Millennial parents look to Instagram for baby name inspiration
Are you looking for that perfect name for your new baby? Look no further than Instagram. That’s right, one of the hottest new trends in baby naming is inspired by the filters of Instagram. Babycenter scours the baby name trends each year, and this year they noticed that Millennial parents are naming their children after Instagram filters.
Lux, while not technically a filter, refers to Instagram’s image-enhancing tool. It’s jumped up in popularity by 75 percent for boys; it’s up slightly for girls as well.
I’m sure Beethoven would be thrilled to hear that Ludwig is up 42 percent for boys. Amaro is up 26 percent, and Reyes is up 10 percent. Hudson and Kelvin saw more modest upticks at 4 percent and 3 percent respectively.
For girls, there’s been a 30 percent rise in popularity for Juno. Valencia is up 26 percent. Willow is up 13 percent though that could be due in part to the fame of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith’s genetically blessed daughter.
Some “Instanames” lost ground, however. We see fewer Sierras, Waldens, and Larks than in past years. The other filters haven’t yet broken ground in Babycenter’s database but don’t be surprised if some of them start gaining popularity. It’s hard to imagine I’ll be seeing students named Crema or Slumber in my classroom in the coming years, but you never know. I’m still getting mostly Sophies and Maxes at the moment.
I think most of these names are kind of cool though I’m not sure I’d want to tell my child he or she was named after an app on my phone. On the other hand, it’s not much different than taking name inspiration from a favorite movie, television show, or novel.
Have you given your child an Instagram or other app-inspired moniker? Would you?
