How popular is the baby name Boris 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 Boris.

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Popularity of the baby name Boris


Posts that mention the name Boris

What popularized the baby name Lara in the 1960s?

Yesterday we looked at the baby name Laura, which saw a curious dip in usage from 1965 to 1967:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Laura in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Laura

You know what was happening at the very same time? A drastic increase in the usage of the very similar name Lara, which suddenly jumped into the top 1,000 in 1966:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Lara in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Lara

Here’s the data, side-by-side:

Girls named LauraGirls named Lara
196818,743 (rank: 11th)1,295 (rank: 227th)
196715,817 (rank: 15th)945 (rank: 277th)
196615,549 (rank: 19th)236 (rank: 618th)
196516,213 (rank: 18th)65 (rank: 1,376th)
196418,974 (rank: 14th)57 (rank: 1,512th)

So…what caused Lara to suddenly skyrocket (and thereby steal some of Laura’s thunder)?

Movie poster for Doctor Zhivago (1965)

The film Doctor Zhivago, which was released at the very end of 1965 and which, accounting for inflation, currently ranks as the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S.

Doctor Zhivago, based on the 1957 Boris Pasternak novel of the same name, was a drama set in Russia during the early 1900s — primarily around the time of WWI and the Russian Revolution. The main character was married physician/poet Yuri Zhivago (played by Omar Sharif), who was having an affair with Larisa “Lara” Antipova (played by Julie Christie), the wife of a political activist.

But it was more than just the character — we can’t ignore the influence of the film’s leitmotif “Lara’s Theme.” After Doctor Zhivago came out, it was turned into a Grammy-winning pop song, “Somewhere, My Love,” that name-checked the character in the lyrics:

Lara, my own, think of me now and then
Godspeed, my love, till you are mine again

Renditions of both versions of the song ended up peaking on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” list during the summer of 1966: Ray Conniff’s “Somewhere, My Love” at #9, and Roger Williams’ “Lara’s Theme” at #65.

Ironically, the names Lara and Laura are not related. Laura comes from the Latin name Laurus, meaning “laurel,” whereas the Russian name Lara is a short form of the Greek myth name Larisa, which may have been inspired by the ancient city of Larisa.

The movie also seems to have given a boost to the name Yuri (which had debuted a few years earlier thanks to cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin). And it must be connected somehow to the 1980 debut of the one-hit wonder name Zhivago. (Perhaps it was airing on TV around that time?) “Zhivago” isn’t a Russian surname, incidentally — it’s a Church Slavonic word meaning “the living.”

Getting back to Lara…the name’s popularity declined after the 1960’s, but, so far, it has never dropped out of the top 1,000. (The uptick in usage in 2001-2002 corresponds to the release of the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which starred Angelina Jolie.)

Which name do you prefer, Lara or Laura? Why?

Sources: Doctor Zhivago (film) – Wikipedia, Doctor Zhivago – Orthodox England, Lara’s Theme – Wikipedia, Top 10 Highest-Grossing Films of All Time in the US, Ray Conniff – Billboard, Roger Williams – Billboard, Ray Conniff – Grammy.com, Laura – Behind the Name, Lara – Behind the Name

P.S. A woman named Lara after the Zhivago character was mentioned in Name Quotes #78.

Baby names in the news: Smokey, Indica, Wilfred

Some recent baby names from the news…

Indica: A baby girl born in the U.S. (in Baltimore?) in February of 2020 was named Indica, after the strain of cannabis. Indica has an older sister named SaTiva, after another strain of cannabis. (Metro)

Ranvijay: A baby boy born in India in March of 2020 was named Mohammad Ranvijay, middle name in honor of police officer Ranvijay Singh, who’d helped the baby’s father attend the birth during lockdown. (NDTV)

Smokey: A baby boy born in New South Wales, Australia, in November of 2019 — while the Gospers Mountain fire was burning — was named Smokey. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas: The baby boy born in England in April of 2020 to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, was named Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas — Wilfred after Boris’s grandfather, Lawrie after Carrie’s grandfather, and Nicholas after Dr. Nicholas Price and Prof. Nicholas Hart, “the two doctors that saved Boris’s life last month.” (The Guardian)

Wyatt: The baby boy born in April of 2020 to news anchor Anderson Cooper was named Wyatt after Anderson’s late father, Wyatt Cooper. (PinkNews)

Where did the baby name Ilya come from in 1961?

The character Ilya from the movie "Never on Sunday" (1960)
Ilya from “Never on Sunday

When Ilya first popped up in the U.S. baby name data, it appeared as a girl name in 1961:

  • 1963: unlisted
  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: 5 baby girls named Ilya [debut]
  • 1960: unlisted
  • 1959: unlisted

Why?

Because the Greek romantic comedy Never on Sunday was released in October of 1960. It starred Greek actress Melina Mercouri as a free-spirited prostitute named Ilya.

The movie was a big hit, and Melina Mercouri was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (she lost to Elizabeth Taylor). The film earned four other nominations as well, but only won the Best Song category.

Interestingly, the trailer for the film starts with a string of names: “On Monday, it’s Tonio. On Tuesday, Boris. Wednesday is Spiro the fisherman’s day. And on Thursday, Jorgo’s the lucky fellow. Friday is devoted to Homer…”

Most sources classify the name Ilya and similar names (Iliya, Illya, Ilia, etc.) as male names — specifically, as forms of Elijah/Elias. So my best guess on the character name is that it was a nickname for Iliana, the feminine form of the Greek name Ilias (yet another form of Elijah/Elias).

Do you like the name Ilya? Do you prefer it as a girl name or as a boy name?

Source: Iliana – Behind the Name

Popular baby names in Bulgaria, 2018

Flag of Bulgaria
Flag of Bulgaria

According to preliminary data from Bulgaria’s National Statistical Institute, the most popular baby names in the country in 2018 were Viktoria and Georgi.

Here are Bulgaria’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2018:

Girl Names

  1. Viktoria, 674 baby girls
  2. Maria, 591
  3. Nikol, 586
  4. Sofia, 463
  5. Raya, 432
  6. Aleksandra, 413
  7. Daria, 351
  8. Gabriela, 346
  9. Simona, 343
  10. Yoana, 339

Boy Names

  1. Georgi, 976 baby boys
  2. Aleksandar, 930
  3. Martin, 748
  4. Boris, 628
  5. Nikola, 598
  6. Dimitar, 579
  7. Daniel, 563
  8. Kaloyan, 548
  9. Ivan, 547
  10. Teodor, 523

The girls’ top ten includes the same ten names as the year before, but in a different order.

In the boys’ top ten, Teodor replaced Viktor.

In 2017, the most popular names in Bulgaria were Viktoria and Aleksandar.

Source: Names in Bulgaria in 2018 (preliminary data) – NSI (PDF)

Image: Adapted from Flag of Bulgaria (public domain)