Maigonis, Dzidra, Skaidrīte, Milda … Will we ever call our children that again

Every year we can read about the most popular words given to newborn Latvian citizens, and among Sofia, Robert, Emilia and Oliver, it seems very unusual to meet a three-year-old named Dainuvite or, say, a little Gunvalds. At the same time, these words do not seem strange to people around 60+. Personal names – like anything else – have cyclicality and fashion. Some seemingly old-fashioned personal names come to life again, while others do not return. Why is it?

First of all, we each have our own vision and life experience, so it cannot be said that any personal name is objectively strange, everyone simply hears them differently. For many of us, parents and grandparents carry the words they were popular at the time they were born, but in the 21st century, they still seem ridiculous, awkward. But, for example, Elza and Emilija returned to fashion with ions more than a decade ago, and now only a few people find old-fashioned words. There is an explanation for that, too, but after a while.

Luckily, Delphi chose 12 female and male personal names that are more common among older people to track how they have progressed with “use” over the past hundred or so, with a particular focus on the last three years, namely whether these names are on the trend. is lost, or is any of them still there. One of our chosen words – and this is a strong man’s name – has fallen and risen in popularity, but in the last few years it is almost on its way to victory. This is Theodore.

The name of Theodore was very popular in 1920, ten years older actively called their sons, but in 1930 there was a sharp decline in the popularity of the name – it remained throughout the occupation and the first decades of independence, but suddenly revived in 2015, re-entering the male personal name “Top 100”. True, only in 91st place. However, in the last three years the number of Theodors is growing among us – in 2019 there were 547 Theodors in Latvia, but this year there are already 681. This number includes not only newborns, but Theodors of all ages, for whom it is the first name (a number of these Theodors also have a second name) . Theodore is a success story, because many other words do not do so well.

Milda and Skaidrīte pass

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