beauty

The baby names that are becoming extinct. Sorry, Carol.

I’m from a family of unfashionable names. Mum: Valda. Dad: Noel.

Colin, Malcolm and Kenneth are all in the mix. Among my cousins are a Carol and a Joanne. And yes, a Wayne.

My own name – Anne – isn’t exactly at the cutting edge, and I probably only have a couple of royals and Anne Hathaway to thank for it still making it onto even a few hopsital baby tags. Mostly, I suspect, as a second name.

For a while now we’ve suspected that there are some names going out of fashion. And new data out of the UK proves it.

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There are plenty of Lilys and Jacks, Sophias and William, Emilys and Edwards – but when was the last time you heard these names being called across the playground: Valma, Wanda, Gary, Graham, Carol, Neil, Norman, Kathleen?

She's probably not called Carol. Image iStock

 

The UK's Independent newspaper reports that according to Office of National Statistics data in the UK, Carol and Annette were in the top 100 baby names for girls in 1964, but have disappeared entirely from the 2014 list.

 

Actress Annette Bening would probably like to know that not one little girl was named Annette in the U.K. in 2014. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

 

Girls names that have decreased dramatically in popularity according to Office of National Statistics data in the UK are:

  • Susan
  • Julie
  • Donna
  • Elaine
  • Anne
  • Debbie
  • Tracy
  • Sandra.

That's pretty much everyone I went to school with.

On the boys' list are:

  • Norman
  • Ronald
  • Barry
  • Gerald
  • Bernard
  • Clive.

We'd like to add our own names we haven't heard for a while in the school yard (and girls' names seem to go out of fashion faster than boys): Roger, Cheryl, Kay,Jill, Maureen, Doreen, Leslie (male), Lynda, Marcia, Glenda, Glen, Rhonda, Gail, Phyllis, Lynnette.

But for all those despairing they've been cast to the corners of the deeply unfashionable, fear not.

After all, it's not so long ago that Oliver was the boy with glasses and a straining shirt, and Charlotte was rhymed unfortunately by cruel kids. And now they're right up there for the cool kids.

Who knows - Valda could be back with a bullet in a couple of years.

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