What do you think of old-fashioned names?

[NotWise]

I was thinking of names for female characters, and found myself drawn to some old-fashioned names -- Maude, for instance, or Blanche. I've known people who were so named, and I have good associations with the names, but I'm not sure how that carries over to the general population.

I suppose Faith and Charity could be in the same category, but I have very Protestant religious associations with those names. I shudder at some other old-fashioned names, like Esther or Bertha.

I can't think of comparable names for male characters. Albrecht maybe?

 

[SimonDoom]

I was thinking of names for female characters, and found myself drawn to some old-fashioned names -- Maude, for instance, or Blanche. I've known people who were so named, and I have good associations with the names, but I'm not sure how that carries over to the general population.

I suppose Faith and Charity could be in the same category, but I have very Protestant religious associations with those names. I shudder at some other old-fashioned names, like Esther or Bertha.

I can't think of comparable names for male characters. Albrecht maybe?

It depends on the generation. If you are writing a story about a contemporary character in her twenties, it wouldn't make sense to name her "Bertha." It's easy to search online and find lists of what names were popular in each decade.

"Mary" would be a perfectly reasonable name for a character born in the 1950s, but perhaps not for someone born in the mid-1990s.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I LOVE old classic names! I love Maude, but I also picture Maude from Harold and Maude when I hear the name and I love that movie and may have a crush on Ruth Gordon.

Some of my in real life kids names
Clara
Eleanore
Jane
Emaline

 

[NotWise]

"Mary" would be a perfectly reasonable name for a character born in the 1950s, but perhaps not for someone born in the mid-1990s.

It's a cultural thing, but Mary (or the more Mexican Guadalupe) are constants in the local Catholic/Hispanic community. I don't think they'll ever be out of style. Everyone needs a saint name.

 

[NotWise]

I LOVE old classic names! I love Maude, but I also picture Maude from Harold and Maude when I hear the name and I love that movie and may have a crush on Ruth Gordon.

Some of my in real life kids names
Clara
Eleanore
Jane
Emaline

Great names!

I totally had a crush on Ruth Gordon after Harold and Maude. I think a lot of people think of the old TV series when they think of Maude, and as far as I'm concerned that isn't very crush-worthy.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's a cultural thing, but Mary (or the more Mexican Guadalupe) are constants in the local Catholic/Hispanic community. I don't think they'll ever be out of style. Everyone needs a saint name.

It all depends on the cultural orientation of your character.

In 1959, Mary was the most popular girl name. In 1999, it was number 45.

In 1959 "Barbara" was a very popular name. In 1999, it was way outside the top 100. Almost nobody named their kid "Barbara."

The 1990s saw a resurgence of some old-fashioned names like Emma and Emily, which had been less popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

The most popular boy's name this year is "Liam", which is just amazing to me.

 

[whowrotethisshit]

I'm from a very traditional southern family so all of our names are old. I'm a fan. I don't use the top list of any one generation, I try to find a good fit for that character and go with it.

Some from my family; Beulah, Clarence, Georgia, Lovey, Zelda, Eva (pronounce Ev-ee) Mae, Ida Mae, Caroline, Elvis, George, Ralph, Harvey, Gilbert, Hubert.

Also, also, also,

“Her name was Maude and she drank whisky all day from a fruit jar under the counter.” - Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

I think of that line every time I hear the name Maude.

 

[NotWise]

The most popular boy's name this year is "Liam", which is just amazing to me.

"Jason" was a popular boy's name for a while. You might know several, and they're probably all in the same age range.

I don't think of Jason (or Liam) as being "old fashioned" names. Were they ever popular before? For women, Maude, Blanche, Faith, Charity, Bertha and a few others were fairly popular Victorian-age names.

 

[Maeven_quinn]

I'm from a very traditional southern family so all of our names are old. I'm a fan. I don't use the top list of any one generation, I try to find a good fit for that character and go with it.

Some from my family; Beulah, Clarence, Georgia, Lovey, Zelda, Eva (pronounce Ev-ee) Mae, Ida Mae, Caroline, Elvis, George, Ralph, Harvey, Gilbert, Hubert.

Also, also, also,

“Her name was Maude and she drank whisky all day from a fruit jar under the counter.” - Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

I think of that line every time I hear the name Maude.

If I was the baby making type, and had a girl, Zelda and Eva would be on my list of potential. I also like the name old time name Theodora, which I write with irony because I'm a secular existentialist.

I might name a son, I've always liked Irish and Scottish names like Liam or Bryce which sound a little old timey too.

 

[NotWise]

Some from my family; Beulah, Clarence, Georgia, Lovey, Zelda, Eva (pronounce Ev-ee) Mae, Ida Mae, Caroline, Elvis, George, Ralph, Harvey, Gilbert, Hubert.

Wonderful names. One of my daughters bears Mae as a middle name, and I'm attached to Zelda because of Mrs. Fitzgerald. Another of my daughters lived a little ways off from Zelda street in Montgomery.

Also, also, also,

“Her name was Maude and she drank whisky all day from a fruit jar under the counter.” - Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

I think of that line every time I hear the name Maude.

I have great associations with "Maude." I might put "Georgia" on my short list for new characters.

 

[SynSlave]

I can't see, hear or say Blanche without thinking golden girls. Even in reference to cooking.

 

[mynameisben]

Not enough people are named Ichabod.

 

[NotWise]

Not enough people are named Ichabod.

Or maybe Zachary.

 

[SynSlave]

Not enough people are named Ichabod.

There can be only one! *cuts off his head*

I deserve bonus points for the double entendre!

