Y2K names: the class of the 2000s

Before the names

The decade has a clear signature in the data — invented spellings, the -ayden family in full flight, and a wave of names with no record at all before the 1990s.

By the hundred-year clock these are nowhere near their return, which is exactly why they read the way they do right now: too recent to be vintage, too dated to be current. The peak year beside each name is the whole story.