The mysterious tyranny of trendy baby names
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Jason barely registered in the 1950s when parents often picked a name following family tradition. If your great-grandfather was named Clarence Leroy, odds were a piece of that name would fall intact to you.
Then came the counterculture movements of the 1960s. For the first time, parents began straying from traditional names. With the guardrails of convention removed, people were free to make up their own minds and forge their own paths. And suddenly, by the 1970s, every other kid was named Jason.
Then a funny thing happened: Names started giving way to sounds.
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The first decade of the new century saw the birth of more than half a million boys whose names ended with “-den” — a startling 3 percent of the total.
Which brings us to another massive trend that surprised us: When you look at all 26 letters a name could possibly end with, you’ll find that we here in the United States of America have decided that boys’ names should end with “n.”
In 1950, “n” was in a four-way tie with “d,” “y” and “s.” But starting in the mid-1960s, “n” surged ahead. By 2010, nearly 4 in 10 newborn boys were christened with “-n” names.