I was thinking about the unpopularity of certain great names -- like, oh I don't know, Frederick -- and how they often become unpopular because they get linked in the popular consciousness with certain characters. It doesn't even matter if the character is supposed to be a goofball; just the fact that a name becomes famously associated with a character makes it toxic playground fodder. And I ought to know, having been called Flintstone for most of my childhood.
Here are some examples.
Lois -- There is nothing wrong with the name
Lois. It's pretty, but not too girly; it's Biblical; and it means "
more desirable." And it hasn't been in the top 1,000 names on the Social Security Index of
popular baby names in this century. Why? Because every Lois is going to be asked how
Superman's doing (hyuk hyuk hyuk). On that note,
Clark, popular at one time due to Clark Gable (which is how the character
Clark Kent got his first name), has fallen off, but strangely is making a comeback; from #761 in 2000 to #380 in 2017. Doesn't that open up boys to get a beatdown in the schoolyard? ("Guess I got a pocket fulla kryptonite, huh?") I wonder if hipsters have started to name their daughters Clark. (Funny note: Superman's creators were not thinking of the Lewis and Clark expedition when they named Lois and Clark -- just a coincidence, I guess.)
On the topic of superhero first names, I've addressed
Bruce before (#431, currently in a long holding pattern).
Homer -- Okay,
Homer was never going to be popular again unless there was a big revival of classical learning in this country, which, given the state of modern colleges, is rather somewhat less than impossible. Kids come out dumber than they went in. Even if that were not the case,
The Simpsons killed all hope of a Homer revival.
Bart and
Bartholomew are also not in the top 1,000. (Trivia note: Something about the name
Homer seems to attract doughnuts, as in the book
Homer Price and two films made of the titular character's adventures with the baked goods. Maybe it's the big
O in
Homer that does it.)
Bert and Ernie -- And speaking of duos, one doesn't meet many Berts or Ernies around since
Sesame Street introduced its
iconic Muppet roomies. There are Ernests -- but at #967, barely in the top 1,000 and falling almost every year since 2000. Clearly, there is no longer any importance to being earnest.
Albert is hanging in there at #430, but has been dropping steadily since it was #280 in 2001. Not sure whether we can blame the fall of Albert on Bert, as we don't know if that's Bert's full name, and
Fat Albert didn't do the name any favors. But
Bertram hasn't in the top 1,000 for like, ever. Something's making
Bert fail.
Felix and Oscar -- Another outstanding name-killing duo are Felix and Oscar from
The Odd Couple, but the further back the movie and
the TV show recede in our cultural memory the safer Felix seems to become. It has climbed from #376 in 2000 to #276 in 2017. Oscar's fortunes, perhaps conflated with that of the well-known
grouch, have gone in the opposite direction, falling from #122 to #192. I think the reason the name ranks even that high is that there's a lot of love for it still in Hispanic communities.
Archie -- Had to have been killed by Archie Bunker from
All in the Family; neither
Archie nor
Archibald are in the top 1,000 names. There was a time when we had Archies all over the place, but I guess we used them all up, and now they're gone.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! -- Of all the names from
The Brady Bunch,
Marsha is the best remembered, which seems to have killed it outright. Marsha Brady was pretty and popular, but the name doesn't rank in the top 1,000, even with the more cultured spelling
Marcia. Jan as a girl's name is also not in the top 1,000, by the way, so Jan's revenge is incomplete.
Casper -- I usually think of the villain from
The Maltese Falcon first, but the Friendly Ghost is the one that probably still leaps to mind for most people. Others may think of Caspar Weinberger, the late secretary of defense, or a variation of
the legendary name for one of the Magi. I will go with the ghost, because Casper (or Caspar) is not in the ranking, and thus a ghost of its former self.
Donald -- Been a long, slow decline for Donald; currently at #488 but at #217 in 2000. Yes,
Donald is a little geeky, but
Don is cool. Many cool Dons out in pop history. I think Disney's duck has slowly strangled the name. You might as well name your kid
Daffy.
Dexter and Hannibal -- Popular culture's favorite psychopathic murderers have not only killed dozens of characters in horrible ways, but they've also killed their names dead. Too bad;
Dexter is associated with
right-handedness and thus propriety (also dyeing, which is weird); and
Hannibal was the general from Carthage who almost destroyed Rome. Good names with a lot of life left in them... but not anymore.
For the record,
Frederick is bobbing around at #494.
Barney and
Wilma, though, aren't in the top 1,000.
To be fair, most of these names are considered dorky now anyway, which is why they were chosen for those characters. It helps make them memorable. Most are boys' names, maybe because boy characters are dorkier than girl characters, or maybe because girls are
stealing all the good boy names.
I think eventually Harry (as in Harry Potter) might get the treatment, when the books and movies start to look old-fashioned. Maybe around the time there's a big Bertha revival.
