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A new list of Gen Beta names are in and they might just be the most iconic yet

Get ready to meet a lot of "Chosens."

Photo by Howard R Wheeler on Unsplash

A young child wearing a cowboy hat and scarf.

We knew this time would come. The time when baby names would be off-the-charts cool and brilliantly unique. Sure, this might be said of every generation, but this time, it's really true. And it's awesome.

Of course, Gen Beta babies have already been born. That generational clock reset on January 1st, 2025. So, any child born on or after that date until 2039 is full Beta all the way. Millennials and Gen Z-ers have gotten off to a fun start on naming the newest generation, and their inspiration is unlike anything most of us have seen before.

 babies, names, Raising Arizona, trends, children, beta A scene from the film Raising Arizona.  Giphy 20th Century Fox 

On ABC News, writer Bethany Braun-Silva notes, "Popular baby names today are a mosaic of smaller, hyper-localized trends rather than a set of universal favorites." She cites editor-in-chief of Nameberry, Sophie Kihm, who claims, "Names are deeply tied to identity. The most important thing is choosing a name that feels meaningful to you."

Braun-Silva shares, "Current trends include neo-cowboy names (like Rhodes and Dutton), adult-sounding names such as Lionel or Georgina—girl names for boys like June or Willow, and 'atmospheric' names like Clover or Solana."

But what's most exciting is what's on the horizon ("Horizon" being one of the names you might actually see soon.) As Gen Alpha ages, they'll be naming the new gen in as early as a few years. It's expected that they (along with current new parents) are taking inspiration from more localized, niche identities. Think Japanese, Turkish, Spanish, and Indian influences, Braun-Silva suggests.

Also, names based on video games and hobbies are coming quickly. (I really hope that means "Grand Theft Auto" and "Pickleball" will be the most popular names in nursey schools soon.) It's also reported that "Among the names expected to rise in popularity for girls are Scottie, Elowyn, Lenora, and Murphy, while for boys, names like Matheo, Elio, Chosen, and Caspian are predicted to trend."

 video games, grand theft auto, baby names, babies, trends A clip from the video game Grand Theft Auto  Giphy GTA 

According to author Delilah Gray for a piece on Yahoo! Life, bird names are about to take flight. (Sorry.) She writes, "You may be like, 'Bird names? Seriously?' But hear us out: there are so many bird baby names, and they’re all so unique and beautiful." She cites Baby Center, who report that Robin, Cardinal, Mavis, Raven, Dove, and Callum are definitely becoming popular for our little Gen Beta friends.

 bird, dove, babies, trends, names A white dove flying during daytime.  Photo by Shubhankar Bhowmick on Unsplash  

Furthermore, Baby Center claims that new parents are naming babies after traits they wish for them. "For boys, Wisdom is up 868 spots to No. 1,340, Loyal (up 225 spots to No. 829), Sincere (up 160 spots to No. 534), and Knowledge (up 83 spots to No. 1,054) are also climbing the baby name ranks."

For girls, trends include "Praise, which has risen 489 spots to No. 1,156; Divine, which has risen 145 spots to No. 1,175; Adore, which at No. 1,365 is up 106 spots; Queen, which is up 75 spots to No. 940; Miracle, which is up 69 spots to No. 181; and Hope, which at No. 217 has risen 40 spots."

 sharks, Jaws, movies, baby names, trends A scary scene from the film Jaws.  Giphy Shark Week GIF, Universal Pictures 

Lastly, expect to meet more babies named after movies. Baby Center notes, "The name Anora has jumped up 1,105 spots for girls so far this year, ranking No. 2,291." Not to mention a rise in popularity for recent Oscar winners, like Kieran, Cynthia and Adrian. It's all an exciting trend and could lead to that exciting day when we meet babies named "Jaws" or "Scream Three." Here's hoping!

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Modern Families

Man hilariously calls out why the trend of giving babies 'old people names' has got to go

“Ma’am. George is a mechanic in his 60s and he can’t work on your car this week because his sugars is running high.”

@mannybuckley/TikTok, Photo credit: Canva

Someone finally said what we're all thinking.

Listen, baby name trends come and go. What was once a hip and cool name will eventually be seen as passé (this coming from someone with a name that is now obsolete, apparently) and names once thought of as old-fashioned will absolutely become cool again. It’s part of the circle of life, like the tides, the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun…accept it.

In fact, this comeback is already happening. According to the Social Security Administration, vintage names like Theodore, Henry, Willam, Charlotte, Evelyn, and Emma are among the top ten most popular baby names of the moment. Jimmy Fallon’s daughters are named Winnie and Frances, for crying out loud.

