Why unique baby names are trending in the U.S.
An increasing number of American parents are choosing unusual baby names.
I came across this article which I found a bit curious...
American parents continued the trend toward choosing more unique names for their children,” said Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University and author of “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before” (Free Press, 2007).
Multiple lines of research suggest that American culture has been getting increasingly individualistic for at least a century . Surveys reveal more self-focus and less empathy in today’s young people than the youth of previous generations, for example, and books are now more likely to contain individualistic words and phrases like “all about me” and “self.” Baby names can be an “incredible” window into such individualism, Twenge said. Since choosing a baby’s name is not just an attitude measured on a survey, but also a behavior, those names reveal how people are acting, not just what they’re saying, Twenge told Live Science.
Naming narcissists
The results held even when the researchers accounted for immigration rates and increasing Latino populations, which could bring relatively less common names into the mix.
"The most compelling explanation left is this idea that parents are much more focused on their children standing out," Twenge told LiveScience. "There's been this cultural shift toward focusing on the individual, toward standing out and being unique as opposed to fitting in with the group and following the rules."
The positive side of individualism, Twenge said, is that there is less prejudice and more tolerance for minority groups . But she warns that when individualism is taken too far, the result is narcissism .
"I think it is an indication of our culture becoming more narcissistic," Twenge said.
http://www.livescience.com/9841-parents-choosing-unusual-baby-names.html
So we can take this article to a lot of places... do you agree with it? Do you know anyone with an original name? Can you come up with some original names? I'm open to playing around on this one. 
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Interesting article. I'm not sure this indicates narcissism. Perhaps it reflects a subconscious desire to reject group think, dogma, and becoming a lemming. Perhaps there is some sort of archetypal memory afloat making folks uncomfortable. Perhaps, though not understanding the genesis of said thought, there is a collective feeling that if they don't do something they'll all be goose stepping around in the burbs in a dystopian future.