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I don't care for Susan, Barbara, Nancy, and Rhonda, but Karen, Carol, Pamela, and Diane are fine. I'd really like to meet a little Linda. I've always thought it was a pretty name.

I think it could be likely. I like Karen and Susan a lot (don't care much for Pamela, and Carol's nice enough) and names ARE starting to come back around with the revival of Ava, Amelia, etc.

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I think that Linda and Nancy from the second set are nice enough names...I don't feel them so much, but they're okay. I never really liked Barbara that much though.

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I like Karen,Pamela and Diane. The rest are too common in mom/grandmas. My piano teacher(who's about 50) is named Linda Phyllis J. and she had to go by Phyllis ever since kindergarten when there were 5 Lindas in her class, and two of them were Linda J, so she went by her middle name.
I also have some 60's names for you:
Michelle
Sharon
Lisa
Sandra/Sandy
I think Lisa, Michelle and Sandra will come back. Sharon might be spelled creatively, like Sharyn or something like that.

My opinions on if they'll come back:

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Karen - Declining but still popular.
Susan - Eventually.
Carol - Not for a long time.
Pamela - Maybe soon.

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Barbara - This name is actually rising, so it's getting ready.
Linda - Not for a long time.
Nancy - Not for a long time.
Diane - Eventually

My sister is Susan (80's), and we have a cousin named Karen(70's) They look like average English names to me, so I think they might never completely die.

Like mentioned before names usually recycle. Im sure some of these names will become popular again. I love the names Bonnie, Billie, and Charmaine which are very 50s/60s to me. I hope they come back. As for boys names like Gary and Dale I love. Hope they revive too.

My favorites from the 1940s and 1950s top 100:
Mary
Sandra
Sharon
Susan
Kathleen
Virginia
Catherine
Cynthia
Rose
Charlotte
Evelyn
Eileen
Rosemary
Gloria

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James
Edward
Daniel
Gerald
Alan
Francis
Russell
Andrew
Curtis
Keith

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A lot of names on the list seem ugly and ridiculous. It's not that they're "mom" names... Just too dated. Of course, in ten years, they might be back to the top of the lists.

They will eventually come back into fashion names do.
I can remember when a freind of mine called her daughter Chloe that some of the older members of the family remarked that it was old fashioned, this was just before it suddenly exploded in popularity.
I think Susan will come back first out of the names you mentioned.

I like Susan but prefer Susannah.
Susan is my favourite '50s name, though, probably because it is the only one with a definite historic tradition. In other words, though it peaked during the 1940s and 1950s,it was used in past centuries.
I suppose the same could be said - to a lesser extent - of Barbara, which was used in Scotland and was the name of one of Charles II's English mistresses. I'm not all that fond ot it - can take it or leave it.
Carol seems so plain in comparison to the classic Caroline.
Diane ditto, re Diana.
Valerie and Gillian strike me as '50s names. I can see both having a revival, though prefer Gillian in the form Juliana.
Patricia's another one - can take it or leave it.

This message was edited 8/20/2008, 10:04 AM

I think that names definitely go in cycles. Right now all of the names that you mentioned are seen as middle-age names. They were just too popular about fifty years ago, and the women who had those names, when they became mothers, wanted to use something different than the names that their mothers had liked. The names went out of style and became dated.

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But once all of the Susans, Karens, Nancys, and Barbaras have passed on, and their great-grandchildren can't even remember the middle-aged and old women who had these names, the names will come to be seen as charmingly quaint and old-fashioned, and some of them at least will come back in style.

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I work with a woman who has a daughter born in 1982. She told me that she had wanted to name her Sarah, but her parents and in-laws were horrified by this, telling her that it was dowdy and old-fashioned. That was how Sarah seemed to their generation, but actually Sarah was one of the most popular names during that era. To them it was an "old-lady" name, and they weren't aware of the fact that it was coming into vogue again. I remember how my mother was horrified, in the early 80's, that anyone would name a baby Nicholas. That's probably how I would feel if my grandchild told me he or she wanted to name a girl Carol. It will always feel dated to me, even if I do live to see the days when it will seem retro-chic.

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By the way, I have a sister named Pamela, and another one named Linda, and my middle name is Diane. :-D