Old names are newly popular for parents picking monikers for their infants, with names like Eleanor, Violet, and Oliver rising again after taking big dips in the 1980s and '90s.
That's not surprising to experts who study baby-name trends. The trend of reviving old names in a new era is so common that it has a name: The 100-Year Rule. And though digging into the past for baby names might sound odd, it's a well-documented pattern.
So what's the deal with century-old names suddenly surging in popularity?
Back in 1988, Pamela Redmond and Linda Rosenkrantz published a book called Beyond Jennifer & Jason that explored why parents chose the names they did. They labeled one trend the "100-Year Rule," which says it takes about 100 years for an old, dusty name to sound fresh again.
There are a few reasons for this. First is the cyclical nature of what's fashionable in culture, and that includes names. Like '70s bell-bottoms making a comeback in the 2000s, names once written off as outdated can return to rotation.
There's also "grandparent avoidance": parents of newborns don't want to pick "recent" names that belong to their own parents, who are the babies' grandparents. Instead, they dig further back in the family tree, usually reviving a name that was popular around 100 years ago.
Websites like BabyNames.com, which tracks names that come up often in parents' searches, show that old, vintage names are climbing the ranks again.
Charlotte, for example, tops BabyNames.com's list of trending girls' names. Popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, it hit its lowest point in the 1980s and '90s — but by 2024 it ranked fourth most popular in the U.S., according to official naming records.
Eleanor tells a similar story. The name bottomed out in 1986, ranking close to 700, but the same records now list it among the top 20 most popular names in the U.S.
Boys' names are following suit: Theodore and August are rapidly becoming popular again, helped by nicknames like Theo, Ted, and Gus that give them modern versatility.
Meanwhile, names popular 50 years ago are now in the naming basement. Jennifer and Jessica, chart-toppers in the 1970s and '80s, now rank below 500 on BabyNames.com. If the 100-Year Rule is accurate, these could be the names parents revive for their newborns in another 50 years.