what is with child names like Aiden, Braiden etc?

There's a well-studied phenomenon called "social diffusion". People of higher socioeconomic status seek out novel, unique, or fashionable baby names and start using them. These names gradually get picked up by families of lower socioeconomic status. Eventually the names become mainstream, and then finally decline in popularity.

Here are my two sons Aiden and Abettin.

Unique names and spellings became popular in the US during the 70s as part of the Black Power movement. The politically conscious black parents didn't want to name their children European names, for some reason. The problem is that these black parents had no cultural link to Africa because that had been stolen from them.

Fist came Arab names. I presume this has to do with the NOI and the black celebrities who converted to it. Some of these names are still popular like Omar and Jamal. Of course Black Americans have no more connection to Islam than they do to Christianity, So black parents just started making new names for their children.

American popular culture tends to incubate in the black community and slowly drift into white culture. So it has gone with the unique baby names.

Aiden is tradition Gaelic and it means "fire". Caiden is also Gaelic meaning "battle" Braiden is Gaelic meaning "salmon" Jayden is Hebrew for "God will judge" Hayden is old English meaning "hedged valley"

Ashleigh, Raileigh, Kaileigh

You forgot the best one, Okayden.

Maiden, Raiden

Paiden? That's a weird one. Payme on the other hand, now that's a good name.

What's with your name, buzz?

Ah, a lesser known Daft Punk song.

Those are the names given to the children of all the teenagers I knew who got pregnant in my high school, so they always just remind me of teen pregnancy.

It's the male version of adding -lin to the end of a name.

It's been around for a while. Over a decade ago Target ran a cheeky back to school advert featuring a slow pan across school cubbies with lunch pails all labelled with variant spellings of "Braiden". I thought it was hilarious.

I feel all wrong now because you decided not to list the first three in alphabetic order.

Like all the other sounds that come out of your face, what could be up with it?

Meanwhile, in Utah, a pair of new parents are becoming really charmed by the idea of ‘Brexit’ as a name for their next child.

This has all happened before and it will all happen again.

Everyone who played Mass Effect is sad about what happened to Kaiden Alenko and wants to bring him back.

I understand the pushback against names like this, and concern for kids receiving these names, but I think it is misdirected. Ya, sure, maybe sometimes the name is literally made up, or in other cases has multiple variations on a theme, but anyone with immigration in their ancestry can tell you that naming conventions do not always move well to other countries. In the USA, we have multiple spellings for names like Muhammed and Dermitt because of this. I don't see why this is a big deal and think it potentially enriches culture.

As usual..who cares what someone names their kid even if it sounds dumb to you don't worry about it go live your life not worrying about this shit.

just a naming trend. it will phase out given some time.

It could always be worse.