According to Laura Wattenberg,
author of the popular book,
“The Baby Name Wizard”,
how we name children
has fundamentally changed,
reflecting more individualism.
In the 1950s,
the top 25 most common boy’s names
and the top 50 girl’s names
accounted for half of babies born.
Today, it takes the top 134 boy’s names
and 320 girl’s names
to cover half of babies born.
There is a balance
between having a unique name
for a child
and fitting into society.
“We all want to be different
from each other,
but our tastes are still
as much alike as they ever were.
So the result is
we have a thousand tiny variations on a theme.
You get Kayden, Brayden, Hayden, Jayden.”
We see this same phenomenon
in brand names.
Different yet the same.