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I don't speak Japanese but I read an article on this subject. No, it is not just a trend but it is something that started more recently for girls (to write names in Kanji) because several decades ago names were chosen for girls that were simple in appearance and easy to learn: http://www.issendai.com/names/japanese/edo-era/early-edo-womens-names.html
The upper classes used Kanji for their daughters' names sometimes but most people used hiragana. This was in the Edo period, but I think it lasted until the early 1990s because: http://www.meijiyasuda.co.jp/enjoy/ranking/year_men/girl.html
Look at the early years circa 1912-1915, many names are not written in Kanji. Just a few years later almost all were written in Kanji so it became more fashionable to use Kanji for girls as well. By complicated I mean Kanji and simple Hiragana hahaha sorry, it is just because Kanji look complicated to me and Hiragana simple in comparison :P Then later on some Hiragana became common again as for example in Sakura.

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I meant that in the early 1900s names were fashionable that had short, simple sounds such as Hana, Haru, Chiyo (all two syllables) and later on the names became longer and -ko was often added such as in Sachiko. And still a few decades later the sounds became simpler again (more one and two syllable names) such as Ai, Mai, Mami.

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I hope this makes sense. I am not an expert in Japanese names at all! I am just interested in Japanese names so these are just my observations and things I read recently.

This message was edited 4/4/2017, 11:40 AM