Parenting expert shares warning sign your baby name is about to become very popular

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Pamela Redmond, the founder of baby name website Nameberry, has shared her expert opinion on picking a name for your child and the warning signs that your chosen name is about to blow up in popularity

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The top baby names of 2022

When it comes to naming your baby, some people will have had their perfect names picked out for years, much like Monica Gellar in Friends, while others won’t know where to start and may turn to the top 100 baby name lists for inspiration.

However, if you’re not keen on giving your child a name that’s considered popular and instead would prefer something a bit more unique, then you might need to dig a little deeper.

But how can you tell if the moniker you select is going to end up blowing up in popularity and suddenly being used by parents everywhere over the next few years? Baby name expert Pamela Redmond, the founder of Nameberry.com, has shared some of the warning signs you can look out for that a name is about to rocket up the charts.

Pamela says there is a lot of bigger issues to take into consideration when picking a name, including family identity, religion, and culture.

She told The Mirror: “Choosing a name is so difficult because it’s really about choosing your family identity and it’s especially hard if you’re a first-time parent as this may be the first time you’ve thought about these issues and big questions, as until you’re choosing a name for a child you don’t have much reason to think about things in this specific way.

“For instance, how close do you want to be to your family? How do you feel about your ethnic or religious background or origins? How important are these to you?

“Where do you see your place in society – are you more comfortable standing out and being different from everyone else or are you truly comfortable fitting in with everyone else? How did you feel about your own name growing up?

“With two people together, the answers to these questions are going to be very different so it’s a good opportunity to get to know yourself and each other better, but it can also be an area for a lot of disagreement.”

If after answering all these questions you ultimately decide you want your little one to have a name that no one else in their class will have then there are a few simple things you can do, according to the expert.

The first is to take a look at the trend lines.

Pamela explains: “If a name has been rising rapidly over the past few years, it’s unlikely to suddenly change course. This includes both names with steep jumps and those with steady but significant gains.

“Names likely to rise on the Top 100 have had an upward trajectory for years and often fit a particular trend — either stylish sounds or a popular style like nature names, for example.”

Her next warning sign to look out for is similarities to a name that’s already popular as parents “love an alternative”.

“If they think Eloise is overused, they’ll go with Elodie or Elowen,” Pamela explains. “If a name is similar to an already popular name, forward-looking parents have probably already caught on.

“Similarly, rare names that are close in sound to popular name families feel more common than they actually are because you are hearing the sounds often.

“For example, Lilith is outside the Top 500 in the UK, but it may feel more common because of the popularity of similar names such as Lily, Lilly, Lilah, Lillie and Liliana which are all in the Top 300.”

The baby name expert adds that when it comes to the top baby name lists, the cut-offs are “kind of arbitrary” when attempting to work out which names are going more or less common in the future.

However, she adds that the Top 100 is obviously considered to be very popular, while somewhere in the middle of the charts between the Top 400 to 700 is likely to be seen as the “middle ground” for those wanting something a little bit different.

“These names will still be familiar to people, but they’re not outlandish and they’re not exactly popular yet. Some of those are going to get a lot more popular in the next five or 10 years though.

“And then anything outside of the Top 1000 will be less familiar, and it’s where we break our lists.”

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