Can anyone pin point when this trend for unique/made up names started?

All this is true but I bet if you look up the register of births pre-1980 you will find far fewer made-up or VERY unusual names. Weird names are commonplace these days, oddly enough - if you want to be really wacky, you'd call your child Peter or Jane.

my grandmother had the most ridiculous name you've ever heard (it's italian, so pointless to post as it wouldn't mean anything to anyone else!). She was called something completely different all her life. When she died it was a nightmare, every single document/deed had a different name/spelling/combination....

also in italy there is a long and honoured tradition of wacky names: during the independence phase (mid-late 19th century) it was common for patriots to call their dcs with the names of foreign-occupied cities- Trento, Trieste, Italia Liberata (free Italy), etc.

Anarchists in the beginning of the 20th century called their kids non-christian names- Light, Progress, Electricity, Dynamo, Stone, etc etc- to distance themselves from the church.

I had cousins (born 70 odd years ago) called Primo and Segundo (first and second in Spanish) so I don't think we have first dibs on wacky names...

My (Argentine) great grandparents were called Angel and Innocentia (pronounced Innocence-y-aah) - how cool is that?

There have always been unusual names.

My great grandfather was called Christmas

not born on Christmas Day by a long way. Can you imagine the MN Jury ing away at that one.

People have ALWAYS given their kids weird/unusual names. In my family tree on both sides, we have some really weird names from 100s of years ago, including some from now-obscure songs and books, etc. (Can't remember them properly right now without checking with my Dad, but some were mad!).

On the other hand, as regards 'ordinary' names, so many children used to die in infancy or childhood, parents often used to give babies all the same names (boys and girls) so at least one might survive with a family name and also, they had such big families they stuck to simple names that were easy to remember.

Wow. big question. Read the name chapter in Freakonomics

I think more and more boys names become 'unusable' (or considered risky) as people (Americans first) start using them for girls. Then parents have to start looking for alternatives, like say Harvey which would just have been a sur name 20 years ago.

Some people say that upperclasses revere their pasts, and so they are drawn to old names like William and Peter.

WOrking classes or more optimistic about the future than glorifying their pasts, so they are slightly more drawn to modern-sounding names. Like Kody for example!

I read that somewhere btw, not my observation! Possibly in freakonomics, not sure.

Americans now that they have all merged and blended into a big melting pot can afford to think about their pasts a bit more. So they dig up names which sound Irish/Scottish to their ear, but in fact conform to American trends.

eg, Aidan cos we're of Irish descent, but bang a K on the front, sounds 'cooler' and you have Kaiden....

I think I read that in 'the name wizard'.

It's probably partly crept in from America (more US TV programmes or example) and the fact that we are more multicultural so there are many different names out there anyway.