At just 15 weeks of age, there are only a handful of things to know about Charlie: She loves chewing on her fingers, she rarely sleeps more than a few hours and she's always curious about the outdoors.
Charlie also shares the Northern Territory's 2021 most popular boy's baby name, despite her parents, Chris and Roze Forte — who moved to Darwin from Newcastle last week — being resolute they wouldn't name their child "a really popular name".
Isla and Charlie edged out Charlotte and William as the most popular baby names of 2021 in the Northern Territory, while Jack remained in second place and Ivy reappeared as a highly ranked contender for the first time since 2018.
NT Births, Deaths and Marriages data shows James rose from seventh place to third and Charlotte — a national favourite for years — slipped to fifth place.
Ezekiel, Florence, Luna, Frankie and Archie — the name of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's son — broke into the Territory's top-40 names for the first time.
Ava was back in at fourth place after disappearing in 2020 and Oliver slipped five places.
There were 3,392 babies born in the Territory's major hospitals last year, including 129 at Gove District Hospital in the East Arnhem region, 229 in Katherine and 738 in Alice Springs.
Almost 100 more babies were born last year — 3,392 in 2021 compared with 3,294 in 2020 — and only 85 more than 2017.
Keeping with global, male-biased trends, there were 43 more boys than girls born.
Ms Forte said choosing a name was a decision that the couple weighed throughout her entire pregnancy.
But, after months of debate and doubt, Charlie was a spontaneous, "last-minute" pick.
"For us, it just feels like a great fit," Ms Forte said.
"We really debated the idea of a unisex name and growing into the name … you think about the name across a life span.
"We really liked Olivia for a little while, but it was just such a popular name from what we could tell from Google searches … and we didn't want a really popular name," Chris added.
"You definitely feel the pressure as time goes along."
It's a big decision, but what's in a name?
Lauren Rosewarne — a social scientist and associate professor at the University of Melbourne — says that, while names are often heavily influenced by famous people, popular films and characters in books, there is a long history of established names which come and go in fashion.
However, over the past couple of years, there has been a resurgence in traditional names that are easy to pronounce and easy to spell, she said.
"These names have sentimental attachments … or it's about honouring someone in the family who might have died, that they found while researching the family tree," she said.
"There's also a heightened awareness now about things such as spelling of names and, perhaps, the burden that [can be] on the head of a child who has a name that has a unique spelling."
She said that, while all names have a start — either from traditional sources such as the Bible or were invented by writers — the revival of names typically happens in inner-city suburbs, particularly those that are "associated with hipsters".
"Hipsters were blamed for the resurgence of old-fashioned names like June, and Dawn and Violet — those old-fashioned names that we associate with our grandparent's friends," she said.
"And then they spread out to the other suburbs."
The classics revived
Ms Forte, who grew up explaining her "unusual" full name, said she was drawn to the classics.
"It's a great conversation starter, but that's what it's like for your whole life — you have a conversation-starter for your name," she said.
Darwin couple Hannah Reedy and her partner also went for an "old fashioned, classic name" after months of wavering between Lola and Violet for their daughter, before ultimately choosing Violet.
It was months of sitting around the dinner table, pouring over baby books and making short-lists before the decision was ultimately left up to her partner.
"Violet was his favourite name, Lola was mine," she said.
"For our first child, I completely trumped him. After a three-day labour and lots of drugs I looked at him for the first time and said, 'He's a Max' and completely ignored all his wishes."
And while Hannah says Max has lived up to his name – "always living life to the maximum" — Dr Rosewarne says it's unlikely names have a significant influence on personalities or futures.
"There are studies that show that people with difficult-to-pronounce names … have more difficulties getting through job interviews … and men with the name John are still overly representative as [chief executives]," she said.
"But there's probably too much thinking in terms of whether a name has the ability to put you on a completely different track in life. You're probably going to be influenced by the same genetic [and] social factors that you would have seen with if your name was [something different]."
