Why Old Hollywood baby names are making a comeback

Forget baby name books, parents are looking back to the Golden Age of cinema for inspiration…

Picking a name for your child can be difficult, often taking the whole nine months to decide on. Most couples want a name that won't make their child the object of playground ridicule, but that's also unique enough not to get lumped in with a mass of Toms or Katies on the class register (every Tom and Katie knows this pain only too well).

But it seems as though the parents of Generation Y have found a solution to this dilemma: the Golden age of Hollywood.

Old Hollywood names are on the rise. Say goodbye to ‘Alice’ and ‘Chris’ and welcome back ‘Audrey’ and ‘Gregory’.

Naming your child ‘Vivien’ or ‘Ingrid’ could have been once been considered social suicide, but in recent years retro names have been enjoying a new surge in popularity.

In fact, turn on any black and white film from Hollywood’s Golden Age and you'll find a host of trendy 2016 baby names.

According to website babycentre.com.au here are the names staging a comeback:

Girls:

- Audrey - Ava - Bette - Clara - Ginger - Greta - Ingrid - Jean - Joan - Judy - Mae - Marilyn - Marlene - Rita - Scarlett - Vivien

Boys:

- Buster - Cary - Clark - Fred - Flynn - Grant - Gregory - Harold - Humphrey - Kirk - Laurence - Marlon - Orson - Sidney - Spencer

So why the sudden Old Hollywood throwback? According to the users of Babycentre.au, one reason for the trend is a sense of nostalgia that we have for our grandparents and great-grandparents.

Another factor could be the huge surge in retro baby names being picked by celebrities – especially for girls – with Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendez naming their daughters ‘Amada’ and ‘Esmeralda’, while Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds opted for ‘James’.

‘Naming your baby after Greta Garbo or Grace Kelly gives them a timeless class that you just can’t get from The Big Book of Names’ one user tweeted.

So if you're hunting for a baby name right now, the best way to do it might be by switching on a silver screen classic...