How popular is the baby name Abby in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Abby.
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Time for this month’s batch of name-related quotes!
From the 2008 novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (which is narrated by character Katniss Everdeen):
The girl with the arrows, Glimmer I hear someone call her — ugh, the names the people in District 1 give their children are so ridiculous — anyway, Glimmer scales the tree until the branches begin to crack under her feet and then has the good sense to stop.
As Catholicism’s hold has eased, American pop culture has stepped in, filling classrooms with Kevins, Jordans and Dylans. Such names, says the study, have become a class marker. They are also popular in regions which support Marine Le Pen, the populist defender of French cultural tradition. Her campaign for the upcoming European elections is headed by a 23-year-old called Jordan.
In a country that bans ethnic or religious census data, names can also serve as a proxy. The number of baby boys named Mohamed has grown sixfold since 1960. The persistence of such names, say some on the nationalist fringe, reflects an integration problem. Ms. Le Pen has argued that naturalised French citizens should adopt a name more adapted to national culture. Hapsatou Sy, a French presenter, understandably quit a TV show after a commentator told her that her name was “an insult to France”, and that her mother should have named her Corinne.
But now researchers have found that picking a distinctive monicker is becoming harder and harder with greater media access, improved global communications and rising immigration increasing people’s exposure to different names and also ensuring they become common more quickly.
[…]
“The speed with which modern name choices fall in and out of favour reflects their increased exposure and people’s ongoing desire for distinctiveness.”
Prince George Washington was really Prince Wichaichan, the son of the Second King of Siam [Pinklao, younger brother of Mongkut]. […] Wichaichan’s unusual nickname was the result of his father’s commitment to “modernize” Siam by studying and deliberately emulating Western culture. […] Pinklao wished to communicate that he was a progressive person who was drawn to modern American culture, while never abandoning his fundamental commitment to Siam’s absolute monarchy.
(The post also noted that Anna Leonowens, in her memoir The English Governess at the Siamese Court — the inspiration behind The King and I, which made a star out of Yul Brynner — claimed the prince’s nickname was given to him by an American missionary.)
These websites not only misguide with wrong meanings but also feature “Sanskrit names” that are not from Sanskrit at all.
‘Haroon’ is one such name. Websites, including the popular Prokerala.com that ranks among the top 8,000 in the world, tells us it means ‘hope’ in Sanskrit. However, ‘Haroon’ is an Arabic name. Hugely popular among Muslims, it was also the name of one of the Khalifas (Caliphs).
[…]
Similarly, these websites also erroneously trace modern names such as Kian, Rehan and Miran to Sanskrit.
From the book Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee (2004) by Mona Z. Smith:
Canada Lee was born in New York City on March 3, 1907, and christened with the mellifluous if somewhat daunting name of Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata.
[…]
The first time the leather-lunged [fight announcer Joe] Humphries got ready to introduce Lee, he looked down at his notes and saw a peculiar name: “Canegata, Lee.” Flummoxed by those alien syllables, Humphries tossed away the card with a snort and introduced the young fighter as “Canada Lee.”
Everybody liked the transmogrification, including Lee, and it stuck.
Dillon…was not named after a prospector named Tom Dillon who got lost in the woods, as has been a common oral tradition. Rather, the town was named after Sidney Dillon, a powerful railroad executive who became president of the Union Pacific railroad four months before the town was established. The entire point of naming the town Dillon was to somehow appeal to Sidney Dillon’s vanity and persuade him to build a railroad through the town.
But as it turned out, the railroad didn’t wind up going through Dillon or winding along the Snake River. Instead, it went through Tenmile Canyon and the town of Frisco — also named to flatter a railroad company, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co., in a bid to get them to build their next line through town.
Kaira, Shyra, Akira, Kia, Tia, Sia. Shanaya. These are Bollywood’s cool new names, broadly classified into the “ya” or “ra” nomenclature. The Poojas, Nishas, Anjalis and Nehas of the 1990s are déclassé. These new names carry an unmistakable aspiration to be global.They are unrooted to place, community or any kind of identity except class. They are almost never longer than three syllables and easy to pronounce. They float on coolness and lightness. An ex-colleague memorably christened them “First-World Yoga Names—FWYN”.
Here are hundreds of baby names that have a numerological value of “3.”
I’ve sub-categorized them by overall totals, because I think that some of the intermediate numbers could have special significance to people as well.
Within each group, I’ve listed up to ten of the most popular “3” names per gender (according to the current U.S. rankings).
Beneath all the names are some ways you could interpret the numerological value of “3,” including descriptions from two different numerological systems.
3 via 12
The following baby names add up to 12, which reduces to three (1+2=3).
“12” girl names: Aja, Fae, Abi, Bee, Abha, Bia
“12” boy names: Cace, Gad, Jb
3 via 21
The following baby names add up to 21, which reduces to three (2+1=3).
“138” boy names: Thelonious, Toussaint, Marcoantonio, Zephyrus, Oluwaferanmi
3 via 147
The following baby names add up to 147, which reduces to three (1+4+7=12; 1+2=3).
“147” girl names: Autumnrose, Tirenioluwa
“147” boy names: Khristopher, Aristotelis
3 via 156
The boy name Ifeanyichukwu adds up to 156, which reduces to three (1+5+6=12; 1+2=3).
3 via 165
The unisex name Oluwatamilore adds up to 165, which reduces to three (1+6+5=12; 1+2=3).
What Does “3” Mean?
First, we’ll look at the significance assigned to “3” by two different numerological sources. Second, and more importantly, ask yourself if “3” or any of the intermediate numbers above have any special significance to you.
