I’m seeing this so many times… Like Aiden, Caiden, Braiden, Jaiden, Paiden…

    • CALIGVLA
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      39 months ago

      Jesus Christ… Sometimes I think that maybe having restrictions on what you can name your child is actually a good idea.

  • @yesman@lemmy.world
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    359 months ago

    Unique names and spellings became popular in the US during the 70s as part of the Black Power movement. The politically conscious black parents didn’t want to name their children European names, for some reason. The problem is that these black parents had no cultural link to Africa because that had been stolen from them.

    Fist came Arab names. I presume this has to do with the NOI and the black celebrities who converted to it. Some of these names are still popular like Omar and Jamal. Of course Black Americans have no more connection to Islam than they do to Christianity, So black parents just started making new names for their children.

    American popular culture tends to incubate in the black community and slowly drift into white culture. So it has gone with the unique baby names.

    • thermal_shock
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      9 months ago

      very good answer. white people have tried to take everything from the black community, and now the names…

  • Boozilla
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    719 months ago

    There’s a well-studied phenomenon called “social diffusion”. People of higher socioeconomic status seek out novel, unique, or fashionable baby names and start using them. These names gradually get picked up by families of lower socioeconomic status. Eventually the names become mainstream, and then finally decline in popularity.

  • rhythmisaprancer
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    39 months ago

    I understand the pushback against names like this, and concern for kids receiving these names, but I think it is misdirected. Ya, sure, maybe sometimes the name is literally made up, or in other cases has multiple variations on a theme, but anyone with immigration in their ancestry can tell you that naming conventions do not always move well to other countries. In the USA, we have multiple spellings for names like Muhammed and Dermitt because of this. I don’t see why this is a big deal and think it potentially enriches culture.

  • Jackie's Fridge
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    89 months ago

    It’s been around for a while. Over a decade ago Target ran a cheeky back to school advert featuring a slow pan across school cubbies with lunch pails all labelled with variant spellings of “Braiden”. I thought it was hilarious.

    • @christophski@feddit.uk
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      9 months ago

      Never heard of this, what are some examples? Maybe caitlin? Just looked that up, it’s an Irish name.

      • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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        129 months ago

        I don’t think there’s any history, it was just popular in the midwest in the 2000s

        Caitlyn, Kaylin, Ashlin, Jaylin, Roselin, Jaquelin, Shaelin. Same with adding “leigh”

        • @bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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          99 months ago

          The English name suffix -in comes from the french name suffix -inne which is a feminine modifier. Eg. Jacques is a masculine name, Jacqueline is a feminine name.

        • @christophski@feddit.uk
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          19 months ago

          But those are just names that already existed? I thought you meant like taking a name like Simon and making it Simonlin or Adam to Adamlin

      • @Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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        39 months ago

        You take a common name and add “lin” or any variation of that sound at the end.

        The only example I have at the top of my head is Jessica-Lyn because I knew one person with that name in the past, but you get the gist.

  • @Surp@lemmy.world
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    29 months ago

    As usual…who cares what someone names their kid even if it sounds dumb to you don’t worry about it go live your life not worrying about this shit.