Everyone is born and given a name. Each year, many babies are given the same first name due to it being a cute, popular name during that year. Some of those names are given without reason, while others may have a strong story behind them. Maybe your name came from your grandmother, or maybe a movie character. With each name given, the more common it becomes.

The most common male 1980 names were Chris, David, Mike, Scott, and Tim. The most common female 1980 names were Debbie, Denise, Kathy, Stacy, and Susie. The yearbook had many students with these names, including alternative spellings of these names.

Now in 2020, you barely see these names. In the yearbook, many different and more uncommon names were found. While looking through the yearbook, the most common male 2020 names were Colin, Connor, Jacob, Lucas, and Samuel. The most common female 2020 names were Alyssa, Emily, Emma, Hanna, and Samantha. It was also found that Sam was a common name (or nickname) between both male and female.

With almost 2000 students, these were the most often found names in the yearbook, including alternative spellings of these names. You don’t find many people in the 2019-2020 school year with common names from the 80’s, aside from a handful of students.

Timothy Zoll (‘21) is one of the few with a name that was common in the 80’s. Zoll said that his father and grandmother had just both liked the name, but the name didn’t really come from anywhere else. It hadn’t been pointed out to Zoll that his

name was uncommon nowadays either. However, he knew other students named Tim.

“I know of four people named Tim, one just graduated, one graduated when I was in eighth grade, and the others still go to this school,” Zoll said.

Kathryn Paddock (21’) had a very similar name to Kathy, and could have been called Kathy. Paddock had been surprised to know that her name had been common at Holt in 1980. There wasn’t a meaning behind her name that she knew of, but she did know of several other Kathryns.

“I wouldn’t have really thought of that name to be common,” Paddock said.

But not everyone has these common names as their first name. Victoria Denise Hammock’s (23’) middle name was a common 1980 name. When she found out about her name being uncommon now, she was shocked to hear it.

“That’s quirky,” Hammock said.

Hammock got her middle name from her aunt, who was a big impact for her family, but didn’t know anyone else with the name Denise.

It was interesting to see the difference in names between 1980 and 2020. Female names now are more unique than they were before, and male names seem to be more varied. It is also surprising that there weren’t more common names from both years, considering how large the school has gotten.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of common names, and only 10 of them were shared.