However, just because there’s been an uptick in names that harken you back to a time when “good show, old sport” was a common phrase, not everyone is on board. Recently, content creator Manny Buckley hilariously put into words what many of us think of these WWII era names.

In a clip posted to his TikTok, Buckley first savagely said, “Y’all went from naming all y’all’s kids Jayden, Cayden, and Aiden, Madison, Addison, and Addylyn to giving them all old people names.” He then recounted being on a train and hearing another call after her toddler, whose name was George.

“Ma’am. George is a mechanic in his 60s and he can’t work on your car this week because his sugars is running high.” Where’s the lie?

 
 @mannybuckley What is this cycle of naming kids!? #names #naming #name ♬ original sound - 𝕄𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕪 𝔹𝕦𝕔𝕜𝕝𝕖𝕪 
 
 

He didn’t stop there, going on a lighthearted rant about the types of images certain now-popular names actually evoke, like Agnes (a “Florida retiree in her 70s who cannot leave the retirement home”), Ira (an “80 year old Jewish man”), Belinda (a “registered nurse who has been working in the field for 50 years”), and Clifford (a 85-year-old navy vet who needs “all y'all to be quiet”). Nary a kid sounding name in sight, if you ask him.

Though the video was clearly just a lighthearted jab, a few adults came into the comments to defend the use of vintage names.

“We aren’t naming babies. We’re naming people,” one top comment wrote, while another seconded, “Exactly! Some people don’t realize this. They are kids for a very short period of time, then they are adults.”

Still, another quipped, “yeah, but they aren’t senior citizens forever either!” Another wrote “I’m Martha…I’ve been 80 since the first grade.”

A few others, particularly teachers, chimed in with their own equally funny experience of kids having old fashioned names.

I am a kindergarten teacher. I have Marjorie and Brenda. It’s like a 1950’s secretarial pool.

I have kindergarteners named Edyth, Arthur, and Iris. They’re going to form a knitting club at recess.”

“My nephew is Charles lmao and he may only be 2.5, but he is the school maintenance and everyone call uncle.”

“We have Matilda and Cordelia, 4 and 2, shelling beans on the porch. Their nicknames are just as old, Tilly and Della. I love them though.”

And there you have it, folks. We have indeed come full circle. But is it any weirder than the thought of someone calling their Grandma Brittany? I think not.

This article originally appeared in February

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Kids

The most popular middle names for Millennial and Gen Z babies are absolutely wild

"Middle names are an opportunity for parents to be creative."

Photo by Colin Maynard on Unsplash
selective focus photography of baby holding wooden cube

As a Gen X-er, the most exciting middle name I ever heard was "Danger." The whole gist of it was so that this person could introduce themselves and say, "Danger is my middle name," and have it be a true statement.

For a long while, it was all about first names. But interesting middle names are making a comeback, especially for babies born to Millennial and Gen Z parents.

Come At Me Not Scared GIF by StickerGiantGiphy


In Sophie Kihm's piece "Middle Name Trends 2025" for nameberry.com, she writes, "Middle names were once an afterthought—meaningless and bland connectors between first and last names." However, she relays, "Today, middle names have become an opportunity for parents to be creative. Unlike first names, which many parents hold to high standards of practicality and wearability, middle names offer freedom, flexibility, and fun."

Walter White Walk GIF by Breaking BadGiphy

Some of the newest middle name trends are wild. Literally. "Wild" is one of the more popular middle names for babies, according to Kihm's article. After looking at over one thousand baby name announcements from last year, Nameberry predicted that the top names remained the classics. For girls, Rose, Grace, and Elizabeth topped the list. For boys, it was James, Alexander, and Michael.

That said, James also became popular as a second name for girls in the last decade, thanks in part to Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively choosing it for their daughter in 2014, after Ryan's late father. People Magazine reports, "When asked about the 'unusual' name choice for a girl on Good Morning Britain, Reynolds joked, 'In the spectrum of weird celebrity baby names, I don't really feel like we're breaking new ground here. I didn't call her Summer Squash Meadowlark.'" And now, it has even inspired more "grandpa" middle names than ever before for girls. On trend are Lou, Charles, Gene, and Claude.


Ryan Reynolds GIF by E!Giphy

And don't forget the colors. Kihm tells us, "Metallic hues Gold and Silver are beginning to climb the charts." Others on the list for babies born this year include Lavender, Teal, and Sage.

