Someone said Julie is an outdated name. Is it? 🥹🤨😧

Before the 1950s, Julie was not that popular. But starting from the 1950s, the name's popularity increased from 43 to 18 during the 1960s and 70s. In the 1980s, fewer parents opted to name their daughters "Julie," causing the number of babies given that name to decline to #51. By the 1990s, it dropped even further to #125, and was finally out of the list of top 200 popular names in the 2000s, the time I was born (ah-oh…).

Julie Hartenstein, a Narrative Medicine Degree Candidate at Columbia University, who also attend the journalism school here before and worked for ABC News for 18 years, said she has always liked her name (and not everyone can say that about their name!).

“I am in the 60s. And I think Julie seems a bit retro at this point… Only one friend of mine named her child Julie and her Julie is now almost 30... so that was also a long time ago,” said Hartenstein. “I don't think I would have considered Julie as a name for my daughter, but it is still a name I like.”

Julie Goldenberg, the associate editor at AARP, said she do like her name.

I don't think its "outdated," although I will say it definitely is less popular than "Julia" these days, said Goldenberg. "And I'm sure you can relate to people assuming your name is or mistakenly calling you "Julia" which can be annoying for us."

What were the popular names when I was born in the 2000s?

As I was born in 2001, around the 2000s, people loved to name their daughter “Emily” and their son “Jacob.” Data shows that there were 223,734 Emilys and 273,992 Jacobs at that time. Other popular names in the country included Madison, Emma, Olivia, and Hannah for girls, and Michael, Joshua, Matthew, and Daniel for boys. The names, “Jessica” and “Jennifer,” which had peaked in popularity for roughly 25 years, saw a shift and weren’t regarded as cool by parents in the 2000s. Names like “Madison” and “Isabella” became their new favorites.

What about 10 years before I was born? Were there also some trendy names? Are they different from the popular names in my days? Yes. As I mentioned, “Jessica” was leading the ranking with 303,118 girls named it in the 1990s in the U.S. There were also hundreds of thousands of Ashley, Emily, Sarah, and Samantha. Michael was the top 1 name favored by American parents for their boys, with 462,390 babies given that time. Like popular names in the 2000s, Christopher, Matthew, Joshua, and Jacob also led the list in the 1990s.

Regardless of the decade, names are undoubtedly important. They hold profound personal, cultural, familial, and historical connections. They also represent who we are, what communities we belong to, and even our place in the world. So no matter whether your name is mainstream or unique, I hope you like it!