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My sister welcomed her first baby into the world early this morning! She and her husband went with a traditional name, John, which was easy to settle on because both grandfathers have that name.

As a proud aunt, I'm biased, but I think it's a refreshingly simple and traditional name in this age of Zanders and Barrons and Maddoxes (no offense to kids with those kinds of names!). John is just a name that stands the test of time and trends.

It's fun to check out the Name Lab whether you're expecting or just curious. I just checked it out and learned that John is just barely in the Top 20 Boys Names of 2010, and that its popularity steadily declined over the 1900s. (That's great for my nephew, though, who hopefully won't have five kids in his class with the same name!).

I also learned that John has almost 75 variations in terms of nicknames (Johnny, Jack, etc.) and versions in other languages (Juan, Hans, Ivan, Sean...). And a diverse mix of celebrities (pretty non-trendy ones – and I mean that in a good way) have named their child John: Stephen Colbert, Lauryn Hill, Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg, Rob Lowe, Michelle Pfeiffer, Denzel Washington, Bono.

So those are the facts, John! I hope you like your name. :)

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