--- title: Baby Names: Millennials Are Naming Their Kids Weirder Things description: Baby names say a lot about our individualism obsessed culture, suggest the results of a new study canonical: https://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-29T15:33:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:53:38.182Z article:section: Health og:title: Baby Names Are Getting Weirder and Weirder og:description: Baby names say a lot about our individualism obsessed culture, suggest the results of a new study og:url: https://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28c26c31e47dff70/6988a7f6cd1bba276d702828/baby-block.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Toy blocks in pail og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Baby Names Are Getting Weirder and Weirder twitter:description: Baby names say a lot about our individualism obsessed culture, suggest the results of a new study twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28c26c31e47dff70/6988a7f6cd1bba276d702828/baby-block.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Millennials Are Giving Their Babies Increasingly Strange Names  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 29, 2016 3:33 PM UTC  Toy blocks in pail Toy blocks in pailGetty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 29, 2016 3:33 PM UTC Sorry, Michaels and Jessicas: your reign at the top of the [baby names](http://time.com/4320773/popular-baby-names-2015/) list is over. The people having the most kids in this country, [Millennials](http://time.com/help-my-parents-are-millennials-cover-story/?iid=sr-link5), are giving their babies stranger and stranger names. In a time when actual people are naming their children [Legendary](http://time.com/3897660/craziest-new-baby-names-2014/) and [Sadman](http://time.com/3897660/craziest-new-baby-names-2014/) and Lux ([after the Instagram filter](http://time.com/4133803/instagram-baby-history/?iid=sr-link2)), that should perhaps come as no surprise. But in the new [study](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jasp.12409/abstract), published in the _Journal of Applied Social Psychology_, researchers wanted to figure out if the trend was more than anecdotal. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of the book [_Generation Me_](http://www.generationme.org/), and research assistant Lauren Dawson analyzed the first names of 358 million babies in a U.S. Social Security Administration [database](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/#&ht=1). By doing so, they saw that parents were increasingly shying away from typical names. Between 2004 and 2006, 66% of boys and 76% of girls had a name that wasn’t one of the 50 most common names of that time period. By contrast, in 2011-2015, 72% of boys and 79% of girls had names that were not in the top 50 most popular. In the top 10 for 2015 in the U.S. were Harper, Liam, Mason, Isabella, Olivia, Ava, and Mia. Brooklyn was ranked 31st most popular for girls across the U.S. (though not for girls in New York, where the name didn’t rank in the top 100). “The tendency to want your kids to stand out is even more pronounced now than it was 10 years ago,” says Twenge, who credits the rise of stranger names on our increasingly individualistic culture: one that focuses on the self and is less concerned with social rules. Millennials grew up steeped in this kind of thinking. “They were raised with phrases like, _you shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks of you_, _you can be anything you want to be_, _it’s good to be different_, _you have to love yourself first before you love anyone else_,” says Twenge. **MORE**: [See How Popular Your Name Will Be In 25 Years](http://time.com/93911/baby-name-predictor/?iid=sr-link7) Researchers were also intrigued that the gender gap narrowed. “Boys are still more likely to get a common name than girls,” she says. “But parents are now more willing to give boys unique names as well.” Our obsession with celebrities—and their strangely monikered children, from Sage Moonblood to [Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/18/uma-thurman-gave-her-daughter-seven-names/?iid=sr-link2)—is also a hallmark of individualism. “People are interested in fame and celebrity and these types of values instead of, for example, getting involved in the community,” Twenge says. But there’s another, brighter side to our self-and-selfie-focused culture. In [research this summer](http://time.com/4352899/sex-relationships-hookups/?iid=sr-link2), Twenge found that Millennials are much more accepting of same-sex relationships and experiences. “What we’re seeing is this movement toward more sexual freedom,” Twenge told TIME. “There’s more freedom for people to do what they want without following the traditional, often now seen as outdated, social rules about who you’re supposed to have sex with and when.” That’s a future the [Baobaos](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/09/oh-have-you-met-my-kids-panda-phone-and-cheese-the-weirdest-baby-names-of-2013/?iid=sr-link4) and [Ajaxes](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/09/oh-have-you-met-my-kids-panda-phone-and-cheese-the-weirdest-baby-names-of-2013/?iid=sr-link4) of tomorrow can look forward to. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/"},"headline":"Millennials Are Giving Their Babies Increasingly Strange Names","datePublished":"2016-09-29T15:33:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:53:38.182Z","description":"Baby names say a lot about our culture","url":"https://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/","keywords":["Research","baby names"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28c26c31e47dff70/6988a7f6cd1bba276d702828/baby-block.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28c26c31e47dff70/6988a7f6cd1bba276d702828/baby-block.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Toy blocks in pail","caption":"Toy blocks in pail","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4511927/millennials-parents-baby-names/","name":"Millennials Are Giving Their Babies Increasingly Strange Names"}}]}] ```