Where did the baby name Yeltsin come from in 1992?

Russian president Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007)
Boris Yeltsin

In mid-1991, Russian politician Boris Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation.

In early 1992, the New York Times announced that President Bush and President Yeltsin had “proclaimed a new era of “friendship and partnership” as they declared a formal end to seven decades of rivalry” (i.e., the Cold War).

That same year, the baby name Yeltsin appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first time:

  • 1994: unlisted
  • 1993: 8 baby boys named Yeltsin
  • 1992: 7 baby boys named Yeltsin [debut]
  • 1991: unlisted
  • 1990: unlisted

It stuck around one more year before disappearing again. (Perhaps because Yeltsin’s popularity declined drastically during the 1990s, as his economic policies caused mass poverty and hyperinflation in Russia.)

What does the Russian surname Yeltsin mean? “The Yeltsin surname derives from yel’, Russian for “fir tree,” and is a fairly common one in the [Ural] region,” which is where Boris was born.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Leonid Kravchuk, Stanislav Shushkevich and Boris Yeltsin by RIA Novosti under CC BY-SA 3.0.

5 thoughts on “Where did the baby name Yeltsin come from in 1992?

  1. Im a upcoming artist and my name is Yeltsin Paz.
    It was interesting knowing this

  2. Good catch — thanks Elizabeth. I don’t know why Yeltsin reappeared in the data in 2015. If it had been 2007, that would have made sense, as that was when he died. But 2015 is curious. Hm…

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