The baby name Camden has been closely tied to the Baltimore Orioles ever since the Major League Baseball team started playing at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992.
Notice how the usage of the name got a boost around the time the park opened:
- 1995: 215 baby boys named Camden [rank: 730th]
- 1994: 174 baby boys named Camden [rank: 805th]
- 1993: 190 baby boys named Camden [rank: 757th]
- 1992: 144 baby boys named Camden [rank: 879th]
- 1991: 122 baby boys named Camden [rank: 963rd]
- 1990: 119 baby boys named Camden [rank: 951st]
And that was before the name even began showing up in the SSA’s Maryland-specific baby name data.
Here’s a visual:
Camden Yards inherited its name from the railway station at the site, which took its name from Baltimore’s Camden Street, which was named for the Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. Pratt was an 18th-century English lawyer and politician.
(The earldom had been named after Pratt’s estate, Camden Place, which had formerly been owned by historian William Camden.)
The surname ultimately comes from an English place name that consists of the Old English elements camp, meaning “enclosure,” and denu, meaning “valley.”
Sources:
- Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Oriole Park at Camden Yards – Wikipedia
- Steadman, John. “Naming park after Brit is bloody crazy.” Baltimore Sun 2 Jul. 1991.
Image: Adapted from Baseballs 01 (7167016821) by Scott McLeod under CC BY 2.0.
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[Latest update: Jun. 2022]