Now & Then: Tell me your name and I'll guess your age

Whatever happened to Homer? Or Daphne?Those were the names of people my mother knew when she was young. In fact, the names of my mother and her siblings are seldom heard these days.

She was Sybil Beulah and her sisters were Lucille and Bertha Mildred. The brothers were Raymond and Virgil.

I looked up the top five names from 1925, 100 years ago, and found these: 

Mary, Dorothy, Betty, Helen and Margaret for the girls and Robert, John, William, James and Charles for the boys.

Those favorites changed little for the next 40 years or so, although by 1965 Lisa and Kimberly were appearing in the top five while the boy names remained the same.

Then by the 1970s, Michelle, Jennifer and Angela were becoming popular. Meanwhile, on the boy’s side, Christopher, Jason and Michael were reaching the top five.

That seemed to open the gates as parents were choosing to give babies their own identities. Girls were starting school with monikers such as Ashley, Brittany and Amanda. Boys were always a little slower in adopting new names but soon there were Andrew and Christopher topping the lists.

After the year 2000, Madison, Emily and Ava were claiming footholds in the top five. For the boys, Jacob and Joshua had found popularity.

Mary, Betty and Helen seemed to have lost favor with new parents. Even John, William and Charles had slipped out of the top names.

So, OK, I couldn’t resist comparing today’s top 10 names with the top 10 of 1947, the year of my birth. Surely there would be a name or two that’s survived 78 years, no?

Looking back at the top names of ’47, I felt like I was back in grade school. The girl names, in order from 1 through 10, were: Linda, Mary, Patricia, Barbara, Sandra, Carol, Nancy, Susan, Sharon and Donna. 

It’s not surprising that Linda was No. 1. My classes in school often had three Lindas. My graduation class had two, but only because one of the Lindas had to move to another school. But we still invite her to our class reunions.

The top boy names were almost what I’d call ordinary. Well, except for No. 10. The boy names, in order, from 1947, were: James, Robert, John, William, Richard, David, Michael, Thomas, Charles and, er, Larry.

I can identify each of those names with a fellow student in school or a neighbor or a relative. What’s striking to me is that, while Larry comes in at the bottom of the 10, there were many school years when I was one of three Larrys in my class.

I don’t know how that worked out since most years there were three classes in my grade. Maybe our principal had a devious sense of humor.

Now that we’ve gone back in time, we can fast-for-ward to 2025 and the top 10 girl and boy names of this year. First the girls: Olivia, Amelia, Sophia, Emma, Isabella, Charlotte, Eliana, Ellie, Aurora and Mia. 

Not a Linda to be found. Or a Mary or, gulp, not even a Susan.

Some of these names, to me, seem to go back to the early 20th century. Olivia reminds me of the Waltons. Amelia, of course, was a fly lady. Sophia, for us guys at least, conjures up pleasurable images.

Emma, Isabella, Charlotte, Eliana and Ellie seem, in my mind, to go back in time. One of the world’s greatest soccer players may have inspired Mia.

As for Aurora, it seems to be one name of twins, the other being Borealis. And you know a girl named Aurora is going to be called Rory.

Now the latest boys names: Noah, Liam, Oliver, Elijah, Mateo, Levi, Lucas, Ezra, Asher and Luca. 

Noah, Elijah, Levi, Ezra and Asher seem to indicate a revival of Bible names. Liam is a movie star and Oliver is a movie. Mateo and Luca are just Romanized forms of Matthew and Luke. Lucas is an expansion of Luke.

If giving names to babies is difficult enough, now mothers want to use abnormal spellings of normal names. My youngest great-grandchild’s name sounds like aria, which is a song in an opera. But her mother chose to spell it Ariya, or is it Aryia? I can’t ever get it straight.

I recently interviewed a man whose young daughter was named MaryAnn. Only her mother chose to spell it Mereighan. I told him his girl would have to spell her name for the rest of her life.

But at least her name is different, right?

n Larry Penkava, is a writer for Randolph Hub. Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.