Shazion Neymar was a baby name in 2018. But traditional names stand test of time

Parents who choose special names gleaned from television celebrities, Hollywood stars and music artists tend to steal the show when the annual list of baby names makes it to the National Statistics Office.

But these outliers are the domain of just a few children every year, because in the main part the most popular names are traditional ones.

Take for example the dominance of Biblical names: New Testament favourites Luke and Matthew have occupied the top two names for boys over an eight-year period since 2010.

The Hebrew name Jacob enjoyed third position throughout the same decade, only to fall to fifth position in 2018 as names like Nicholas made a mercurial surge to third position, followed by the classic Alexander.

Ensconced between the traditional Hebrew and Latin names that tend to dominate European names, was the apparent outlier Kaiden, fourth most popular in 2010, falling eighth position in 2014, and finally dropping to 27th place in 2018. The name could be an American spelling variation of the Gaelic “cadáin” from the surname MacCadain, but of course it is all pure sound, a name that abbreviates itself nicely as ‘Cade’ or ‘Kade’.

Even girls’ names follow the same pattern: Helen and its variations, such as the popular Ella, was in top place in 2010 and 2014, and fell to second in 2018 as the popular Julia climbed from seventh place in 2010 to top in 2018.

All top five names are equally from the book of classic forenames: Elizabeth, Maria (but perhaps unsurprisingly, never Mary), Christina and all its variants, and Emma, the top third favourite of 2018. The great climbers are names such as Katrina and Catherine, or Emily, Valentina and Nina.

The dominance of these names only serves to illustrate how the Maltese ‘howlers’ of names such as Dnegel or Tneder (ananyms of Legend and Redent, the Maltese for ‘Redeemer’) are extremely unique, and because such anagrammatic reversals tend to be used in works of fiction, perhaps unfair for children to have to carry.

The Dnegel ‘affair’, which prompted the Children’s Commissioner to caution expectant mothers against exposing their children to unwanted attention and bullying, also opens questions about who gets to name their children what and when.

Celebrities like David and Victoria Beckham get to name their kids Cruz, Romeo or Brooklyn; Kim Kardashian called her daughter North; rock star Frank Zappa famously called his son Dweezil. The Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, a conservative Catholic, gave his sixth son the names Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher (there were six Pope Sixtus, whose name is originally Greek but in Latin America is still used as Sixto).

Fame and money may be a burden that allows its bearers to give their children names that befit the ostentatiousness of wealth. Unlike those whose actual careers and fortunes may be judged by their forenames, a rich man’s name can be a brand. The others must consider how their babies’ names display not just the obvious identifiers of sex and gender, but also of ethnicity and racialised identities, and especially in Malta, class.

Names such as Zashelle, Zanaiyah, Zaleshian, Yelson, Yenz, Willtoine, Teejay, Sonata, Shezlielle, Shemersion, Shazion Neymar, Shazaleah, Damaris, Delson and Demarcus... to name a few of the outliers from 2018’s list of baby names, might all be determining factors for career prospects in the future. No doubt, unfairly.

The Germans insist on children’s names being faithful to their identified gender, but also that they do “not negatively impact on the wellbeing of the child”, and forbid using objects or products as first name. So no ‘Moon Unit Zappa’ allowed (true name, sister to Dweezil...). It is a decision on which the Standesamt, the office of vital statistics, enjoys power. If the office rejects your baby’s name, you may appeal, but the Standesamt will consult its ‘international manual of first names’, as well as foreign embassies for assistance with non-German names.

Even Denmark employs a stringent Law on Personal Names to protect children from “unusual names that suit their parents’ desires”, which allows parents a name from a list of 7,000 names (only).

Catholic priests may have mild discretion to suggest that a given name is not “foreign to Christian sentiment”, which arguably should proscribe ‘religious’ ananyms such as Tneder. But who wants to pick a fight in the parish?

Ultimately there is no doubt that such names are an identifier of background. A study for the UK Department of Work and Pensions tested for racial discrimination in recruitment practices by sending out sets of equivalent applications to job vacancies across the UK, using forenames and surnames commonly associated with minority groups. To get a job interview, 74 per cent more applications from candidates with ethnic minority names had to be sent out compared to candidates with “white” names.

Clearly, forenames can have social consequences.