I’m seeing this so many times… Like Aiden, Caiden, Braiden, Jaiden, Paiden…

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    5 months ago

    There’s a well-studied phenomenon called “social diffusion”. People of higher socioeconomic status seek out novel, unique, or fashionable baby names and start using them. These names gradually get picked up by families of lower socioeconomic status. Eventually the names become mainstream, and then finally decline in popularity.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    5 months ago

    Unique names and spellings became popular in the US during the 70s as part of the Black Power movement. The politically conscious black parents didn’t want to name their children European names, for some reason. The problem is that these black parents had no cultural link to Africa because that had been stolen from them.

    Fist came Arab names. I presume this has to do with the NOI and the black celebrities who converted to it. Some of these names are still popular like Omar and Jamal. Of course Black Americans have no more connection to Islam than they do to Christianity, So black parents just started making new names for their children.

    American popular culture tends to incubate in the black community and slowly drift into white culture. So it has gone with the unique baby names.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      very good answer. white people have tried to take everything from the black community, and now the names…

  • EABOD25@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Aiden is tradition Gaelic and it means “fire”. Caiden is also Gaelic meaning “battle” Braiden is Gaelic meaning “salmon” Jayden is Hebrew for “God will judge” Hayden is old English meaning “hedged valley”

    • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      5 months ago

      I’d like to see your source for those. I don’t know Gaelic so I can’t fact check those ones, but I do know a bit of Hebrew, and names that mean ‘God X’ usually end in el, not en. Also, Hebrew doesn’t have an English J sound, it has the IPA J sound though, or English Y sound. The Hebrew word for judge is ‘shofet’.

      • lath@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        5 months ago

        Probably taken from this.

        The name is probably a modern invention, formed by blending the “Jay” sound from the 1970s-popular name Jason with the “den” sound from names like Braden, Hayden, Jordan and Zayden.[1] The biblical name Jadon (or Yadon), Hebrew for “he will judge”, appears in the Bible in Nehemiah 3:7,[2] but it is unlikely to be the source of the modern name.[1]

    • BJHanssen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      So I’m guessing it’s a combination of dun/den/tun etc being a common suffix in a lot of historical languages, and ‘ei’ being an extremely common diphthong worldwide just… leading to a lot of similar-sounding names that also converge in spelling in modern English?

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      When i read that i imagined that scene i. Fear and loathing in las vegas when they sniffed ether.

  • Plopp@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    5 months ago

    Paiden? That’s a weird one. Payme on the other hand, now that’s a good name.

    • christophski@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Never heard of this, what are some examples? Maybe caitlin? Just looked that up, it’s an Irish name.

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        I don’t think there’s any history, it was just popular in the midwest in the 2000s

        Caitlyn, Kaylin, Ashlin, Jaylin, Roselin, Jaquelin, Shaelin. Same with adding “leigh”

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          5 months ago

          The English name suffix -in comes from the french name suffix -inne which is a feminine modifier. Eg. Jacques is a masculine name, Jacqueline is a feminine name.

        • christophski@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          But those are just names that already existed? I thought you meant like taking a name like Simon and making it Simonlin or Adam to Adamlin

      • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        You take a common name and add “lin” or any variation of that sound at the end.

        The only example I have at the top of my head is Jessica-Lyn because I knew one person with that name in the past, but you get the gist.

  • Jackie's Fridge@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    5 months ago

    It’s been around for a while. Over a decade ago Target ran a cheeky back to school advert featuring a slow pan across school cubbies with lunch pails all labelled with variant spellings of “Braiden”. I thought it was hilarious.