Child of the ’80s? You’ll feel strongly about actress’ baby name

Mandy Moore has welcomed her third bub, a little girl, and her name is a very traditional one. 
The actress went with Louise, a beautifully classic name, and she’s not the only celebrity who’s gone with this moniker, either. 
In 2021, Emma Stone and her husband Dave McCary named their daughter Louise Jean McCary. 
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The name was a nod to her grandmother, Jean Louise – which means Emma’s grandma and newborn daughter actually share both names, in reverse. 
Turns out it’s a name a lot of women will have a very close connection to as well. 
If you’re a woman who was born in the ’80s or ’90s, chances are you’ve either got the middle name Louise or know someone else who does. 
It’s a girl’s name of French origin meaning “renowned warrior”, according to NameBerry. 
But ask any office of women, or text the girls, and you’ll find at least a couple of them have Louise as their middle name. 
In the 1980s, it was the third most popular middle name for girls in Australia, and in the ’90s it had crept up into second spot. 
But it’s not just an Aussie trend, either. 
When it comes to common middle names, Louise has become well-loved worldwide, and there’s even a Reddit thread dedicated to it. 
“Why do so many millennial women have the middle name ‘Louise’? I swear, about a quarter of all British millennial women I’ve met have Louise as a middle name,” read the post. 
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A lot of ladies shared their own experience with the name in the thread, and turns out it’s been popular for generations. 
“I don’t even think it’s just millennials, I’m in the older gen z cohort and so many girls my age have the name Louise as well, I’d say at least a third of my school friend group did,” replied one woman. 
Another wrote, “My first name is Louise and literally most people I meet and say ‘Hi I’m Louise’ to respond with ‘my middle names Louise!'” 
“It’s a simple and soft name that compliments almost any first or last name,” suggested one person. 
There’s a reason why some middle names, like Louise, seem to stand the test of time – and it’s because of that exactly. 
“It seems that middle names are a relatively new phenomenon, having only become the norm over the last hundred years – driven by the desire to commemorate well-loved ancestors,” said Miriam Silverman, UK Content Manager, from Ancestry, in an interview about the most popular middle names. 
“This will have become particularly prominent in society following the two World Wars. These wars affected the entire country and resulted in millions of Britons commemorating their lost loved ones as new babies were born in the years following the conflicts.”
“As a result, middle names are less likely to follow popular culture and more likely reflect age-old traditions or names that were popular in our parents’ or grandparents’ generation – hence the very traditional makeup of today’s top 10 middle names.”
And the name at the top of the list for girls when this survey was done in 2014? Louise.
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