What are "American" names?

[CheerfulYank]

I've seen that term bandied about a bit and I'm curious.

Is it the whole surname trend thing? I love my country, but I have to admit I'm sick of all the little Parkers/Mackenzies/Carters running around as well as the Ayden/Kayden/Jayden business. So...just curious! And mightily bored. It's 2 in the morning here but am on vacation and can't force myself to sleep yet!

CheerfulYank thanks for the pronounciation guide!

Candy
Tamara

just for the record, I love America, but obviously intelligent, liberal americans are fairly similar to intelligent, liberal brits, so it's the differences that are interesting. OK, the differences are at the lower end of the food chain (on both continents).

how about this to span the continents; Kardonnay???

pasturesnew, yeah, what's wrong with Shona?!

Also............. Brooke. I know a Brooke, and she's very nice. But it rhymes with fuck, ruck, suck..

Brooke rhymes with fuck? I thought it rhymed with book/look/cook?

Well it depends how far north you live...

ROFL at Toolio DeSac
I do actually know a Tulio and we told him about Toolio DeSac, he was so sad........

It rhymes with them all.

I don't understand the thought process behind these surnames-as-names.

dh and I played 'Girl or boy?' with dd's yearbook, because it really is impossible to tell. We're surrounded with:

Tucker
Piper
Cooper
Hunter
Driver

etc. etc.

What's stopping them from going with 'Plumber?'

Oh... and then you get into your Marybeths and Gracelyns and so on. The head of the PTA at my kids school was called Judybeth.

I've only ever heard of Brooke as in rhymes with look. Never heard it pronounced "Bruck"! It is interesting, the liberal vs. conservative thing. It used to be that the conservatives were naming their children things like Matthew, John, etc, and the liberals were using more out-there names. But now you have Sarah Palin, FGS, with Bristol, Piper, Track, Trig, and whatnot. UGH is all I can say. Give me a Charlie or Sophie any day!

I know a boy named Cassidy and a girl (of Phillipino extraction) named Kassidi. There's a rash of Michaela/ Mikayla's where I live -- all their parents think it's an Irish name; I felt really bad disabusing them, but I feel it's my pedantic duty . I also had to tell the truth about Megan/ Meghan; again very popularly considered to be an Irish name in my neck of the woods. There's one woman with a Lauren, who was convinced that was also an Irish name (the mother is Cuban, and the DD's father is French). All the Mc... names for girls really amuse me. Plus people thinking most Irish girls are named Mary-XYZ. I know a family of girls and their names are Mary Pat, Mary Beth, Mary Kay and Mary Jo. I kid you not. There are particular cultures in the US where making up a name for a baby is de rigeur, but in the US it is not considered pc to poke fun at this or raise an eyebrow at the names. I find the use of surnames very American. Also the desperate efforts to come up with original spellings for names that are already in circulation.

Recommend babynamewizard.com for a look at geographical and cultural name trends in the US, plus historical analysis. Sarah Palin's name choices tell quite a bit about her politics, it seems.

Some of the names just seem so odd, to a traditional Brit ear/eye (mine); I just can't believe that out of all the names in the world someone liked these best. I'm thinking of things I've come across like Kendrie for a girl or Gager for a boy. I understand they're surnames, but they're not very attractive sounding; I can't see how you'd arrive at them.

What I hate is when someone takes a perfectly acceptable name, such as Madeleine, and changes it to "Madeelynn" or something for Heaven's sake. why, oh why?

MathAnxiety, didn't realiseyou were int he states! most irish girls called ella, emma, sophie and lily so em.............. that would disappoint I think.

LOL at plumber, I'm on 2nd glass of vino but still that tickled me. Plumber, come here and brush your teeth NOW!

puffdiddy (or whateverhe calls himselff, sean combs) one of his children's names has an apostrophe inthe middle of it. That is the only bit I remember.

The Mary this, that and the other thing - I didn't realise this was supposed to be Irish, I thought it was Anglo-Spanish as in Spain Maria Eugenia would be called Eugenia etc. and might have a sister Maria Penelope whatever without it being odd. It is fairly normal / traditional though as far as I am aware in a big Catholic family for all the girls to have Mary as a middle name, I don't know if this is Irish but I have seen it in English Catholic families.

DH had to correspond with an American lady called Lisa Beth once for work, he had to double-check her name was not Elizabeth and she thought it was a really strange question.

Forgot to mention the old chestnut Colleen... Irish Americans deserve a whole university department all to themselves, to be studied from just about every angle there is in the academic world . They have a lot of misconceptions about Ireland and Irishness, hence the Mary-this and Mary-that names. Friends who visited Ireland with their DCs and their American Irish names were shaken to the core when they returned . The Mary thing is very Catholic, probably going out of style a bit in Ireland now, but I think Marie as a middle name is still going strong. Mary was even popular for boys in Ireland as a middle name, but I think this would be very unusual now.

I too think a lot of the names I have heard are not even pretty: Kendra, Twyla, Addison (surely a syndrome or disease of the kidneys or such?), Chuck, Skip, Kelsey (assumed to be an Irish name)...

The surnames as names really are very androgynous. The boy named Cassidy got invited to all the "girl only" parties in kindergarten (going to make-a-necklace bead workshop parties, etc.) until all the parents copped on, including Cassidy's.

Colleen would be a tiny bit patronising as a name, imo. To be described as a colleen! well, it'd be like gay byrne describing the roses of tralee as loverley gurls (back in the days before they all had 1st class degrees in International marketing with french and japanese!)

There was a bit in a Marian Keyes book about a character's Mum going out to lunch to celebrate with her friends; Mary B, Marian, Marie, Marion, and Mary S. I was howling with laughter, that sounds like a list of my mum's friends too!

Oooh, Cassidy - that's nice.

Hank, Chip and Chuck spring to mind as 'American' names.

Addyson with a Y. well now it's feminine