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?

British and other European names having “gone” to the US doesn’t automatically mean that US names will come back the other way. Lots of British names come either from the Bible/early church and it’s influence sweeping across Europe with the Roman Empire or from Norse/celtic/Germanic etc traditions because of the peoples making up Britain. There has been no mass immigration of US citizens into Britain ever so that influence has not arrived. I think it doesn’t occur to most UK parents to call their dc Brock/Randy/Emery any more than it does to use a Korean name. It’s to do with Britain being a different country from the USA. Paisley is a bit different as it is a surname here (famously Ian’s which could influence either way depending on your religion and politics) but it’s also a not great town and when using place names people tend to go a bit more desirable or where they have a connection like Paris or India or Skye or Lewis. What sounds modern varies wildly from place to place

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why are British people not as adventurous with their naming choices as Americans are?

why aren't you?

I went to a North American run school in the 80s and had a classmate called Adolf.
Pronounced "Ay-dolf" not "Ah-dolf".
He was quite insistent about that.
Not sure whether that ever had a brush with popularity in the UK.

(There was also a family with three children called Penelope, Dennis and Kenneth just so it would sound cute when their parents called them "Penny, Denny and Kenny".
And parents are supposed to love you...)

Paisley and Kinsley may be first name as surname, but Raelyn seems more like a riff on one of those US southern names like Ellie Mae and Billy Bob (Rae Lynn?) Anyway, surnames as first names have been popular in the US and UK for much longer than ten years, including for girls - for example the English actress Hayley Mills was born in 1946; Hayley was a family surname which was also her mother's middle name.

They're pretty widely used, traditionally, in Scotland too. The difference more recently - and I'd put it several decades back - is that people used to routinely use surnames as middle or first names for a baby to keep a family connection (and sometimes to flatter a relative who may have family money) rather than the rash of surnames being used randomly when there's no family connection and people just like the name.

Also, Paisley was the surname of a virulent anti-Catholic politician who was once upon a time First Minister of Northern Ireland - it's a bit like calling your child Nixon or McCarthy or maybe Huckabee. (Although I do quite like Huckabee; so many cute nicknames!!).

I think it is a myth that Americans are all giving their dc more modern names.
We live in the USA and my dc's friends have a pretty normal bunch of names by UK standards.
They are a little more international because there are a wide variety of backgrounds but none of the sorts of names listed by OP.
Maybe out in suburbs or the countryside? But in major US cities it isn't happening in my experience.

Also it isn't adventurous to call your girl MacKenzie it is just uneducated (a slight bugbear of mine)

And don't Americans have an increasing love of Trevor?

Not used by the UK in any significant numbers since the 1960's. The ones I know are either retired or late middle aged and feel lumbered with an old fashioned name.

I remember this exact same post from nameberry 🙂

One person's modern name is another's trashy nonsense, I guess.

I feel I was quite adventurous with dd's name. It might be 3000 years old, but it has a good meaning and is part of a traditional foreign language song.

I remember watching an American film and there was a child with a name like Trevor. General laughing in the audience. Wasn’t there a child, Trevor, in The Affair too? It’s just a bit unimaginable here, now anyway.

The posters who think the US don't have a class system are fooling themselves too.

It may not be based on a feudal system of aristocracy, squires, and peasants, but it is based on the haves and have nots.

Rednecks - lower class/ disregarded
Blue collar - working class
White collar/ self employed - lower middle
Small business owners/ lower paid professional - middle class
Medium business owners, well paid professionals, etc. - upper middle
Wealthy professionals/ trust funds/ corporation owners - Elite!

Are Americans more adventurous?

i don’t know.

my American great-nephews are Oliver William and Benjamin Patrick.

paisley - anyone who has ever been to Paisley would understand why it’s not popular here.

Mackenzie etc - as mentioned above, that’s not a girls name. Because Mac/Mc means “son of”. The Feminine form is Nic - so NicKenzie.

I think it's because as a whole British people are more self deprecating and tend to feel more embarrassed to be seen as outlandish (and are conversely more judgemental of others that are), compared to Americans.

I know a Paisley who is 40. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Lyn/Lynn/Lynne is very old fashioned in the UK so isn’t normally used now. I was born in the 60’s and there were usually at least 3 in every school year in Scotland. Even now I only hear of women over 50 with these names.

I'd always assumed that the UK have more traditional / defined names as an older country. Where in America anything goes and its a bit more faddy.

I really hate place names (Camden/Madison) as first names or surnames as first names (Jackson/Mason) but the few yanks I know have names like that.

Realise this makes me sound horrid.

Popular, top 150 names in England and Wales from last year:

Paisley, Darcy, Aaliyah, Ottilie, Amaya, Aria, Hallie, Aurora, Lola, Amelie, Lyra, Neveah, Maddison, Nova, Frankie.

Marley, Rex, Arlo, Dexter, Beau, Jayden, Sonny, Grayson, Hunter, Jaxon, Finley.

I’m not saying anything, good or bad about these names, some of which I like some I don’t, but they are examples of me not really seeing what you’re saying.

Because it is a different country we have a different culture resulting in different likes and dislikes…

This

It's really simple

'Do you know anyone over age of 10 with them names'

I can imagine this said with a Northern English accent rather than an American one. It's a dialect thing.

Or a Southern State US accent.

I don't think all Americans are open to names like the ones you mentioned. I'm sure plenty (maybe even the majority?) of Americans sneer at Raelyn, Navylee, Nevaeh etc.

Also it isn't adventurous to call your girl MacKenzie it is just uneducated (a slight bugbear of mine)

The lack of punctuation in this sentence is quite amusing.

I'm dyslexic I can write whole pages without any punctuation, sorry 🤣.

Firstly, your idea of what constitutes a "modern" name is very America-centric. It would be like me saying that Americans don't use modern French names like Lilou and Océane, so therefore Americans must not like modern names. Lots of names in England's top 100 are modern to England.

Secondly, different countries have different tastes. It's unrealistic to expect different cultures to favour the exact same names. British names are different from French names - that doesn't mean that one country is more adventurous or open-minded than the other; they're just different.