How come old people's names like Edith, Hyrum, Opal, and Genevieve arent popular any more ?

Question

Because they obviously were popular back then, and often times parents name their children after their adult relatives, but clearly at some point the aforementioned names lost their popularity. But why ? Is the name Kyle going to stop being popular this year, so 80 years from now if you see the name Kyle in the obituaries you KNOW he was really old ?

Answer 1

babies are given names depending on many factors. Family legacy names are passed on from generation to generation, thus creating Jr.'s, III, IV, V, etc. tagged on at the end of a name.
Popular culture has influence of what a baby will be named. People name their little ones after famous people they admire, movie stars, even statesmen at times (although that practice is becoming less popular because our statesmen and women are not always good models of society). Names like Opal, Pearl, Ruby were used more in the turn of the previous century, the 1890's on....they were sort of a victorian trend. The babies were tiny jewels; so they were named after jewels. Lots of Tiffany's a while back. Naming your daughter after one of the finest jewelers in NYC ....and the word means pinacle of finery.
Pendulums swing back and forth. What is popular now will go away and new....or old names come into play. There will always be unique names, handed down names, faddy ones. It almost depends on the blowing of the wind. :)

Answer 2

Because now we all want to use cool names like Mercedes. Of course in 50 years they will be outdated the kids will hate their names and we will be back to edith and opal. Its just another trend. There was a book on names that showed how some went in and out of style over the last 2000 years. But I don't remember the name of it.

Answer 3

They are considered old-fashioned today. People want hip names.

Answer 4

these things run in cycles. those names may very well
come back in style at some point.