what's with all the biblical names about at the moment?

[workshy]

my children are older but I love hearing about all the trends -but as I am very slow on the uptake it has only just occured to me that biblical names are on the rise

not too long ago people were actively avoiding biblical names and yes I know not everyone but they did drop signifficantly and now they seem to be making a comeback

it is just that they are old lady/man names?

I doubt there has ever been a time when Biblical names in general were unpopular. Just that different ones go in and out of fashion. David, Mark, Paul and Jonathan give way to Benjamin, Samuel, Joshua and Adam, then it's the turn of Noah, Elijah, Aaron and Seth .... vaguely speaking.

Percy's right.

I could be being cynical (I usually am) but if your local RC scool is the one with the good results then a biblical or saint's name might help convince the school you are RC.

Substitiute as appropropriate for other faith schools.

I think it's just the trend. We don't think of John, Matt, James, Ben, Sam, whatever as "biblical" and yet they are.

Here in the US people seem to go further and further with trends. Irish/Scottish names were popular, and now that Aidan, Liam, etc are overdone names like Declan and Eamonn are sky-rocketing. Flower names... Lily and Rose are too commonplace, so here come a bunch of little Azaleas and Dahlias. I'm seeing it with biblical names too. Isaiah and Jacob and Noah are absolutely everywhere, so now people are going deeper to Asa, Asher, Ezra.

There have always been many Biblical names in use.

A lot of the names you wouldn't notice as being "Biblical" because they are so familiar, e.g. James, Felix, Luke, Jonathan, Ethan, Benjamin, Daniel, Nathan, Henry, Charles, Thomas, William, Lawrence, Richard, Naomi, Zoe, Sophia, Natalie, Sarah, Hannah, Catherine, Emma, Joy, Felicity, Ruth, Sylvia, Rachel, Rebecca.

I think choosing some of the more unusual Biblical names into use is part of the general trend of people wanting to think of less used names.

Er, Henry is definitely not biblical. Nor is Richard, William, Emma or Charles.

I'm pretty sure Felicity, Natalie, Sylvia, Catherine, Lawrence, Zoe, Sophia and Joy aren't mentioned in the Bible either.

Many of them are not used as names in the bible but nearly all of them derive from biblical settings, latin words relating to birth & christmas, or saints names - Felicity, Natalie, Joy and Emma in particular. 'Biblical' in its widest sense perhaps.

My boys are Nathaniel and Malachi - both biblical I have been told - but we are not churchy. :)

The end it nigh, that is why! :o

Oh right, well blame these guys DCGirl.

www.babynamesorigins.com/biblegirls.html

Point still stands though - there have always been plenty of Biblical names used, as others have said.

Agree with Percy. When I was at school Peter, David and John were really popular. Relatives born in the 70s are Samuel, Benjamin, Thomas and Matthew. Just a variation on a theme of what we regard as "classic" names.