It happens so often: you pick out what you think is a totally original, rare, and unique baby name — a name that you’ve rarely heard any person have. And then you walk into kindergarten with your kid only to find that there are three other Silases in the room and your kid will be called Silas M. How and why does that happen? It has everything to do with trends. You don’t realize that lots of other pregnant people across the country are having similar baby name thoughts as you, based on small little social and cultural things, such as cycles of popularity, the names of people in novels, and discussions on baby name boards on the internet.

Is there a way to avoid falling into the Silas trap? Maybe! This week, Reddit did an analysis of their most popular baby name forums, including r/babynames and r/namenerds. And they determined the 25 fastest rising and 25 fastest fading baby names. It might be the best way to find out what trends are forthcoming and which are ending.

They explained how they determined the names: “The mentions are bifurcated to determine whether the majority of baby names occur in the first half of the second half of the time frame. So, if a large majority of one baby name happens in the 2nd half of the time frame (Oct 2023-March 2024) compared to the first (March 2023-Sept 2023), it will classify it as ‘trending.’ And oppositely, if a majority of mentions of the baby name occur in the first half of the time frame (March 2023-Sept 2023), it will classify it as ‘fading’. Based on this, each baby name mentioned gets a trending score.”

The mentions were then filtered by sentiment (neutral/positive context) to remove any names that are being discussed in a negative context (i.e., “don’t name your baby ___”).

There were more than a few really cute rising baby boy names, including Vincent, Patrick, Holden, Rocky, Jonah, and Elliott. And, interestingly, when you look at the Social Security Administration’s baby name data, these trends aren’t apparent yet when it comes to babies that have already been born. Fascinating! Maybe we’ll be seeing more Vincents and Vinces in 2025 as these parents welcome their kids into the world.

On the girls’ side, there’s Jane, Isla, Audrey, Senna, Dorothy, and Leia, which has been slowly gaining speed and popularity since 2006. So cute! But it might be in the top 100 next year, just so you know.

Maybe this information will make you lean into a name you like on the list? Or have you considering something that’s not going to be next year’s Noah or Emma.

On the other end, some names are falling out of popularity.

There might be fewer male kids named Lawrence, River, Marshall, Alfie, and Lenny in the coming years. And there are ways that that’s a good and a bad thing (BTW, I love Lawrence! So cute!)

For girls names, Jennifer, Lucille, Maisie, and Eliza are are losing speed. However, it’s important to note that while these names dropped in mentions, they are still being mentioned in baby name discussions. Maybe think of them as the less popular popular names!

Naming a baby is such a fun, important special thing. One thing’s for sure, too: You can’t go wrong picking a name that you love.