 

[NotWise]

I can't see, hear or say Blanche without thinking golden girls. Even in reference to cooking.

I think in cooking it would just be "blanch."

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Usually I'm juggling a number of factors when choosing a character name. The biggest is the personality, the appearance and name typically comes after for me. Some names are deliberately chosen (Tauriz, for instance, taken from Zoroastrian mythology), others are more random (Ray). Others are opposites, the agnostic Theodore/Theodora as was mentioned afore by another. I've used the top 100 names by decade on occasion when stumped, but that is thankfully rare for me.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

There can be only one! *cuts off his head*

I deserve bonus points for the double entendre!

*lifts SynSlave on a trident* Like this?

 

[Jada59]

I like some of the older names. Not all. I wanted to name my daughter Dulcinea. Nobody else liked that though.

 

[NotWise]

I met a "Priscilla" once. She was an old-south woman who controlled a lot of real estate. Really. A lot.

But her family seemed a little dysfunctional.

 

[NotWise]

I like some of the older names. Not all. I wanted to name my daughter Dulcinea. Nobody else liked that though.

Pretty name. I think Cervantes made it up. Kids in school would have called her "Dull" and it would have destroyed her life.

 

[mynameisben]

Kids in school would have called her "Dull" and it would have destroyed her life.

If you really want to destroy someone's life, you can't go wrong by naming him Dick.

 

[Hypoxia]

I grew up across the street from sisters named Faith, Hope, and Anne. The last was supposed to be Charity but dad ran off with a stewardess while she was cooking and the abandoned mom had her own ideas about child naming.

I usually research a time and place's common names for stories as needed. Some are unusual but true; in The Botanists, the true-life Yankee MC's given name really was Stīth (stEYEth) -- likely from the USA WASP tradition of giving a first son the mother's maiden name, roughly proclaiming an origin: northerners pre-1900 or southerners pre-1950. Religious and ethnic groups have other customs. But few Adolfs were born post-WWII.

Side note: A Brit traveler in 1850's USA wrote that men in the South and West were invariably addressed according to their body size. A tall man was General; a fat man was Judge; not so fat, Colonel; an ordinary man, Captain. Our famed Colonel Sanders wasn't skinny.

If you really want to destroy someone's life, you can't go wrong by naming him Dick.

One of my classmates was Terry Hurd, usually called Hairy Turd.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I like some of the older names. Not all. I wanted to name my daughter Dulcinea. Nobody else liked that though.

Dulicinea is a beautiful name. I can't read it or hear it without thinking of "Man of La Mancha" (not Don Quixote). My parents had a bunch of cast albums for musicals, and I used to listen to them while I washed the dishes (I had a big pair of those can headphones and a cord that was literally twenty feet long to stretch from where the record player was to the sink). Anyway, I got very familiar with Man of La Mancha, and Camelot and a couple of others.

I think Dulcinea is the character who sings "One pair of arms is like another/I don't know why or who's to blame/I'll go with you or with your brother/It's all the same"

***
Anyway, about names. I don't look for popular names unless I'm really stuck. I've used a mix of more modern sounding names and some classics. One of the stories in the hopper has secondary male characters named Samuel, Josh, Ian, Terrell, and Sanjay. I've got notes for another one where the minor male characters will be Cyrus and Zeke. I've used Vivian.

I agree with NotWise that "Mary" is a name that doesn't go out of style. But a lot of "old fashioned" names are coming back. I know two people under forty who are named Molly, I know a Faith, a whole slew of Teresas, two women named Kari who pronounce their names differently. I know a May, a June, a Summer, and a guy whose wife is named Winter.

There was a lady at my hospital a while back who's name was Monica, and some of the nurses thought she'd stolen someone's identity, because what 75 year old woman is name "Monica'? Ella is a good old fashioned name. Or Margaret. Or Meredith (also gender neutral).

Millenial parents seem to be trying to find names that aren't popular, so their kids don't wind up in classes with five other kids with the same name. Oliver seems to be more popular for boys than you'd think.

I think it does also matter who the character is. If you're gonna name someone Sanjay or Bhusan, he can't be a pasty white dude from Nebraska. Of if he is, there oughta be a backstory that explains it. (I have it on good authority that pasty white dudes from Nebraska are named "Karl")

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I have one current story with the MC named Jacob Lazarus (although admittedly he goes by ‘J.L.’). His mother’s name is mentioned as Evelyn, which I rather like.

Anyway, anything but Tiffany or Britany... My ‘entitled and bitchy’ meter pins every time I see one of those.

 

[RetroFan]

Some names you can have in many eras and locations - for example you could have an Emily of any age in a story set in 1900, in 1950, in 2000 or the present day and she could be in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa.

However, be wary of names that don't fit into an era if writing in the past, or if you like a particular name that has gone out of fashion probably avoid using it in a present day story. For example, you might like the name Kylie, but if you write a story set on the Titanic in 1912, don't call your main female character Kylie. In one story I wrote set in 1962, the three 18-year-old girls are called Penny, Barbara and Judy. But if I wrote a story set in 2012 and called three 18-year-old girls Penny, Barbara and Judy, it would look wrong. Penny would get through, but not Judy and definitely not Barbara (my apologies if you have a daughter born in the 1990s named Barbara).

The only difference to this is if you are using the 'Arieth and Bob' trope with your character names. If you had three sisters aged in their 20s in a story set in the present day and they were called Jessica, Ashley and Eunice then this is an example of this naming trope, as Jessica and Ashley were popular names for girls born in the 1990s, while Eunice was never a common name and was well and truly out of use by the 1990s.