I love, love, love the name Holden for several reasons. I like it aesthetically, and I love the homage to The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger's moody, grumpy, protagonist, in my opinion, was a catalyst for the kind of coming-of-age books that play such a huge role in my job as a champion of teen literacy and reading enthusiasm. Holden Caulfield, for some, was a misfit character that let real-life teen misfits feel as if they weren't alone. Our Holden's name receives two main reactions: about half the people who have met him say, "Holden... that's unique. Where did you get it?" and the other half say, "Great name. Catcher in the Rye?" While I cringe a little when I think of our Holden eventually reading the book and feeling a little weirded out when coming across Holden Caulfield's dicier moments, hopefully he'll embrace the importance of Salinger's work and understand its significance to me.
Anyway, back to my original thought. It has been brought to my attention that, when checking name popularity charts--with both children, we have made sure to choose names that were not in the top 100, popularity wise, though "Lydia" has since broken through. (What can I say? She's a trail-blazer.) "Holden" was nowhere close. Except for this article on "Top 24 Hipster Baby Names":
And this advice column on "How to Avoid Giving Your Baby a Hipster Name": (See #3.)
And then, to top things off, we caught Holden like this:
I love the name Holden, too, and it had always been my first choice for a boy. But then my feelings shifted on Cather in the Rye as I got older, and I heard of the hipster name thing. Boo, hipsters.
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