Numerological Attributes
“3” (the triad) according to the Pythagoreans:
“The triad has a special beauty and fairness beyond all numbers”
“Anything in Nature which has process has three boundaries (beginning, peak and end – that is, its limits and its middle), and two intervals (that is, increase and decrease), with the consequence that the nature of the dyad and ‘either’ manifests in the triad by means of its limits.”
“They call it ‘friendship’ and ‘peace,’ and further ‘harmony’ and ‘unanimity’: for these are all cohesive and unificatory of opposites and dissimilars. Hence they also call it ‘marriage.'”
“The triad is called ‘prudence’ and ‘wisdom’ – that is, when people act correctly as regards the present, look ahead to the future, and gain experience from what has already happened in the past: so wisdom surveys the three parts of time, and consequently knowledge falls under the triad.”
“We use the triad also for the manifestation of plurality, and say ‘thrice ten thousand’ when we mean ‘many times many,’ and ‘thrice blessed.'”
“3” according to Edgar Cayce:
“Three is the strength of one with the weakness of two” (reading 261-15).
‘Three – again a combination of one and two; this making for strength, making for – in division – that ability of two against one, or one against two. In this strength is seen, as in the Godhead, and is as a greater strength in the whole of combinations” (reading 5751-1).
Personal/Cultural Significance
Does “3” — or do any of the other numbers above (e.g., 21, 57, 66, 111) — have any special significance to you?
Think about your own preferences and personal experiences: lucky numbers, birth dates, music, sports, and so on. Maybe you’re fascinated by the history of old Route 66, for example.
Also think about associations you may have picked up from your culture, your religion, or society in general.
If you have any interesting insights about the number 3, or any of the other numbers above, please leave a comment!
Source: Theologumena Arithmeticae, attributed to Iamblichus (c.250-c.330).
Years ago, I wrote a post with some naming tips for minimalists. But — as Abby of Appellation Mountain astutely pointed this out in her comment to that post — “minimalism” as applied to baby names could be about capturing a namestyle just as much as it could be about reflecting a lifestyle.
So today I’m giving minimalism another go. This time around, though, it’ll be a list of baby names that fall somewhere between short/simple and modern/stylish.
All of these names have made gains recently (Hank and Linus included!). For more details on usage, click through to see the popularity graphs.
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader looking for lists of old-fashioned double names. She was aiming for names like Thelma Dean, Eula Mae, and Gaynell — names that would have sounded trendy in the early 1900s. She also mentioned that she’d started a list of her own.
So I began scouring the interwebs. I tracked down lists of old-fashioned names, and lists of double names…but I couldn’t find a decent list of double names that were also old-fashioned.
I loved the idea of such a list, though, so I suggested that we work together to create one. She generously sent me the pairings she’d collected so far, and I used several different records databases to find many more.
I restricted my search to names given to girls born in the U.S. from 1890 to 1930. I also stuck to double names that I found written as single names, because it’s very likely that these pairings were used together in real life (i.e., that they were true double names and not merely first-middle pairings).
Pairings that seemed too timeless, like Maria Mae and Julia Rose, were omitted. I also took out many of the pairings that feature now-trendy names — think Ella, Emma, and Lucy — because they just don’t sound old-fashioned anymore (though they would have a few decades ago).
The result isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a decent sampling of real-life, old-fashioned double names. I’ve organized them by second name, and I also added links to popularity graphs for names that were in the SSA data during the correct time period (early 1900s).
I spotted plenty of other combinations that just didn’t happen to be written as single names in the records, so here’s a handy dandy little table to cover some of the other existing combinations…
“A, always. B, be. C, closing. Always be closing!”
Acronym baby names are officially a thing. Not a major thing, but still a thing. Acronym baby names I’ve come across include Ily, “I love you,” and Lya, “love you always.”
One type of acronym that seems to be trendy in general these days is the “AB_” acronym, in which the first two words are “always be” and the third is a verb in “-ing” form. They stem from ABC, “always be closing,” made famous by the movie Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Variations I’ve heard include ABS (“always be shipping” or “always be “selling”), ABL (“always be learning”), a different ABC (“always be charging”), and even ABK (“always be knolling“).
So I wondered: Could we create an “always be” acronym that’s also a good baby name?
For the name to be pronounceable (unlike Abcde) the third letter would have to be a vowel. And I’d say the best vowels for the job — considering both the number of available verbs and the resulting acronym — are E and I. So let’s see what we can come up with for ABE and ABI…
ABE
Abe is typically a nickname for of Abraham, but Abe is also used as an independent name. In fact, dozens of U.S. babies have been named Abe (not Abraham) every year for many decades.
Here are my top five acronym possibilities for the name Abe:
ABE: “always be exploring”
ABE: “always be evolving”
ABE: “always be experimenting”
ABE: “always be embarking”
ABE: “always be excelling”
And here are some of the other verbs that could be used: earning, educating, empowering, encouraging, engaging, engineering, enhancing, enjoying, evaluating, examining, exceeding, and experiencing.
ABI
Abi, like the more familiar Abby, is a short form of Abigail. Abi isn’t common as an independent name, but usage has picked up a bit recently.
Here are my top five acronym possibilities for the name Abi:
ABI: “always be imagining”
ABI: “always be innovating”
ABI: “always be improving”
ABI: “always be inspiring”
ABI: “always be initiating”
And here are some of the other verbs that could be used: illuminating, implementing, impressing, improvising, increasing, influencing, informing, inspecting, integrating, interacting, interpreting, and investigating.
What are your favorite “always be” acronyms for Abe and Abi?
Do you think anyone out there has used an “always be” acronym as a baby name yet?
