Traditional Grandparent Names Such As Mary, Maureen, John And Michael May Soon Be Extinct According To Survey Of Irish parents
This coming Wednesday, 6th October 2021 marks Grandparent’s Day and offers the ideal opportunity to share and celebrate the day with grandparents all across the country.
To coincide with the day My Nametags conducted a survey to find out just how much influence grandparents have on the names selected for their grandchildren and also to discover if we are seeing a move away from more traditional names that previously would have been handed down from generation to generation.
While we all know that grandparents play a very important role in the lives of their grandchildren, surprisingly for many, the survey revealed that grandparents don’t seem to play a major role when it comes to what name is chosen for their grandchildren as 80% of those surveyed stated that their parent’s opinion didn’t matter when it came to selecting a baby name.
In relation to handing down first names from generation to generation, 64% of those surveyed said that they felt it wasn’t important to keep a name alive by passing it onto their children.
However, it seems we aren’t totally forgetting our elders as 71% of parents did reveal that they choose their parents or grandparent’s name as a second name for their children.
75% of respondents also felt that we are definitely seeing a move away nowadays from more traditional names and when asked what names they considered the most traditional the findings were as follows;
Female names:
1. Mary (87%)
2. Brigid (53%)
3. Maureen (51%)
4. Joan (30%)
5. Dolores (21%)
Male names:
1. John (75%)
2. Michael (58%)
3. Patrick (55%)
4. Seamus (35%)
5. Peadar (23%)
So, it would appear that we could soon find that traditional grandparent names such as Mary, Brigid, John and Michael are no more with parents instead selecting more modern names for their babies.
Speaking about the survey findings, Lars B. Andersen, Founder and Managing Director, My Nametags, commented:
“At My Nametags we love discovering what people’s thoughts are on names and especially the move from traditional to more modern names
that we have seen more and more in recent years.
While traditional grandparent names may not be selected for first names for children so much anymore it is great to see that they are not being
completely forgotten with many Irish parents selecting a grandparent’s name for their child’s second name.”
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