Perhaps most exciting on the list are middle names that conjure up strong feelings and virtues. Names like Love, True, Charm, and Reign. Think names that, if one were to become a pop star, they wouldn't need any other identifier. Also, new for boys are dreamy but robust names like Bear, Ocean, and Wolf. For girls, Bloom, Jupiter, and Valentine are coming into style.

brown wolf standing boulder during daytime Photo by Darren Welsh on Unsplash

Reddit has some thoughts. In the subreddit r/namenerds, someone posed the question, "What are your favorite unique middle names?" There were over 200 comments with suggestions, including Darling, Night, Day, Lark, Ember, and Rock.

A few people point out that some of these choices depend on culture. "In Arab/Muslim culture, the middle name of the child will be 'daughter/son of [father's name].'" Another person adds, "My country usually ends names in -ov for men and -ova for women. So if my granddad is Ivan, my middle name would be Ivanova."

A Redditor contributes this fascinating selection: "My middle name is First. My first name is August." When someone joked, "Thought you were going to say April for a moment there," they replied, "I did once work with an April. I just called her 'Four Months Before Me.'"

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Father has 'unique' idea to give his name to daughter, but mom says it's the 'worst ever'

Honestly, maybe she's right on this one.

Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

For context, the couple initially thought they were having a boy and were going to go the traditional route by carrying over the husband’s name. Easy Peasy. Except they were having a girl instead. And here is where our saga begins.

“See, when we first started talking about names, the ‘boy name’ was immediately decided: Stuart Jr., after my husband,” she wrote. “No problem there, it’s a classic name and carries family meaning. But, for a girl, things got murky.”

Apparently the woman’s husband thought he had come up with the perfect solve for their situation.

“My husband suggested Stuarta,. No, you’re not having a stroke,” she continued. “Apparently, his logic is that since Stuart ends in ‘t,’ we can just add an ‘a’ to make it feminine.”

Sure, okay. Some names can lean feminine or masculine depending on some letter tweaks, like Robert/Roberta, Eric/Erica, Carl/Carla, etc. But I think we can all agree that this trick doesn’t work in all cases, and that was how the wife felt.

“I tried explaining why that doesn’t quite work, how it sounds more like a furniture brand than a human name, how she’d be endlessly correcting people and explaining its origin,” she lamented.

AITA for rejecting the worst name ever for our offspring?
byu/Beginning_Date1924 inAmItheAsshole

But, alas, “He’s adamant though, says it ‘honors’ him while giving our daughter a unique name.”

In trying to respect his wishes, she even suggested some feminine name alternatives that sounded like Stuart, thus still honoring his name, but he would not budge.

At a loss, the woman concluded, “I love my husband dearly, and I understand wanting to honor family. But I can’t imagine subjecting our daughter to a lifetime of awkward stares and endless questions about her ‘unusual’ name. I also worry about potential bullying and the impact it could have on her self-esteem.”

She also asked the forum if they had any additional name suggestions, but for goodness sake no other “-ta” names. “The man clearly has a theme, and I need to gently steer him away from it, not fuel the fire!” she joked.

To no one’s surprise, everyone in the comments section thought “Stuarta” was dreadful.

“It sounds like a word your cousin tried to use in Scrabble during the holidays of 1997 just to try and win the game — they didn’t,” one person wrote.

Another added, “Stuarta sounds like a pharmaceutical product. I can hear the commercials now. ‘In some cases, Stuarta can cause headaches, rashes and even death.’ It doesn’t have a decent nickname. And no, adding an ‘a’ doesn't make it feminine in all cases; this is one of them. I’d go for Stuart as a middle name.”

Others felt it unfair that the woman’s husband was so hellbent on being the one honored in the first place—especially if the child is already taking his surname. Others argued that naming a child after a parent, any parent, robs them of their individuality.

“WTF should any child HAVE to be named after him in some way? I get the tradition thing but this is just weird behavior. The name should be about the child, not him alone. It's not only selfish, but arrogant to insist children must be named after him.”

“I always believed that if you want your child to have their own personality, their own name is the best place to start.”

Lastly, folks pointed out that regardless of how adamant the husband is about Stuarta, both parents have to be on board with the baby name: “Remind him that baby names need a yes from both parents or it’s a no. You both need to be able to live with whatever you go with. Even if that means both of you are missing out on the one you want most.” Case closed.

Hopefully the husband comes to his senses and all gets resolved before we have a little Stuarta in the world. But if not, let’s be kind to her regardless.


This article originally appeared last year.

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