How Not to Name a Child

Avoiding the Next "Karen"

Calling a child “Karen”, “Linda” or “Sharon” in 2026 would spark concern among your relatives and, possibly, intervention from Social Services. These names are narrowly associated with ladies of a certain age - so much so that Karen has become a slur and the idea of a “Baby Linda” a sitcom side-plot.

This is harsh, but fair. These names belong narrowly to a few decades. The Office for National Statistics publishes detailed statistics on the names of newborns. From 1996, you can see the frequency of every name, every year - so long as at least three children, of the same gender, were born with that name in one year. Further back we are limited to once-a-decade figures of the top 100 (for 2024, 2014 and so on, back to 1904) as the General Register Office didn’t keep such records. So we can track in increasingly granular detail the rise and fall of baby names.

We can see Karen first appear in the top 100 Chart in 1954, leap to fourth place in 1964, plunge to 51st by 1984, and disappear completely by 1994. Looking at post-1996 data, we can see how far it has fallen. Even the four Karens born in 2024 (ranking alongside “Jazzleen”, “Jensis” and “Moon”) seems surprisingly high. “Sharon” has plunged from the top twenty in the ‘70s and ‘60s to two-thousandth place today. “Linda”, the second most popular name in 1954, now ranks at 1,406, below Renesmae, Zelda and Khaleesi.

There are “Lesser Lindas”, which never reached the era-defining peaks of popularity: “Denise” in the fifties, “Tracy” in the sixties and seventies, “Stacey” in the eighties. Linda-class names are recognisable by being late introductions to England - Linda comes from Germany, Karen from Denmark, Sharon from the United States. There are ancient “Lindas” that have now passed permanently into obscurity: Hilda, Brenda, Gladys, Phyllis (trending names tend to rhyme with their peers).

Their novelty distinguishes “Lindas” from simple “old lady names”: traditional names which actually run in cycles. Elsie dropped out of the top 100 after 1934, only to return in 2011, reaching tenth place by 2024. Ivy dropped out in 1924, popping back up to 54th position in 2014, and reaching the top ten in 2020. After a ninety-year absence from the top 100, Nellie reappeared in 2023. I attribute this to the “dead granny effect” - when looking for a name, people recall their beloved late relatives, or look at the family tree, and reflect “Ivy… that’s quite a nice name, really, isn’t it?” Mary and Anne - hardy perennials currently out of favour - will undoubtedly undergo a similar revival before long. Even “Mabel”, long the preserve of cows and sheep, has been resuscitated, with over a thousand Mabels born last year.

It would be remiss not to mention the gendered dimension of this. Firstly, the top ten boys’ names have stayed less distinctive over the decades. Parents used less imagination with their sons than their daughters. Period specific horrors never reached the top rungs: “Barry” topped out at 20th, “Wayne” at 32nd, “Nigel” at 23rd. This has changed in the last decade or so, and the groundwork for the male “Karen” has already been laid, as I shall explain below. I also acknowledge that middle aged women attract a degree of derision not endured by their male counterparts.

Identifying the Next “Karen”

So can we identify the Lindas of the future? Distinctively Millennial names are easy to spot. “Lauren” first appeared in the Top 100 in the eighties, soared to second place in 1994, only to plummet to 130th place in 2014, then sliding down to 934th a decade later. 6,299 Laurens were born in 1996, and 38 in 2024. “Gemma” appeared from nowhere to third place in 1984, then dropped out of the top 100 in 2002, and today languishes at 1,541st. “Bethany” had a similar rise and fall, but I think will avoid notoriety as it blurs into “Beth” (a diminutive of Elizabeth) which has a long history in Britain.

Taking on a more Gen-Z flavour is “Megan”. Unknown to the top 100 until the nineties, it stayed at third place for 1998, 1999 and 2000, before dropping rapidly out of fashion in 2012. Only 78 Megans born in 2024, vs 6,444 in 1999. “Ellie”, one of the most distinctively Zoomer girls’ names, will likely avoid becoming a cliché as it has been used for so many centuries as the short form of Eleanor and Elizabeth. “Mia” exploded in popularity in the twenty-first century, peaked 2019-2020, and has now begun the inexorable decline.

So, if you are a prospective parent, what is the “Linda” of today? How do you avoid inflicting “Karen” on your daughter?

The most obvious “Linda” in the stats is “Isla”. A hitherto obscure Scottish name, it has become unbelievably popular among new parents (and, along with Lilith, transgender women). There were 87 Islas born in England and Wales in 1998. There were 4,012 in 2014. It still sits at fourth place a decade on, but is surely doomed to date incredibly quickly. Likewise “Ava”. Once an obscure German name (like Linda!), it travelled to America (like Sharon!) and is now spreading globally (like Karen!). Thirty Avas were born in 1996; this increased a hundredfold by 2018 with 3,110 newborns. As with Mia, 2020s parents should be cautious to avoid short girls’ names ending in “-a”. “Bonnie” - popular in America, but always rare in England - jumped from 114th in 2016 to 16th in 2024. Alas, notorious prostitute Tia Billinger will no doubt curb this rise. Truly unfortunate are the 141 girls named some variation on “Bonnie-Blue” between 2013 and 2024.

Looking at the lower leagues, we can speculate on the next Lindas: “Lyla”, “Wren”, “Indie”, and “Etta” are starting to bubble up. Take care with names that could have come from a Young Adult Fantasy novel.

