Baby Emma, David or Elizabeth? Not for American parents Caitlin and Luke McNeal.
Rather than naming their children after grandparents, biblical figures or the British monarchy, the couple chose places that held meaningful travel memories for them.
“Kinsale was when we lived in Ireland and we holidayed in Kinsale and fell in love with it,” says Caitlin. “Keenland is from Kentucky, the first place we vacationed together to watch horse racing.”
And finally, there’s Sabi – “from Sabi Sands in South Africa, where we went on our first solo holiday without Kinsale”.
The McNeals are part of a growing trend of choosing baby names based on travel destinations.
The McNeal family – Keeneland, Luke, Sabi, Caitlin and Kinsale.
Source: Caitlin McNeal
The popularity of “travel-inspired” names increased by 14% between 2000 and 2020. According to research by luggage storage app Bounce. The company compared a short list of destination names and travel-related words with data from the US Census Bureau and the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
The results show that baby name preferences overlap in both countries. However, research shows that the trend of naming children after countries and cities is more pronounced in the United States than in the United Kingdom, even after accounting for population differences.
The most popular “travel related” baby names
Preston, Israel, Phoenix and Orlando appear on both lists, but Preston — which means priest town — is the most popular overall.
baby site Bump calling the name “old and rather quaint” … Although some see it as a title reserved for the wealthy, Preston is the name of a northern English city once known for its role in the industrial revolution.
American parents of boys preferred local city names, while British parents tended to look abroad, with names such as Milan, Orlando and Rome topping their lists.
Sydney made the “top 10” list for baby girl names in both the US and the UK, but is more popular with American parents. It is the only name that was picked more than 100,000 times over the 20-year period analyzed in the study.
However, Sydney’s popularity in the US is on the wane. After peaking in 2002, the name fell from the 23rd most popular name that year to the 249th most popular name in 2021, according to the US Social Security Administration.
Historically, baby names have been inspired by literary characters, biblical figures, and the British monarchy. Now there is a growing trend to add travel destinations to the list.
Source: Ria Hoban
London made the top 10 list for American baby names for both boys and girls, but may be a little closer to home for British parents. According to the study, between 2000 and 2020, it was chosen only 220 times in the UK, compared to 44,556 times in the US.
According to Cody Candee, CEO of Bounce, of all the names in the study, Atlas was the most popular. In 2000, there were only eight babies named Atlas, but in 2020, there are about 2,175 — an increase of more than 27,000%, he said.
“This may be due to parents’ preference for more unique and meaningful names. Atlas comes from Greek mythology and means ‘to strengthen,'” he said.
“On the other hand, there are a few names that are declining in popularity,” he added. “In fact, there were 11 that disappeared completely, the biggest of which was Montreal, which went from 23 to 0.”
Baby names that correspond to country names
Ria and Connor Hoban with their children (from left) Bruno, Joaquin, Bode and India.
Source: Ria Hoban
“The Indian is female for tea,” said Ria Hoban. “When I found out I was pregnant, I happened to have my elements read at night and they told me I was a water element.”
“Also, Connor and I honeymooned in India—Delhi, north and south Goa, and Rajasthan—and I’ve always been surprised by the region. I’ve always loved the grandeur of the name and [I’m] fan Indian Hick design” he said, referring to the British designer and relative of the British royal family.
In both the US and the UK, the trend of naming babies after countries is more common for girls. With the exception of Israel, Trinidad and Cuba, the names on both lists were either exclusive or more popular choices for girls.
Baby names that match city names
While the lists are dominated by London, Kingston (named after singer Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale’s son), and Paris, there is one name conspicuously absent from the list: Brooklyn.
That’s because the study didn’t include the names of suburbs or neighborhoods, Candi said.
After Victoria and David Beckham chose the area for their first son in 1999, Brooklyn’s popularity skyrocketed, Candi said.
If the name were included, Brooklyn “would be the second most popular travel-inspired name for girls in the U.S., with 75,948 girls named Brooklyn over the past 20 years,” she said. However, the name is less popular for boys, he said — it was chosen just 1,412 times for boys in the U.S. during the same period.
Candee also said that several names were excluded from the analysis because they were heavily used for travel inspiration. Those names include Jordan, Madison, Austin and Charlotte, he said.
It is not known to what extent the other names were inspired by the trip or whether the parents may have had anything to do with the names.
An example is Hamilton. Although there are towns and cities named Hamilton in Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and the United States, the famous Broadway play “Hamilton” or Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton may have inspired some parents to choose a name for their children.
Likewise, it’s unclear to what extent parents who name their babies Paris were inspired by the French capital, the Hilton socialite, or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or something else entirely.
