Comments on: Twilight, Timing, and Baby Names

By: stilladyj

stilladyj — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 16:16:00 +0000

I would love to name a daughter Molly after Molly Weasley (Harry Potter), but I can’t because my mother-in-law’s name is Molly. I’d much rather name a kid after a character I respect than pick some family name. Picking a family name from someone who’s alive feels like an obligation I’d rather avoid. Also, then I’d have to name another daughter after my mom, and she has a terrible name – it gets out of hand.
Then again, I’ll be pulling for “Henry” for a boy, and that is a family name. but no one alive has it, so it’s not so bad.

By: erik smit

erik smit — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 00:25:00 +0000

I like the name Emma because it is classy and old fashioned, still it doesn’t sound old fashioned. We (the Netherlands) had a queen Emma in the late 1800s.
Funny thing is, Emma is number 1 on the list in my country but I don’t know any Emma at all.

By: kdlmn

kdlmn — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:25:00 +0000

Okay, but you can’t argue the same for Renesmee or Cullen or Carlisle…

By: Soft Revolution » Blog Archive » Grassroots Internet Revolution

Soft Revolution » Blog Archive » Grassroots Internet Revolution — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 10:27:55 +0000

[…] Twilight, Timing, and Baby Names su Sociological Images. Lo scorso anno Jacob e Isabella sono stati i nomi più popolari tra i neonati. […]

By: Conuly

Conuly — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:21:00 +0000

Interesting, I hadn’t heard that before.

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:07:00 +0000

Twilight Sparkle? You mean the generic bookworm girl who needs to be taught how to make friends that is in every freaking kids show aimed at girls?

By: Captain Pasty

Captain Pasty — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Probably in reference to Emmett Brown then, you know, Back To The Future…

By: Captain Pasty

Captain Pasty — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:39:00 +0000

In South Africa during WWII, all the German (or German-descent) people changed their names to British sounding names, because they didn’t want others to associate them with the Nazis.

By: Conuly

Conuly — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Also, even the most popular name today doesn’t hold a candle to the Jennifer of the 60s – 90s, or the Mary of generations before that. The top ten names don’t control as much of the market as the top name did a few generations ago.

By: Conuly

Conuly — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:39:00 +0000

The people who wrote that episode were probably about the same age you and your wife are. The other people naming their kids that year, same thing. All of them, I’m sure, will swear they liked that name for years :)

By: Conuly

Conuly — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:38:00 +0000

That’d be an interesting question: Were these names more popular among Mormons before the books came out?

By: Tusconian

Tusconian — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:53:00 +0000

I don’t know….I knew two or three Emmett’s in high school, so they’d have been born 15 or 16 years before Twilight came out. It did seem to have a small spike around when the book was released, but I’ve also noticed that the 2000s were a big time for reviving “old-timey” names, especially among young parents. It’s become sort of a joke directed at hipster parents in their twenties that in 5 years they’ll be regretting it when their kids are in kindergarten with the same names are their peers’ great grandparents.

By: Tusconian

Tusconian — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:46:00 +0000

I’d assume the opposite of the assumption, really. Jacob has been a consistently popular name for many, many years, and Isabella has never been unpopular (and to my knowledge, has been quite popular in other countries to a greater extent). Both names were in the top five long before the book came out. More likely, Stephenie Meyer just drew from what she war surrounded by. If every time she picks her kids up from school she hears a hundred stories about “Jacob, NO, NOT JACOB SMITH, Jacob EVANS, did such and such” and “Isabella is having a birthday party” and she thinks those are nice-sounding names, why not just name characters those names? Plus, the names have implicit meanings behind them. She’s pretty much stated that “Bella Swan” is just there to highlight how amazingly beautiful Bella is. Stephenie Meyer is also quite openly Mormon. Jacob is, if anything, even more popular among religious Christians than anything else, as a patriarch of Judeo-Christian religion.

By: Tusconian

Tusconian — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:39:00 +0000

0.o What’s even the logic behind this comment? Isabella is and has for a long time been a very popular name for human girls of various cultures. While the Twilight series MIGHT have given it a bump from number 2 to number one in popularity, the fact that it’s very common in the English, Spanish, and Italian speaking world and that the “nickname” carries a generic cute compliment (“bella” means “beautiful” in Italian). No one is naming their kid “Twilight” one way or the other, and I’d have a serious side-eye at anyone old enough to be giving birth naming their kid “Twilight Sparkle.”

By: Marian

Marian — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:23:00 +0000

Don’t forget about other popular characters with the same names, like Izzie from Grey’s Anatomy.