The Boys

As mentioned above, until very recently greater restraint was exercised in the naming of boys. But in the last decade, the desire to “give him a unique name” has won out over convention, and the Linda Effect has been unleashed. Boys now risk being called “Huckleberry” (42 since 2015), “Heathcliff” (41 since 2012) or “Hero” (81 since 2008). So what are the fad names of the 2020s? Top of the list is “Noah”. Off-puttingly Old Testament until the nineties, it exploded in popularity at the start of the century and has been the most or second-most popular name for boys since 2021 (remarkably, 17 girls were named “Noah” in 2024. Clearly the parents had their minds made up!). Seventh-placed “Luca” has followed a similar trajectory, surpassing “Luke” back in 2009 (which now dwells down at 138th rank). The appetite for distinctive names beginning with “Lu-” may account for the appearance of “Lucifer”, which has been used for 86 boys since 2016.¹ “Jude” is at eleventh place and climbing, having shot up from 103rd in 2008. “Arlo” had a stratospheric rise: completely unknown to the records in England before 1999, over two-thousand Arlos have been born each year since 2021. “Leo”, “Archie”, “Alfie” and “Freddie” form part of a separate trend: parents giving their children nicknames as first names. Calling your offspring “Leonard”, “Archibald”, “Alfred” and “Frederick” would require parents to remember that they are naming a future adult, rather than an eternal child.

Let us attempt more futurology. Creeping up the table are the Haitches: “Hudson”, “Hughie”, “Harlan” and “Hunter”. If you are thinking of giving your son a name beginning with H- that could also be a surname, think again. Also at the threshold of popularity is “Caspian”. Presumably started by Narnia fans, it seems to have caught independent momentum, with 519 born last year. I have avoided discussing ethnic names here as it complicates the picture too much. But Muhammad is far and away the most popular, and based on immigration and demographic trends is likely to continue in this position for many years to come.

Weird Things I Learned Researching This Piece

As an epilogue, here are American cities and states used as girls’ names in England between 1996 and 2024:

• Alabama (averaging five a year for over a decade)

• Alaska (a dozen or so every year)

• Arizona (a dozen or so every year)

• Indiana (70 or so every year - relatively popular!)

• Iowa (three born in 2012, didn’t register in any other year)

• Louisiana (single digits every year since 2013)

• Montana (peaked at 22 in 2017)

• Nevada (used every year since 2016)

• Tennessee (surprisingly rare, only registering since 2020)

• Texas (appeared 2011 to 2020)

• Cheyenne (98 born in 2000)

• Chicago (only registered in 2021)

Spare a thought for the boys who were named “Denver”, “Boston” and “Charleston” in the same period.²

What about countries? Cyprus, Venezuela, Malaysia, Kenya, Jamaica, Ireland, India, Egypt, China and Benin have featured as girls names since 1996. Cuba, Israel, Monaco, Morocco, Zealand and Oman have appeared as boys.

The works of JRR Tolkien are not just used in naming American defence companies. They’re also mined for baby names. These have all been used since 1996:

• Merry and Pippin (used infrequently for girls and boys)

• Aragorn (Appears in 2019 and 2003)

• Arwen (consistently in the high double digits for births)

• Eowyn (charted every year since 2003)

• Theoden (buoyed in recent years by the rise in Theo derivatives)

• Balin (crops up occasionally in LoTR Film Release Years)

• Beorn (started appearing in 2020)

• Luthien (three in 2022)

• Beren (has appeared occasionally for decades for girls and boys)

• Moria (three girls in 2023)

• Anduin (three boys in 2024)

Tolkien is not the only fantasy author to make an impact on the phone book. A number of George RR Martin coinages have been inflicted on unfortunate infants (in addition to the Khaleesis I mentioned before):

• Daenerys (four in 2024)

• Tyrion (98! since 2011)

• Renly (66 since 2012)

• Aeyrs (three in 2023)

• Euron (five in 2005 - the year A Feast for Crows was published)

• Oberyn (three in 2024)

• Nymeria (five in 2023 – the reader should note this is the name of a dog)

• Tormund (three in 2019)

• Osha (seven in 2024)

• Sansa (sixteen in 2018, and a staying in the single digits since)

The less said about the children called “Luffy” (3, in 2024), “Mikasa” (3, in 2018), “Asuka” (3, in 1998), “Shinji” (3, in 2014), the better.

Lastly, the names I think will cause the unfortunate owners the most difficulty in spelling it out for the rest of their lives. All names are presented exactly as found in the records, including the punctuation. I leave the reader to speculate which is a boy’s name and which is a girl’s.

• A

• A.J.

• A-Jay

• C

• C-Jay

• Cam’Ron

• Carter-J

• Charlie-J

• D

• D’

• De’³

• Dj

• En

• J

• J.

• JJ

• J’Quan

• J’Ziah

• J-Jay

• J-Kwon

• Kc

• L

• Lu’Ay

• M

• Mc

• Mika’Eel

• Ne-Yo

• T

• T.

• T.J.

• T’Jay

• T-Jay

1. No Adolfs (yet) but there are occasional Benitos.

2. I think it unlikely they were named for the Norfolk village or the Lincolnshire market town

3. I think these two might be caused by issues in data quality