• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Request a Name

Appellation Mountain

Where every name has a story

  • Baby Name Advice & More
  • Master List: Girl Names
  • Master List: Boy Names
  • Private Baby Name Consulting

Sunday Summary: The Bad Bunny Effect

December 13, 2020 By appellationmountain 1 Comment

Sunday Summary: 12.13.20The Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny’s latest album, “El Último Tour del Mundo,” is the first LP entirely in Spanish to top the Billboard 200 album chart.

Selena came close in 1996, but her album wasn’t entirely in Spanish. “La Bamba” was a hit way back in 1959, teaching us all confetti bits of Spanish.

Also this month, the K-Pop stars BTS scored a #1 hit with “Life Goes On” … recorded in Korean. It followed Psy’s 2012 Korean-language “Gangam Style.”

Why should we think about any of this?

Language changes, and names change with it. It’s tempting to pin it down, to declare that these 500 or 3,000 names are The Only Names and they must use These Spellings Forevermore.

But as the linguist John MacWhorter says, “language is a parade.” It’s constantly evolving, taking names along with it.

And – back to Bad Bunny and BTS – as the words and sounds that we hear change, so will the names we choose for our children. Even if you don’t speak a word of Korean or Spanish.

My guess? All future #1 names in the US will also be popular with Spanish speakers. Not because so many parents deliberately seek out cultural crossovers – though many do – but because language is changing in a way that favors those names.

Consider this: of the current US Top Ten boy names, six appear in the Baby Center en Español Top 100 for boys. For girls, it’s also six – seven, if you count Sophia. (Though it’s Sofia that’s big on the Spanish-language site.)

I’m less certain about the impact of Korean language, if only because there are something like 538 million Spanish speakers, compared to 79 million Korean speakers. Then again, I’m not sure “La Bamba” changed much during the Eisenhower administration. Give it another few decades, and maybe the influence will be obvious.

Elsewhere online:

Araminta Elspeth sounds like the heroine of a new period drama. I mean … just when you thought British Baby Names’ birth announcements couldn’t be any more charming.

Speaking of period dramas, I’m planning to watch Netflix’s Bridgerton. It feels like Gossip Girl meets Jane Austen, and it’s the first show from Shonda Rhimes’ blockbuster deal with Netflix. Since Downton Abbey put some new names on our radar, it’s very possible that Bridgerton could, too. Ones to watch: Daphne, Eloise, Hyacinth, Cressida, Portia, and … Prudence? Plus Simon and Benedict on the boys’ side.

I’m fascinated by the concept of “fridge names” – a list that you post in a central location to ponder. It comes up in this letter to Swistle. Did you try anything like this?

Love the name – and the story behind how they chose it! YouTuber RawBeautyKristi named her son Alder Kelly. The name is great, and that middle? It’s for Kristi’s mother. This is a naming trend of which I heartily approve.

Thanks to everyone who mentioned Taylor Swift’s latest, Evermore. I mean … her previous 2020 album revealed the latest Lively-Reynolds baby name, Betty! But now there’s an album with tracks titled “Dorothea,” “Marjorie,” “Willow,” and “Ivy.” And I can’t help but think that Evermore could be a daring, gorgeous, virtue/literary middle, too.

That’s all for this week. As always, thank you for reading. Thinking of you!

And if you can’t get enough name chatter, please subscribe to my Tuesday newsletter, which is filled with more lists and thoughts about all things naming.


Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Appellation Mountain:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.

Boy Names 12.13.20

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Print

Comments

  1. Another Emily says

    December 15, 2020 at 10:17 AM

    I know met a little girl whose middle name was Evermore. Alway thought it was so cute and my husband thought it was tacky. 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter


POPULAR POSTS

Tweets by @appmtn
Visit Appellation Mountain's profile on Pinterest.

Copyright © 2023 · AppellationMountain.net on Genesis Framework · Privacy Policy · Log in