What's in a name...

Be Careful What You Name Your Baby!

It’s always a good idea to stick with the tried-and-true, especially when it comes to naming your baby. After all, what parent would ever want their child growing up with a horrendous name because they thought it was cool or different? A new study from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has found that faddish baby names tend to fizzle. The study examined 2,570 names given children in France between 1900 and 2004. It also looked at names that were given to at least 1,850 babies in the U.S. that were common for at least six years. Researchers found that many names grew in popularity over decades and then dumped. The name “Charlene,” for example, was most popular from about 1930 to 1970, before becoming almost unheard of by 2000. The names “Kristi” and “Tricia,” by contrast, shot up in popularity in the early 1970s but lost much of their appeal by 1985. The name “Shaniqua” also demonstrates the fad phenomenon. According to BabyNameWizard.com, a Web site that tracks baby names, the name shot up in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, but vanished by 2000.