Allie Bernstein,27
In the media, fans love to speculate over their favorite celebrities' children and their baby names. When Kim Kardashian and Kanye West announced they would be naming their first child North West, there was endless commentary on whether or not North was a good name. Regardless of the speculation, Kim explained why she loved the name. “North means highest power and she says that North is our [Kim and Kanye’s] highest point together," she told the women of The View. When Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple, she told the Today Show that, "Apples are so sweet and they're wholesome, and it's biblical. And I just thought it sounded so lovely." Additionally, some celebrities like Beyoncé and Jay-Z chose names based on their family culture. Choosing to name their daughter Blue Ivy signified a connection to nature and creativity, something that both celebrities try to embody. However, controversial name choices are not something that is limited to famous individuals. Nowadays, there is a mixture of parents naming their children traditional, modern, and meaningful names that some may love and others may despise. A poll was sent out to their entire Ensworth High School student population, to understand our community’s opinions on baby names and try to see what the children of the next couple of generations may be called.
The first question asked was What style baby name do you prefer? The options available were classic, trendy, modern, and unique. Coming in first place, 39.5% of Ensworth students said that they preferred classic style baby names. Close behind in second place was the unique style of baby names, which received 34% of the votes. Modern and trendy both received less than 10% of the votes, making them the least popular out of all the name styles. Some students opted to write in their own style, such as family names, gender neutral, Southern, Mongolian, old money/classy, and more. It’s interesting to observe how many different choices of style there are with something as simple as baby names and how the complexity of choosing a baby name may reflect the diversity of humans both in background and opinion. Students were next asked about outside opinions: When considering choosing a baby name, is it important to think of how others will perceive the name? An overwhelming majority of 68.5% said “Somewhat, because both my opinions and other’s opinions matter.” Only 7.5% chose to respond with “Others' perception of the name I choose is completely irrelevant.” The remaining students chose “Yes, the opinions of others matter.” How students responded to this particular question could possibly resonate with self confidence and how much people at Ensworth care about what their peers think of them, even about something as surface level as the name they were given as babies.
In order to discover examples of what specific names Ensworth students deemed as acceptable or unacceptable in naming children, each style of name was presented with options to choose which one was the poller’s favorite and least favorite. Starting with classic style names, Charlotte came in first place with 23.8% of the votes. Oliver and Elizabeth were the runners up in this narrow race, receiving 13.6% for Oliver and 12.2% for Elizabeth. Unfortunately for those named Beth, 56.5% of Ensworth students voted Beth to be the least preferred out of the 10 given options. The results for the trendy names were even tighter, as Willow won by receiving 14.5% of the votes. Willow was followed by Grayson with 13.8%, and then Delilah with 12.4%. Surprisingly, 27.4% of people voted Ezra to be the least liked trendy name. However, 19.9% of people also disliked Penelope. For modern style names, Jaxon won and Zofia lost. Lastly, Clementine won for the unique category and Karma lost. The most interesting part of observing the results of this survey was to learn what students individually typed in to be their favorite baby name. There were some generic responses such as Jason, Tristan, Benjamin, Chloe, and Emma, but there were some names that you are unlikely to have heard before. Santa Rose (as a double name) stood out, as well as Persephone, Goldy, Ellette, Althea, Noella, and more.
The idea to create a survey for Ensworth students' preferences on baby names stemmed from a heated debate between Rae Turberfield, Samantha Massad, and Allie Bernstein. Turberfield claimed that Tobias was the best baby name saying, “Tobias is so cute, and I got the idea of naming my future child Tobias after watching the movie Divergent.” The name Tobias means ‘God is good’ and has both Greek and Hebrew roots. This name became popular for parents of the Christian and Jewish faith, and was most recently popular in 2016. However, Massad stated, “Clementine is just a sweet name that also has a lot of personality to it.” The name Clementine is from the word ‘clemency’, which could signify a quality of forgiveness and mercy. It was most popular in 2014, falling behind Tobias by just two years. Last but not least, Bernstein said, “Francesca is the best name because of how sophisticated it is, but can also give the opportunity to nickname your child Frankie.” Francesca has both Germanic and Italian origins, meaning “free”. Francesca is most popularly used in 2024, which aligns with the results of the last question of the survey: What is the best name out of the names: Francesca, Tobias, or Clementine? Tobias came in last place with only 28.9% of the votes. In second place was Clementine, taking 34.9% of the votes. And, in first place, receiving the title of the best baby name with 36.2% of the votes, is Francesca.