How popular is the baby name Jean in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Jean.
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The baby name Kiana started picking up steam in the late 1980s. The name’s rise accelerated through the first half of the 1990s, and it reached peak popularity in 1996:
Girls named Kiana (U.S.)
Girls named Kiana (HI)
1998
1,371 [rank: 226th]
49 [rank: 9th]
1997
1,507 [rank: 198th]
47 [rank: 11th]
1996
1,585† [rank: 190th]
56 [rank: 8th]
1995
1,535 [rank: 192nd]
41 [rank: 17th]
1994
1,117 [rank: 249th]
39 [rank: 23rd]
1993
712 [rank: 358th]
36 [rank: 31st]
1992
633 [rank: 402nd]
38 [rank: 25th]
1991
333 [rank: 658th]
20 [rank: 65th]
†Peak usage
The name was particularly trendy in the state of Hawaii.
Here’s a visual of the national usage:
What was drawing attention to the name Kiana during those years?
Fitness personality Kiana Tom.
It all started in the mid-1980s, when ESPN began broadcasting fitness shows. Their first, Bodies in Motion hosted by Gilad Janklowicz, premiered in 1985. Their second, Getting Fit with Denise Austin, followed two years later.
Their third, BodyShaping, started airing in 1988 and was originally hosted by 6-time Ms. Olympia Corinna “Cory” Everson. As the series evolved, though, hosting duties were transferred to Kiana Tom (who’d been one of Cory’s assistants) and bodybuilder Rick Valente.
Kiana Tom — who is of Chinese, Hawaiian, and Irish descent, and who typically did her beach workouts in a bikini — proved so popular with viewers that, in 1995, she was given her own fitness show: Kiana’s Flex Appeal on ESPN2.
She also hosted several other programs (such as ESPN Summer Sizzle) and gave acting a try (appearing in the fourth Universal Soldier film with Jean-Claude Van Damme, for instance) during the 1990s.
In a 2001 interview, she mentioned that she knew about dozens of her namesakes:
[A]t least 83 children have been named Kiana now — that’s the ultimate compliment!
She was born Joanne Kiana Tom in Hawaii in 1965. Her middle name is the Hawaiian form of the name Diana.
What are your thoughts on the name Kiana? (Do you like it more or less than the homophone Qiana?)
For a number of generations, the name Oscar has been particularly popular in Scandinavia — that is, the countries of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Why?
The simplest answer is King Oscar I of Sweden. But the more accurate answer, in my opinion, is Napoleon.
The story starts with Scottish poet James Macpherson, who, during the early 1760s, published a series of epic poems. He claimed that they were his translations of 3rd-century Scottish Gaelic poems by a bard named Ossian, but many of his contemporaries were suspicious of this claim. (The current consensus is that they were composed by Macpherson himself and based largely upon Irish mythology. The name Ossian, for instance, is Macpherson’s interpretation of the Irish name Oisín.)
Despite the controversy, Macpherson’s poems became extremely popular throughout Europe. And they were very influential: “[I]t is arguable that these poems constitute one of the canonical Ur-texts of the romantic nationalisms which spread across the Continent” over the century that followed.
French military officer Napoleon was among the prominent admirers of Macpherson’s poems.
Incidentally, Napoleon had tried his hand at writing. One of his unpublished novels, Clisson et Eugénie, written in 1795, was based in part upon his relationship with then-fiancée Désirée Clary.
He ended up marrying a different woman, Josephine, in March of 1796.
And former fiancée Désirée went on to marry a different French military officer, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, in August of 1798.
Désirée gave birth to the couple’s only child, a boy, in July of 1799. The baby was named Joseph François Oscar Bernadotte. “Joseph” was in honor of the baby’s uncle, Joseph Bonaparte — Napoléon’s brother, who happened to be married to Desiree’s sister. “François,” I presume, was a patriotic nod to France. And “Oscar”? Included at the suggestion of godfather Napoleon, the name Oscar referred to a heroic character from Macpherson’s poems. (Oscar was Ossian’s son.)
Later the same year, Napoleon became First Consul of the French Republic.
In May of 1804, he declared himself Emperor. Soon after, he promoted Bernadotte (and seventeen other generals) to the rank of Marshal of the Empire.
Bernadotte continued fighting in the Napoleonic Wars throughout the rest of the decade.
Then, in August of 1810, Bernadotte was unexpectedly invited to become heir-presumptive to the Swedish throne. The king of Sweden at the time, Carl XIII, was elderly and had no male heir.
(Why would the Swedes ask a Frenchman with no royal blood to rule their country? For several reasons, including: he had strong ties to Napoleon, he had proven military and administrative abilities, and, not least of all, “he already had a son to ensure the succession.”)
