Re:to the point at which less than half of babies are now given traditional names.

This is something like "standard tranmissions" in cars... nowdays most cars come with automatic transmission as a "standard option," but "standard transmission" has become a syn. for Manual transmission.

Traditonal names used to mean names associated with the Bible, Christian saints, an few name from Classical greek and roman literture; i.e., Ann/Anne, Sara, Rebecca, (B), Helen, Jocalyn, Livia,(C), Theresa, Margaret, and Christina (CHR).

At the time of the US revolution, Old testiment names were very popular, at other times, Christian (saints) names have been more popular-- I don't know anything about the history of made up names, except, Wendy was a name made up by Barre for Peter Pan, and Heidi was a made up name too, by the author.. so made up names have been around for a while.

-- i think if i were have a kid today, i would like Wyoming as name, for a girl. maybe because, of all the places i have been on this earth, Wyoming struck me as the most beautiful place.