A young mother watched as her daughter played with a dozen elementary-age girls in a park next to her house.
     Deciding it was time for her daughter to come in for the evening, she hollered, “ASHLEY!” Immediately five girls appeared at her porch. “No, I was calling Ashley Kaitlyn,” the young mother explained to the group. Hearing that, two of the girls left.

     We’re not exaggerating much when we say the new names for children consist of Brittneys, Amandas, Heathers and Briannas. They’ve replaced the names of Mary Rose, Mary Louise, Mary Elizabeth, Frances and Loretta, names popular a few decades back.
     And boys’ names, more conventional over the decades, are undergoing less radical changes. The traditional Josephs, Steves, Michaels and Roberts are giving way to Brandon, Jason, Joshua and Isaiah.
     Roll call at Immaculate Conception School in the ’40s and ’50s was routine. Although there were far fewer names then, people pretty much were christened with the unexotic. There weren’t many similar names in the entire school, except for the fact that, it being a parochial school, there was a sprinkling of “Marys” preceding lots of girls’ names. In my class, we had two Consuelos, two Cecilias and two Freds. But there were no Jazmins, Coles, Joshuas, Ambers, Dereks or Taylors in the school either.
     First names come about for a number of reasons: probably, plenty of people planning to pass down posterity bestow their own name on their offspring; people used to turn to the Bible for their family nomenclature; thus we get lots of names like Mary, Joseph, Esther, Ruth, David and Michael. People get named after the calendar: Tuesday, April, May and June. Some names are androgynous, such as Dana, Kevin, Carol and Heath.
     Sometimes people are named after places, such as Austin, Denver, Asia and Jordan. Some names are composites: a child being delivered on a car trip from Kansas to Illinois to Missouri might well be named Kim.
     People we know are often precisely the reason for not naming our children after them. Perhaps someone jilted her boyfriend, who vows never to name any offspring after her. We don’t have any Evelyns in our family; actually, we don’t have any girls, but that’s another story.
     Lately, a lot of people simply assume that coming up with a given name is too much trouble, so they choose a last name, and we get lots of Taylors, Madisons, Jacksons and Walkers and even the dreadful MacCauley.
     Sometimes names come from the most mundane of activities: a man shaving came up with the name Nick. A lot of popular names such as Rob, Doug, and Cip may derive from activities rather than characteristics.
     Sarah may have come from a question of a nervous father-to-be who took his wife to an apparently deserted hospital and shouted, “Sarah doctor anywhere?” And Justin may have been the reminder that a family got to the delivery room “Just in time.”
     A woman whose husband was out of town gave her brother the privilege of naming the twins she was expecting. When the time came, and the mother was under sedation, the brother picked the name Denise for the twin girl. The mother, quite pleased with that name, asked her brother what he’d named her boy. The brother proudly said he named him De Nephew.
     The name Jesus (pronounced GEE-zus) just isn’t given, except in Latino communities, where Jesus (pronounced He-SOOS) is quite common and acceptable.
     Movie stars such as Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor account for a slew of names. And there are phonetic reasons as well: some people simply like the way a name sounds. Names with “plosive” consonants such as “k,” “g” and “t” sound good, as in Kirk, Gilbert and Thomas; but flabby-sounding consonant glides like “w” or “l” are not euphonious, and that’s why pedestrian names like Wally, Wilfred and Melvin just don’t cut it.
     It’s hard to find a current, definitive list of most popular names, but the Baby Center website lists the top 20 girls’ names for 1998, starting with the most popular: Kaitlyn, Emily, Sarah, Hannah, Ashley, Brianna, Alexis, Samantha, Taylor, Madison, Haley, Jessica, Megan, Alyssa, Katherine, Elizabeth, Jasmine, Makayla, Kala and Rachel.
     Top 20 boys’ names are Michael, Jacob, Matthew, Nicholas, Joshua, Christopher, Brandon, Austin, Tyler, Zachary, Andrew, Joseph, Daniel, Jonathan, John, William, David, Ryan, Anthony and James.
     So just for fun, and fully aware there is nothing scientific about what follows, we went to the July 2003 issues of the Optic and came across honor rolls for the West Las Vegas Partnership, the East, West and Anton Chico middle schools, and Anton Chico Elementary.
     The winner was Ashley, with nine; followed by Amanda (6), Brianna (5), Kimberly (5) Jessica (4), Krystal (4), three each for Joshua, Brandon, Brittney and Tiffany, and two each for Jennifer, Jeremy, Heather, Derek, Kristen, Desiree, Cassandra, Brandi, and Kelsey.
     The Trujillo extended family includes Aaron, Arthur, Brandi, Brianna, Carly, Cassandra, Celina, Chloe, Crystal, David, Eric, Etienne, Jessica, Joseph, Joshua, Kelsey, Kristen, Nicole, Paris and Steven. Almost all of these names fall in the top 100 most popular names, and not surprisingly, are owned by teeny-boppers and younger.
     As for my parents and siblings, it’s hard to find any of our prosaic names in the top 100. But we’ll wait . . . it took 50 years for Brandi to replace Dolores. Names we grew up with are bound to come back into common usage sometime this century.