier ones.

• Rising

  18,177

  Measured from the birth records, not asserted.

• Fading

  21,065

  Names on the way down.

• Enduring

  8,721

  Names whose curve barely moves across the whole series.

• Reviving

  764

  Names with a clear peak long ago and a clear climb now — the shape that proves the hundred-year rule rather than merely illustrating it..

• Scattered

  9,521

  Names that appear in the records, disappear, and come back — never in continuous use, and never quite gone either.