The yearly index of the most popular names in New South Wales dropped last week, and for anyone who sporadically logs on to Facebook to find half of their graduating class pregnant, the results are likely unsurprising. For girls, Isla and Amelia came in equal first with 383 registered births each, followed by Olivia, Mia and Charlotte. For boys, Oliver, Noah, Leo, Henry and Luca rounded out the top five.
Depending on your individuality complex, the results could be benign or devastating. If you chose the name Isla before 2008, you were a pioneer. It was unlikely your baby girl would need to fight for the right to be called Isla in school without the qualifying initial of her last name. Now, the name has become my generation’s answer to “Jessica”. All babies born from the late noughties called Isla are now destined for a lifetime of saying “Isla with an S” when they order iced lattes (climate change has rendered hot coffee obsolete).
It could be a consequence of being a woman of child-bearing age but comparing baby name lists with my friends has become a sport. Almost everyone I know has a list in their Notes app. It’s a compulsion at this point. Some friends guard their lists like newborns, keeping them locked away in case a frenemy nabs them in spite. Others are happy to broadcast their lists, chuffed with their perceived balance of class and uniqueness. A few years ago I thought I ate when I wrote down the names Luca, Leo and Ted (short for Edward, which is super considerate since it suits both a cute toddler and a distinguished 92-year-old man). It was humbling then to compare lists with friends and Instagram followers, only to discover my top selects had been ransacked by the wider public.
My dismay is only hypothetical, given my imaginary baby is yet to be delivered by stork. What happens though when a friend actually does “steal” your name for their baby? I asked those same Instagram followers. The fights and fallouts were harrowing.
“My friend was two days off giving birth and she was telling me her chosen baby names,” one woman told me. “She asked what mine were and I told her my top name. Two days later, the baby came and she gave her my name.”
Though disappointing, this experience was not uncommon. Another person went as far as announcing the name of their baby on Instagram before the bub had even been born, just so they could “bags” it before their even-more-pregnant friend gave birth. The worst though was the story of a woman’s sister-in-law who had her dream baby name sorted only for her brother to steal it to rename his two-year-old daughter. In what world!
What surprised me most though was that the overwhelmingly majority of respondents had their names nabbed not for other children but for dogs. “My sister wants to name her puppy my number one boy name and I cracked it (embarrassing)” one self-aware woman told me. “My dad was the only person I told my baby name to and he used it on his new dog,” wrote another. A third person reverse engineered the problem: “I had a ten-year-old dog when my first born came along, and we gave the name to the baby and changed the dog’s.” Rufus could not be reached for comment.
Why are we all so unoriginal? Social contagion, popular culture and peer influence all play a part in name waves. Beloved celebrities are to blame, too. Margot Robbie is probably the most obvious example, with her first name cracking the top 100 names of 2022. She may have been snubbed at the Oscars for Barbie, but her legacy will be felt for at least another 100 years.
Having a common first name isn’t the worst thing in the world. I think Elon Musk might beg to differ considering he and Grimes named their baby X Æ A-12. Still, it can be upsetting if your favourite baby name goes on to become ubiquitous.
My mum knows this experience intimately. She wanted to call her first-born Julia, after her late mother, but when my aunt fell pregnant a year before her in 1991, she nabbed the name. Instead of blowing my parents on to an entirely different course, it inspired creativity. Out popped Olivia – a combination of Julia, and my dad’s mum’s name, Olive. No good brainwave goes unpunished though, as since 1992 Olivia has maintained a vice grip on these lists. “No one had the name when your sister was born!” my mum cries, as though the entire child-bearing population conspired against her.
It could be worse, though. She could be called X Æ A-12.
• Lucinda Price is a writer, presenter and comedian