Bernadotte accepted. Several months later, he moved his family to Sweden. converted to Lutheranism, and was legally adopted by the king — thus becoming the country’s crown prince.
He became the de facto head of state right away, playing a key part in the formation of the Sixth Coalition (which fought against Napoleon from 1813 to mid-1814) and gaining control of Norway to create the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway (later in 1814).
In 1818, Carl XIII passed away. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte — under the regnal name Carl XIV Johan — ascended to become King of Sweden and Norway. His wife Désirée became queen, and their son Oscar became crown prince.
More than a quarter century later, in 1844, Carl XIV Johan (Bernadotte) himself passed away, and Oscar succeeded his father as King of Sweden and Norway.
This explains the popularity of the name Oscar in the countries of Sweden and Norway, but what about Denmark? Usage started to increase there in 1848, when King Oscar sided with Denmark (instead of Germany) in the territorial dispute over Schleswig and Holstein.
Usage of the name is still strong in all three countries today. In 2021, the baby name Oscar/Oskar ranked 14th in Sweden, 2nd in Norway, and 1st in Denmark.
Speaking of England and Ireland…the name Oscar became trendy in England during the 1880s and 1890s thanks to Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Not long after he was born, in late 1854, his mother wrote to a friend: “He is to be called Oscar Fingal Wilde. Is not that grand, misty, and Ossianic?”
Kidd, Colin Kidd and James Coleman. “Mythical Scotland.” The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History, edited by T. M. Devine and Jenny Wormald, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 62-77.
P.S. The House of Bernadotte remains the royal family of Sweden to this day. Descendants of Carl XIV Johan include Prince Bertil (b. 1912) and Princess Estelle (b. 2012).
Which unisex baby names were the most popular in 2022?
To figure this out, I did two things. First, I identified all the gender-neutral names in the latest batch of U.S. baby name data. (To qualify as gender-neutral, a name must be given to girls at least one-third of the time and to boys at least one-third of the time.) Second, I sorted those hundreds of gender-neutral names by total usage: male plus female.
The following names came out on top:
Parker
River
Charlie
Blake
Emerson
Finley
Phoenix
Remington
Tatum
Rory
Dakota
Ari
Shiloh
Alexis
Armani
Remy
Salem
Legacy
Skyler
Denver
The first four names — Parker, River, Charlie, and Blake — were also the top four in 2021.
The five names that entered the top 20 were Shiloh, Salem, Legacy, Skyler, and Denver. Four of the five qualified as unisex in 2021, but ranked lower on the list. Legacy, on the other hand, was slightly over two-thirds male in 2021.
The five names that dropped out of the top 20 were Hayden, Amari, Oakley, Reign, and Milan. All five failed to qualify as unisex in 2022. Hayden, Amari and Milan were given to too many boys; Oakley and Reign were given to too many girls.
Here are those top 20 names again, this time with total counts and gender percentages:
Number of babies*
Percentage girls
Percentage boys
Parker
6,243
38.49%
61.51%
River
5,379
35.55%
64.45%
Charlie
4,420
52.53%
47.47%
Blake
3,014
47.81%
52.19%
Emerson
2,975
57.61%
42.39%
Finley
2,571
52.74%
47.26%
Phoenix
2,335
43.08%
56.92%
Remington
2,217
35.14%
64.86%
Tatum
2,202
52.32%
47.68%
Rory
2,181
43.83%
56.17%
Dakota
2,137
56.34%
43.66%
Ari
1,736
41.24%
58.76%
Shiloh
1,543
59.82%
40.18%
Alexis
1,533
56.69%
43.31%
Armani
1,496
46.86%
53.14%
Remy
1,411
35.08%
64.92%
Salem
1,087
63.75%
36.25%
Legacy
1,000
65.00%
35.00%
Skyler
973
58.38%
41.62%
Denver
963
33.33%
66.67%
*Male and female usage added together
So which names came next on the list?
The following, ranked 21st through 35th, all fell within both the girls’ top 1,000 and the boys’ top 1,000 in 2022:
Briar, 924 total babies
Azariah, 903
Drew, 896
Amiri, 880
Bellamy, 847
Ocean, 842
Jamie, 841
Sevyn, 792
Dior, 745
Chandler, 719
Tru, 710
Murphy, 709
Layne, 702
Justice, 643
Robin, 637
And here are the rest of the unisex names that had a combined usage of at least 200 babies (in descending order):
Kacey was one of the few names that happened to hit 50/50 usage — exactly 202 baby girls and 202 baby boys — in 2022. Movie-fueled Marvel was another 50/50 name.
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