After giving birth to her third child this spring, a girl named Whimsy Lou, lifestyle influencer Nara Smith posted a Tik Tok listing some of the names she and her husband liked but ended up not using. Among them were Tank, Clementine, Flick, Halo and Dew.
Francesca Farago, reality TV star, posted one similar video recently, including names like Heart, Ethereal, Prosper and Afternoon. Her husband also liked the name Orca, she said. (Mrs. Farago vetoed naming her child after the killer whale.)
Baby names have come a long way since Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin made headlines for naming their daughter Apple two decades ago. In 2024, almost anything can be a name. A recent TikTok trend seems to offer a satirical critique of how some parents are eager to find unique names for their offspring.
The setup of the joke goes like this: “Arrange to name your child something you love.” Users respond with something super special that they will probably never name a child, like Diet Coke, Velvet the “cheeky piece of gossip work.”
Emily Kim, a full-time baby name consultant, said the trend seems like a direct response to “how extreme” baby names have become.
Ms Kim, who is 33 and lives in Minneapolis, made a name for herself on TikTok thanks to her uncanny ability to predict what celebrities and influencers will name their children based on their online aesthetic. Last year, she you guessed right what would football player Jason Kelce and his wife, Kylie, name their third daughter, Bennett. (Ms. Kim said she knew it would be a traditionally male name, since the Kelces' two other daughters were named similarly.)
Naming a child, Ms. Kim explained, has become for many people an extension of personal branding.
“The baby's name is just one aspect of your personal style, in the same way that home decor and clothes are part of your style,” Ms Kim said. “In our parents' time, the elements of your personal style were known to your close friends and maybe your neighbors, your family, but your style was not displayed on a larger scale to acquaintances and strangers in the way that it is the norm now. .”
Ms. Kim's consultations start at $295 for a five-minute session in which she shares her personalized suggestions. During the sessions, the most common request he hears is for names that are “unique but not too out there.” Clients don't want their children to arrive on the first day of school only to find they are one of five in the class with the same name, she explained. (I'm looking at you here, Emilys of the world.)
This access to a wider group of people through social media has made many of her clients feel that certain names are off-limits “because they've already been 'used', even though it's by someone you don't really know,” Ms. said Kim.
Morgan Klein, another baby name consultant, started TikTok, sourcing vintage-sounding names from old yearbooks. She specializes in finding “unusual names,” said Ms. Kline, who is 29 and lives in Rock Island, Ill. “Many people hire me to find a name that was only used less than 25 times last year. “
Ms. Klein recently helped a client land on the Woods name.
Like Ms. Kim, Ms. Kline said personal branding often played a role for clients when choosing a baby name. “I think that's especially true for people who are in the public eye,” he said. “Some influencers really want to make sure their child has a unique name in case they want to make it into the entertainment industry somehow.”
As for the recent joke trend, Ms. Klein said she could even see some of the joke names being chosen by real people — like “Mocha,” a creative idea of a TikToker.
“I could definitely see the right person using that as a name», said Mrs. Klein.