
At the same time, we’ve seen a revival of what Abby Sandel, the creator of the baby name blog Appellation Mountain, calls “old-school antiques.”
“Favorites of 2025 like Eleanor, Evelyn, and Hazel would’ve felt like granny names compared to Kayla, Taylor, and Destiny,” she said. “But now Megan is the mom, and she’s naming her baby Florence.”
Kihm also pointed to the decline of names ending in -ayden for boys and a counterpart to that trend ― names like Kaylee, Kailey, Kayleigh, Kaylie, Kaleigh, Kaley, Kayley, and Kayli for girls.
“Girl names with a strong K sound like Katelyn, Kaitlyn, Katie, Kayla, Kimberly, Kylie, Kaylee, and Katherine each fell more than 100 spots, reflecting a shift toward today’s girl names with stronger vowel sounds, like Eleanor, Aurora, and Eliana,” she said.
Interestingly, many names that were popular for boys in 2005 but have since fallen are two-syllable monikers ending with the letter ‘n.’
“Brandon and Gavin and Justin and Kevin all have history prior to 2005, of course,” Sandel said. “Along with names like Ethan, Ryan, Nathan, Logan, Dylan, Austin, and Evan, they came to define the default sound for a 21st century boy’s name.”
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