What were common names when you were growing up?

I enjoy following baby naming trends, and I'd like to chat about that if you don't mind. What names were most commonly heard when you were growing up?

I was in school through the 1970's and graduated in the early 1980's.

Trends in boys' names don't change as fast as they do on the girls' side. Among my classmates, boys had traditional, timeless names like John, Michael, David, William, James, Richard, Edward, and Robert. Names that wouldn't have been too far out of place on our fathers' birth certificates either. Or they had surfer beach boy names such as Brian, Jeffrey, Brad, Greg, Todd, Scott, Christopher, and Dean. Which might have sounded a little strange applied to a 40-year-old at that time.

Raymond, Arthur, George, Henry, Lloyd, Walter, names ending in -ard other than Richard and Edward (Howard, Leonard, Willard) and Ed- names other than Edward (Edwin, Edmond) weren't unheard of, but they were more likely to belong to our fathers and uncles than to our classmates and brothers. Unless they were a Junior, of course, and a lot of boys were. Charles kind of rode the fence. He could be old or young, but if he was old, he was known as Charlie, and if young, Chuck.

Boys' middle names were most often Allen/Alan, Lee, and Wayne. In fact, if I had a classmate whose name was John, there was a good chance his middle name was Wayne. Our parents used to worship that guy. I don't know why. But if one of us had a father or uncle named John, chances were greater that his middle name would be Henry. Same hero-worship kind of thinking.

Baby boys of the day were being named Joshua, Jesse, Jason, Jeremy, and Justin. J-names were all the rage.

Girls were usually Jennifer, Debbie, Lisa, Angela, Kimberly, Melissa, Stephanie, Tammy, and Cindy. Debbie, Tammy, and Cindy, by the way, could be formally named Deborah, Tamara, and Cynthia, or they could be just plain Debbie, Tammy, and Cindy. There were still a few girls my age named Brenda, Karen, Susan, Linda, Barbara, and Donna, but those names were fading and mostly belonged to our mothers and aunts. Carol, Alice, Doris, Shirley, and Nancy, forget it. Those were names for mothers, aunts, and maybe even grandmothers, not young schoolgirls. Names like Tonya, Michelle, and Stacy belonged to our little sisters in elementary school.

Pretty much every girl’s middle name was Ann, Lynn, or Marie. If not one of those, then Kay, Sue, Jean, or Gail. Rose, Jane, and Nicole as middle names wouldn't catch on for another few years. Those were more likely going to be our daughters' middle names.

Baby girls were being named Rebecca, Heather, Crystal, Amber, and Amanda. Hardly anybody had ever heard of a girl named Tiffany, Chelsea, or Michaela, in whatever spelling. The likes of Jessica, Ashley, Brittany, Megan, Courtney, and Taylor weren't quite taking off yet, but when they did, oh boy, did they ever.

What was the naming landscape like for you?

My deadname is Mikayla. I legally changed it a few years ago.

Growing up there were a lot of Jessicas, Brittanys, Amandas, Seans, Erins, and Kyles.

I didn't mention it in my post (because it was too long already) but gender neutral names were increasinly common in my childhood. Nicknames that could be short for different names, that may or may not change spelling across gender lines. Chris for Christopher or Christina. Terry for Terrence or Theresa. Bobby for Robert, Roberta or Barbara. Billy for William or Belinda. Ronnie for Ronald or Veronica. Sam for Samuel or Samantha. Names that used to be more common for males becoming more common for females. Shannon, Tracy, Meredith, Beverly, Jesse/Jessie, Lee/Leigh, Brett, and later Kelsey, Jordan, Taylor, Tyler, and Madison.

I (female) grew up with a gender neutral name, and so did my brother. We were less than ten months apart in age. Our remaining siblings weren't encumbered as we were. Their names made their gender more obvious, whereas Brother and I were both often asked to clarify. People repeatedly pointed out that "I can't tell by your name alone if you're a boy or a girl." And in my case, my middle name was gender neutral too. When you're ten or twelve years old, that matters, especially in sexist times like the 1970's. I think this may have caused Brother to feel insecure about his masculinity, and the result was, he bullied me to no end. He had to assert his dominance and keep reminding me which one of us was the boy, doggone it, since our names didn't show it.

I changed my name later in life. He didn't. But I do hear you about the deadnaming. For me it's sort of an acid test. I can tell who respects me or not based on whether they call me by the name I chose for myself and legally changed to, or whether they insist on calling me what they want to call me, regardless of my feelings.

