I’m seeing this so many times… Like Aiden, Caiden, Braiden, Jaiden, Paiden…

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    There’s a well-studied phenomenon called “social diffusion”. People of higher socioeconomic status seek out novel, unique, or fashionable baby names and start using them. These names gradually get picked up by families of lower socioeconomic status. Eventually the names become mainstream, and then finally decline in popularity.

    • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      Social diffusion is an explanation of how information spreads, not just names.

      My understanding is that unique names and neologism have long been a feature of African-American culture where North American Caucasians followed a family naming tradition. I think what has happened is some celebrities have moved towards a unique name scheme. But it feels like a mainstreaming of AA culture more than anything.

      The impetus has been there in Europe. Many nations have/had very restrictive rules about names. They’d only have rules against it if people were trying to do it. I had Swiss friends who were very excited that their daughter was born in Canada so they could name her “Sora” which wasn’t in the approved name list in Switzerland.

  • EABOD25@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Aiden is tradition Gaelic and it means “fire”. Caiden is also Gaelic meaning “battle” Braiden is Gaelic meaning “salmon” Jayden is Hebrew for “God will judge” Hayden is old English meaning “hedged valley”

    • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      I’d like to see your source for those. I don’t know Gaelic so I can’t fact check those ones, but I do know a bit of Hebrew, and names that mean ‘God X’ usually end in el, not en. Also, Hebrew doesn’t have an English J sound, it has the IPA J sound though, or English Y sound. The Hebrew word for judge is ‘shofet’.

      • lath@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Probably taken from this.

        The name is probably a modern invention, formed by blending the “Jay” sound from the 1970s-popular name Jason with the “den” sound from names like Braden, Hayden, Jordan and Zayden.[1] The biblical name Jadon (or Yadon), Hebrew for “he will judge”, appears in the Bible in Nehemiah 3:7,[2] but it is unlikely to be the source of the modern name.[1]

    • BJHanssen@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      So I’m guessing it’s a combination of dun/den/tun etc being a common suffix in a lot of historical languages, and ‘ei’ being an extremely common diphthong worldwide just… leading to a lot of similar-sounding names that also converge in spelling in modern English?

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Unique names and spellings became popular in the US during the 70s as part of the Black Power movement. The politically conscious black parents didn’t want to name their children European names, for some reason. The problem is that these black parents had no cultural link to Africa because that had been stolen from them.

    Fist came Arab names. I presume this has to do with the NOI and the black celebrities who converted to it. Some of these names are still popular like Omar and Jamal. Of course Black Americans have no more connection to Islam than they do to Christianity, So black parents just started making new names for their children.

    American popular culture tends to incubate in the black community and slowly drift into white culture. So it has gone with the unique baby names.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      very good answer. white people have tried to take everything from the black community, and now the names…

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      When i read that i imagined that scene i. Fear and loathing in las vegas when they sniffed ether.

  • Plopp@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Paiden? That’s a weird one. Payme on the other hand, now that’s a good name.

  • alcoholicorn
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    5 months ago

    It’s the male version of adding -lin to the end of a name.

    • christophski@feddit.uk
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      5 months ago

      Never heard of this, what are some examples? Maybe caitlin? Just looked that up, it’s an Irish name.

      • alcoholicorn
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        5 months ago

        I don’t think there’s any history, it was just popular in the midwest in the 2000s

        Caitlyn, Kaylin, Ashlin, Jaylin, Roselin, Jaquelin, Shaelin. Same with adding “leigh”

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          The English name suffix -in comes from the french name suffix -inne which is a feminine modifier. Eg. Jacques is a masculine name, Jacqueline is a feminine name.

        • christophski@feddit.uk
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          5 months ago

          But those are just names that already existed? I thought you meant like taking a name like Simon and making it Simonlin or Adam to Adamlin

      • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        You take a common name and add “lin” or any variation of that sound at the end.

        The only example I have at the top of my head is Jessica-Lyn because I knew one person with that name in the past, but you get the gist.

  • angrystego@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I feel all wrong now because you decided not to list the first three in alphabetic order.

  • Jackie's Fridge@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    It’s been around for a while. Over a decade ago Target ran a cheeky back to school advert featuring a slow pan across school cubbies with lunch pails all labelled with variant spellings of “Braiden”. I thought it was hilarious.