Do you like Vampires?

The Names of Twilight

I’ve devoted the past 3 post to good girl and good boy names. We’ve talked some Bible names. We’ve talked about virtues and a lot of the names they have given us. Joy and Abigail. Honor and Joshua. Well, I think its time for a change!

What’s something that’s quite the opposite of biblical? Oooo, Vampires! I’m pretty sure they are considered demonic, after all. Recently, we’ve seen a big surge in popularity for Vampire names. What can we thank for this explosion of vampirey goodness? The Stephanie Meyer novel, Twilight. Even I have inadvertently fallen into this vampire trap while choosing a name for my child. Arabella may not be Isabella, but the nickname’s the same no matter how you cut it.

Of course, with this surge of interest in the novels and the movies, there have been blogs and articles about the Twilight names as well. Because, honestly, many of them are pretty darn clever! If you’ve read or heard any interviews with Stephanie Meyer, she has said many times that she chose the names of the characters based on their year of birth. She did some research and found out names that were popular at the time and those were the names she chose from for each character.

For instance, all of the regular high school students have typical names like Mike and Jessica. Well, Michael has always been pretty popular for boys, but Jessica is totally a popular 80s staple. Then there are the parents, Renee and Charlie. Guess what!? Renee peaked in the 1960s, which is when I’m guessing Bella’s mother was born. Anyway, one of the highlights of the series is the vampire’s names. So here goes, some of the names that have seen a popularity surge are:

Alice - This name is already a classic! We can thank Alice in Wonderland for that. This is an adorable name for a curious little girl.

Cullen - The last name of the vampire clan has actually been used as a first name for a decade or two now. It’s a regal name that perhaps might sound a little too refined for a little boy for my tastes.

Emmett - Well, I honestly think of Emmett Smith…BUT Emmett has been fairly popular in the past (say the around the 1900s) and it is making a strong comeback. I do like the name Emmett, its strong and is sure to grow with the boy to becoming a man.

Jasper - Oh how I love this name. I think its totally hipster. Jasper has always been around, but has never been very high popularity-wise. That makes it a cool name for those of us who don’t like going with obvious/popular names!

All three of the male names were in the top 10 “jumpers” for 2009, all gaining at least 100 spots. And since the series began to be popular, Alice has risen almost 200 spots over 4 years. There’s no doubt that Twilight has had an influence on our culture and naming was definitely not left out of the craze!