Why are Americans more open to modern names than British people?

[Dawncarter100287]

I’m from US and have been on this website and other name forum websites for a long time and I have a question for British people mainly. I’ve noticed that brits always tend to stick to the old fashioned common names like Olivia, lily, Ella (Which are top names here aswell don’t get me wrong) but on the US charts there are a lot more modern names like paisley, kinsley, raelyn etc. I understand that everyone has different tastes and not everyone in America likes the modern style names either, but I’ve seen Brits call these newer names “trashy” or “too American” as insults. I’ve looked through the British top 100 and there arent really any standout names why are British people not as adventurous with their naming choices as Americans are?

I'm sure there is a class thing here as there is in the US. However the US has large numbers of different peoples including those who bring their names with them from all over the world and religions and those who want specifically to remember their African heritage. The UK has fewer. I think what many people are not sure of is the taking of names off TV or appropriating names which don't belong to you. I love Scots and Irish names but wouldn't use them.

You might as well ask why don’t UK parents call their sons the same name as their father but add a number on the end. Because we don’t. Or why don’t most UK women use their maiden name as an adjunct to their husbands surname as many US women do. Because we don’t. Or why don’t UK women use dottir on the end of our fathers surname as they do in Iceland. Because we don’t.

Because British people favour British names surely? As in Ireland we favour Irish names and so on. Culture, heritage,class and exposure all play parts. Also the US takes different bits from different cultures as it's a melting pot, that's less so in other countries. Your post reads to me that you feel America leads the way with things and others follow and you are wondering why names have not been the same?

As a non Brit living here for many years. I would say it's because everyone is still obsessed with class. 'American' names are seen as chavvy & low class. Americans are a lot more accepting of new & different.

I always thought the US was behind European countries in terms of fashion/ pop culture when I was younger. Now they have cheap international flights access to the internet and greater influence from immigrants in the past 20 years it's caught up a bit.

I still don't think Paisley, Kinsley, or Raelyn sound 'modern' though (whatever that means), they sound dated on someone under 20+ years old

I don't think a country that thinks "Randy" is acceptable as a name gets to judge anywhere else...

😂

What's wrong with Randy?. Who gets to chose if a name is 'acceptable'?. My Fil is Dick

😂😂😂

Omg my Indian friend named her child a classic Indian name. How dare she not call him Chase or Ramen or Osman.

It depends on area, where I live there's a lot of names such as seraya, charity, coby, Harlow, arlo, destiny.

My children all have traditional names because I think they are pretty. But I would say those names have only been popular in the last 20 years or so.

My childhood everyone was Tracy, Sharon, Kelly, Louise , Steven, Andrew

Americans are a lot more accepting of new & different

Sometimes in their quest for new and different they skirt around nice. Shame.

@TryingNotToReact9to5 Irish names are so pretty

Anyone who names their kid Harlow has definitely not been to Harlow.

Short for Richard?

Names go through cycles in whatever country you live in. The more multicultural your country, the more variety in the names. I'm irish and back in the 90s it was all the same names but now I know children of all different nationalities with a host of different names. Although among my Irish friends its irish names that are very popular at the moment , especially older irish names.

Dogwhistlae for a girl, I just think it’s prettier that way

What's wrong with Randy?. Who gets to chose if a name is 'acceptable'?. My Fil is Dick

Nothing at all if you're in your 70's or older. Most younger men named Richard use Rick, Ricky, Rich, or Richy.

Paisley, Kailyn, Raelyn, Shmaelyn ARE NOT NAMES, THEY ARE MADE UP WORDS .
HTH

Because Raelyn is fucking awful 🤷‍♀️

I could be wrong but I lived in the US and felt the boys names were strong traditional names - Patrick, Jon, and the girls were not so much, so Chelsea (a part of London) and Paisley (a not very desirable town in Scotland) or Madison , the capital of ?Missouri so it seemed a bit sexist to me.

I thought maybe it was a population thing. If your (full) name is supposed to be a unique identifier you should have a full name that is different from everyone in your social circle so that you know when you are being spoken to or about.

When in the UK we had a smaller population and people didnt travel out of their hometown much, being John Carpenter was fine as there would be only a few carpenters in your town and you were probably the only one of those carpenters called John.
Then as populations grew the few names needed to strech further, and you got John, Jack, Jimmy, James, Johnny, Johnathan etc
And there is a traditional element to a lot of UK names that follow trends in families so you still get all those names 100s of years later and newer names fit into similar sounds so you get Jason, Jackson, Jared etc

In the US the population is way bigger and grew much faster so you need many more 'new' names to be in the poulation mix to still have names work as a unique identifier. These names won't follow the same routes as newer UK names because they are different countries and different cultures.

The further the countries split, the more obvious the differences are and so you get names like Deltalee, Draxx and Jessalyn that sound so different from the way names have evolved in the UK that they do sound 'very american'

Raelynn is a variant of Raeleen/Raelene, isn't it? Which to my Australian ears is a woman in her 70s - think the Olympian Raelene Boyle.

In the UK those sorts of names are considered trashy, low class, low aspirations, poor.
Traditional names are considered classy, wealthy background, high status.
Some more modern names creep in and become classy too but thats a general rule/ idea that most consciously / subconsciously subscribe to.

stuntbubbles

Dogwhistlae for a girl, I just think it’s prettier that way