Lilith, Lilibet, Lucifer: The rise of L names for babies
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NEW YORK • Give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle credit.
The monarchs of Montecito, California, managed to come up with a name - Lilibet - for their new baby daughter that is so distinctive, it is all but unheard of outside of Buckingham Palace or The Crown.
For the uninitiated, Lilibet is a royal family nickname for the Prince's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, derived from her mispronunciation of her own name when she was a child.
By defying old baby-name conventions, however, they also stumbled into a new one: the quest to brand one's child with the most idiosyncratic name possible.
In a telephone interview, Pamela Redmond, a co-author of 10 baby-name books and a founder of the baby-name website Nameberry, discussed parents' race to christen infants with one-of-a-kind names guaranteed to turn heads.
Should people be surprised that Prince Harry and Markle went out on a limb with the name for their second child?
Baby-naming has become almost a competitive sport, with parents vying to find a name that no one else has discovered, that also carries deep personal meaning.
A lot of parents ignore the standard lexicon and look instead to place names, invented names, international names and names that defy gender stereotypes.
Of course, Lilibet is yet another L name for girls.
L has to be the consonant of the decade.
Lily is one of the original L names and there are double L names, like Lola, Lila and Lilian.
Luna has gone from almost non-existent 20 years ago to No. 14 on the Social Security Administration list of popular names.
Model Chrissy Teigen and singer John Legend used it for their daughter.
You saw the same thing with the J names of the 1970s and 1980s - Jennifer, Jason, Jessica, Joshua.
Then there were the K names, which reality television stars the Kardashians helped popularise in the 2000s. The sound of the letter is what becomes fashionable.
But why L?
There are a lot of words that start with L that have very positive, warm connotations, like "love", "lovely", "lilting" and "lively".
What about for boys?
There are boy equivalents - Lucas, Luca, Leo, Levi.
I know it sounds crazy, but there were more than 50 boys in the United States named Lucifer last year.
Wait, Lucifer?
Forbidden names are seeing more use. You see babies named Lilith, a demon from Jewish folklore, and Kali, a Hindu goddess associated with doomsday or death.
Even Danger is becoming a hot new name for boys.
On the other hand, there is a whole new class of evangelical names: Amen, Savior, Canaan, Creed and Saint - the name of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's older son.
Another thing that stands out about "Lilibet" is that it is a family name. Are non-royals also plucking names from their family trees?
Definitely. It gives people a way to narrow down the vast universe of names and an authentic way to impart meaning to your child's name.
Today, people want genuine family names. In the 1980s, there were fake family names, like Parker and Morgan, which sounded like family names but were not.
Does the same hold true for non-Anglo names?
There is definitely a movement of reclaiming original cultural names.
A lot of Latin Americans are going back to family names like Pablo, versus the Anglicised version, Paul.
Parents with an Indian background who have Anglicised names might give a child born in America a traditional name like Arjun, a fashionable Hindi name that means "bright and shining".
What are some other big trends?
Nature names is one of those categories that just keeps growing.
Parents are now looking at animal names like Ox, mineral names like Onyx and Amethyst or celestial names such as Venus, Celestia and, well, Skye.
Is the general rule the more unique, the better?
One of the worst name fates is discovering the name you thought was so original - like Elodie, in honour of your French grandmother - has become so popular there are four other kids with that name in your child's school.
NYTIMES