Lol....I was born in early 50's. All through school there were at least 4 other Debbie's in my class. Swore I would never do that to my kid. So when my daughter was born (late 70's) I named her Chandra because it was pretty & unusual. She hated her name until she was in kindergarten & had a teacher with her same name....then she thought it was a pretty cool name

Lots of Mary’s, and bobs, or Bobby ( Nick name of Robert) lots of mikes, James, Tim, Donald, Richard,Jim, John, girls names were a bit more of a mixture. Let’s see, Karen, Kathy, Debbie, Linda, carol, Brenda, Pamela, Debra, Diane oh yes Susan.

I didn’t grow up in the US. My name is very popular in the region I am from.

I gave my daughter relatively unique name because I wanted her to be the only one. It’s not a made up name and in fact it’s an old fashioned one, but not popular and in her 36 years of life she met exactly zero people with her name. I’ve met exactly one person with my daughters name. She did the same naming her son. Very old fashioned name but not common nowadays, there’s no one with his name, unless someone is 100 years old. Certainly no kids nowadays! He’ll likely always be the only one. I think it’s cool.

One of my daughters has a very popular first name for her generation, but her middle name is as you describe. She’s in her 30s and everyone else we’ve met with that name is at least over 70. She loves it. She even prefers to go by a nickname of her middle name rather than her first.

Jessica, from Wikipedia.

"Jessica" was the first- or second-most popular female baby name in the United States from 1981 to 1998 before falling out of the Top 20 in 2004. It also rose to No. 1 in England and Wales in 2005, dropping to No. 3 in 2006.

For girls: Jennifer, Nicole, Michelle, Heather, Christina, Sarah, and Amy are some that come to mind. was almost named Nicole and I'm glad I wasn't because in third grade there were three already in my class. My name ended being much more unique. For boys: Christopher, Brian, Steven/Stephen (lots of those), Scott, Mark, and Kevin are some that come to mind.

Oh, I forgot, tom(Thomas) and George. Lots of both.

**** and Jane and Sally and Spot?

Poor Richard...sorry kid some silly-arsed program censored you again.

To be serious I guess I knew a lot of Daves around my age. A serious slew of Daves. Surprised there wasn't a Dave the disciple. Most of Jesus's disciples were pretty popular names.

I knew them! See spot run! Run spot, run.

Memories are vague but they were part of kindergarten/grade 1-ish[?] The seventies changed a lot of the older style teaching methods. The layout, the art, the whole approach. Bit of a renaissance in the teaching biz. I was in Grade III and home sick when Sesame Street was first aired by our one teevee channel. BLEW MY MIND. Didn't want to go back to school!

I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and graduated in 1996.

I didn't have the largest school class growing up (109 kids in my graduating class) and there were not many kids a grade or 2 up or below me either so it's hard for me to know.

There were several Amys and Lisas. However, a lot of girls had the middle name Lynn, and my middle name is Lynn as well. Renee was a popular girls first & middle name. Kaye was a popular middle name and is one of my sister's middle names. There were also a few Kaylynns and variations of it such as Caylnn. Variations of Tana, Tayna. My area had a largish Hispanic population so Maria and Tonia were popular as well as Tonio/Antonio, Juan, Luis, Jose and Angel.

There were a lot of Robert/Roberto as boy names, and H grew up in the 1970s/1980s and his first name is Robert as well though he goes by his middle name instead. Keith and John seem to have been popular with boys, Jeff as well and variations of Christopher such as Kris and Kristopher.

Similarities and differences in my place and time.

It seemed like a lot of Debbies, Deborahs (maybe the T Rex song?), Michelles (the Beatles song which was actually the French/male name I think?), Lisas, Sharons and Tracys. Girls with those names always had to use their surname initial to be identified.

For the boys it was Mainly Pauls (the Beatles perhaps?), Seans and Shauns/Shawns, Ians, Craigs, Michaels, Tonys, Marks.

All those names are dated now, I don’t think you’ll find any children or babies with them.

My name wasn’t popular then or now. I sure did wish I was called Debbie like everyone else back then but not now.

Many people remember the D*ck and Jane books. They were very common, but were eventually phased out, possibly because of those unfortunate associations. They were published by Scott Foresman.

When I was in elementary school, we were using the Macmillan readers featuring stories revolving around siblings Mike, Mary, and Jeff. They had a goat named Billy, a dog named Bolo, a cat named Velvet, and parents called Mother and Father. My husband, who grew up in California, remembers the Janet and Mark books by Harper & Row about the same time. Apparently they were used only in California schools.