2015 Baby Name Trends: Instagram Filters Are All The Rage
Babycenter released its annual list of most popular baby names yesterday — and it’s pretty anti-climactic. For the third year in a row, the top names have really not changed. We love the name Sophia, don’t we? And Jackson. That’s a good one. Perhaps more interesting than the lists themselves, are the trends that are arising in baby-naming. Did you know Instagram filters are a popular trend in baby names? As in, the filters you put on your images to make them more artsy? Not kidding.
Lux, Juno, Reyes, Ludwig, Amaro, Valencia, Willow… interesting names, right? Where did they come from? Historical heroines? Talented musicians of times passed? Majestic trees? Nope. The inspiration for these names is right under your nose. Literally. From Babycenter:
The Instagram-inspired name Lux is up 75 percent on our list of baby boy names, and it’s slightly up on our list of baby girl names too. (Though technically not a filter, the photo-editing tool balances exposure, adds brightness, and makes images pop.)
One newer filter, Ludwig, jumped 42 percent on our boys’ name list. Other popular filter names for boys include Amaro (up 26 percent),Reyes (up 10 percent), Hudson (up 4 percent), and Kelvin (up 3 percent).
For baby girls, the name Juno leaped 30 percent in popularity. (The Juno filter, introduced in 2015, makes outdoor photos especially gorgeous.) Valencia, which gives pictures a soft, warm glow, rose 26 percent on our girls’ name list. Willow gained 13 percent.
That’s hilarious. You’re pregnant, you’re tired — you can’t be bothered with all the brain power it takes to actually come up with an original name. You look down on your phone — and voila! Amaro is staring you in the face. Why not? My first child was named after a suggestion of a drunk customer at the bar I happened to be working in while I was pregnant. “Lucien is a gorgeous name, ” he uttered after ordering a double shot of whiskey. Sure! Sounds good!
The thing is, these are really cool names. And Instagram didn’t get to them first — they just happened to put them back on our radar.
Another entertaining trend? TV-show-character inspired names. Empire seems to be a crowd favorite. The Huffington Post notes, “character names from the hit show ‘Empire’ have risen rapidly on the popularity charts, with Dre up 77 percent, Lyon up 61 percent and Hakeem up 55 percent. For the first time in three years, the name Luscious appeared in the website’s name database as well.”
See, all that TV watching and fiddling with our phones is useful! We’re naming the next generation of kids!
And in case you’re interested, here are the top 10 girls and boys names, based on the names of over 340,000 babies born in 2015 to parents registered on the BabyCenter website. If they look familiar, it’s because they are. The list has stayed pretty much the same for the last three years!
Girls
Boys
Mia has surpassed Isabella for the number five spot, and Madison replaced Madelyn at number 10. The only change on the boys’ list is that Logan and Jacob have switched spots. If this year’s trends catch on, we may be looking at some wildly different lists next year.
