{"id":575,"date":"2009-05-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/05\/oh-im-still-the-top-alright.html"},"modified":"2009-05-12T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-12T09:00:00","slug":"oh-im-still-the-top-alright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/oh-im-still-the-top-alright.html","title":{"rendered":"Oh I’m Still The Top, Alright"},"content":{"rendered":"

So apparently, after 12 fantastic years, I am no longer #1. “Emily” has lost its spot as the most popular name for girls. Now it’s Emma.<\/a> Whatever.<\/p>\n

\"babynames.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n


\nWhen I was a kid my mom had these cartoonish books for new parents, one of which was a book of baby names and the meanings of names. I liked to look up the meaning of my name and names of people I knew. “Emily,” according to this particular book, meant a healer <\/i>and caretaker of the world<\/i>. I did take on this sort of a role, looking out for the kids who were bullied, doing a lot of volunteering, taking care of my friends. Coincidence?<\/p>\n

However, when I do a Google search now for the meaning and origin
\nof the name Emily, I find mostly that it comes from the Latin word
\nAemilia, and it means to strive, excel, emulate or rival<\/i><\/a>. Nothing about being a do-gooder. And I do have a perfectionism streak in me. Gosh. Make up your mind, people! <\/p>\n

Another page in my mom’s silly book, sadly, had a list of top names and their common stereotypes. Under “Emily” it said: side-line sitter, shy<\/i>. Well, I was offended…because it was sort of true. I hated sports. I did not feel like I fit in at all with my peers as a kid. Big crowds, shrieking people, popular music, athleticism – oh boy was I turned off. I was very shy until the end of high school.<\/p>\n

Did my name and my associations with that name have anything to do with the personality I developed? If I had a different name, would I have been treated differently by other people and developed a different sense of self? Been more confident as a child? Or meaner?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So apparently, after 12 fantastic years, I am no longer #1. “Emily” has lost its spot as the most popular name for girls. Now it’s Emma. Whatever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nOh I'm Still The Top, Alright - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/oh-im-still-the-top-alright.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oh I'm Still The Top, Alright - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So apparently, after 12 fantastic years, I am no longer #1. “Emily” has lost its spot as the most popular name for girls. 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Emily has been attending classes and workshops at the ID Project since 2005.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/eherzlin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}