How popular is the baby name Fletcher 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 Fletcher.

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Popularity of the baby name Fletcher


Posts that mention the name Fletcher

Baby name story: Thursday October Christian

Mutiny on the Bounty

On April 5, 1789, the HMS Bounty began sailing back to England from Tahiti with its cargo of breadfruit plants. Three weeks and 1,300 miles later, mutiny broke out.

The mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian, took control of the ship. They sent commanding officer Lt. William Bligh and the rest of the crew out on a small boat.

The mutineers returned to Tahiti. Most stayed there. The rest sailed on to Pitcairn Island, bringing with them a group of kidnapped Tahitian women.

The first baby born to the mutineers and their Tahitian wives was Fletcher Christian’s son. He arrived in mid-October, 1790, on what was thought to be a Thursday, so he was named Thursday October Christian.

The choice of name is perhaps emblematic of a willingness to forgo the past by not using a name common in the Christian family whilst not choosing to adopt a name more redolent of a Polynesian present and future.

Subsequent babies born to the mutineers were given common English names. Thursday October’s younger siblings, for instance, were Charles and Mary.

In mid-1814, toward the end of the War of 1812, a pair of British warships happened to spot Pitcairn.

Thursday October Christian came aboard one of the ships and was sketched by Lt. John Shillibeer. The men on the warships had discovered that the Islanders’ calendar was set a day too fast, so Shillibeer tried to correct the discrepancy by captioning the sketch “Friday Fletcher October Christian.”

"Friday Fletcher October Christian" (Thursday October Christian)

If this adjustment was done to make the name of Pitcairn’s first-born conform to the Western or American date, the sketch should have been captioned “Wednesday October Christian.” The name change in Shillibeer’s account (which gained wide circulation) was to bedevil a host of subsequent writers.

Thursday October Christian (1790-1831) had seven children, the seventh of whom was named Thursday October Christian II.

Thursday October II (1820-1911) went on to have 17 children, but did not pass the name down again.

P.S. The movie Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) starred Marlon Brando and Tarita.

Sources:

  • Bartky, Ian R. One Time Fits All: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2007.
  • Lewis, Andrew. “Pitcairn’s Tortured Past: A Legal History.” Justice, Legality and the Rule of Law: Lessons from the Pitcairn Prosecutions. Ed. Dawn Oliver. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 39-62.

Baby name needed: Boy name for brother of Channing and Deacon

A reader named Heath is expecting his third child, a boy, and would like some name suggestions. Here’s what he says:

I’m Heath, wife is Aspen, daughter is Channing and son is Deacon so we’re looking for a name that most kids won’t have but also want something that isn’t feminine, will get him picked on or doesn’t sound like we are trying too hard.

Here are some of the names they’ve been considering:

My favorite is Justice but that has no chance with my wife. She likes Ridge but I quickly vetoed that. Her favorite is Easton but I was looking for something more. Some others that we have thought about is Beckett, Kingston or Tate but again I’m not overly thrilled.

Many of the names above come from surnames, so that’s what I focused on as I brainstormed:

Baron
Bridger
Brogan
Corbin
Dax
Edison
Evander
Ezra
Felix
Finn
Fletcher
Franklin
Fulton
Garrison
Graham
Griffin
Grover
Hawthorn
Jasper
Lachlan
Lawson
Lennon
Marlow
Maxwell
Nash
Nigel
Owen
Paxton
Pierce
Quincy
Ramsey
Roscoe
Royce
Sawyer
Stone
Thaddeus
Thatcher
Tavish
Tobias
Trent
Vaughn
Walker
Winston
Zane

Which of the above do you like best with Channing and Deacon? What other names would you suggest to Heath?

Baby name needed: Boy name for Hudson’s brother

A reader named Tamela wrote to me yesterday. She has one son named Hudson and is expecting her second son in a couple of months. She’d like some name suggestions for baby boy #2.

Hudson comes from a surname, so the first place I’d look is other surnames. Here are a few ideas:

Archer
Baxter
Bennett
Blake
Carlisle
Carter
Everett
Fletcher
Marlow
Mitchell
Maxwell
Norris
Parker
Ramsey
Reeve
Ridley
Roscoe
Sawyer
Spencer
Tate
Tanner
Thatcher
Travis
Westley

(At first I was only going to omit names ending with -son. Then I decided to cut all names with n-endings, just to get a good range of sounds in there.)

Do you like any of the above with Hudson? What other names would you suggest to Tamela?

Update (3/14): Tamela has to get some adoption paperwork squared away, so she needs to select a name within the next few days.

Here are a few more facts:

  • The baby’s surname will be a Spanish name that starts with an S. Think Silva, or Santos. (Neither of these is the actual surname.)
  • Because the baby is coming from Russia, Tamela would really like something that’s “at least a little Russian.”
  • Current favorites include Maxwell, Luis (nn Louie) and George (Tamela’s father’s name). She also mentioned Matteo in this comment.

I really like both George and Maxwell with Hudson. I think either one would sound great as a first name.

Matteo doesn’t strike me as being a great match to Hudson, in terms of style. (Fits perfectly with the surname, though.)

I’m undecided on Luis. I don’t think it’s a terrible match, but I don’t think it would fit as well with Hudson as Maxwell or George would.

As for Russian names, let’s see…Maksim or Maksimilian are both similar to Maxwell. Yuri is a version of George. (Also a cosmonaut!)

Or perhaps one of these Russian names would work as a middle:

Aleksandr
Benedikt
Eduard
Filipp
Isaak
Luka
Nikolai
Viktor

(I picked these because they’re so close to their English equivalents. Almost like they’re just English names with a Russian twist.)

As far as combinations go, I’m partial to George Maksim and George Maksimilian. Both are similar to George Maxwell, which Tamela mentioned in her comment, but they look and sound a bit more Russian.

What other thoughts/ideas do you have for Tamela?

Update (12/1): The baby’s name has been chosen! Scroll down to the last comment to see what it is.

Baby name needed: Boy or girl name for Aspen’s sibling

A reader named Kendra, who has a daughter named Aspen, is now expecting a second baby (gender unknown). She’d like the baby’s first name to:

  • Be “different yet familiar”
  • Be easy to spell
  • Start with something other than A, K or M
  • End with something other than A or N

She’d like the middle name to start with J. Current favorites for the middle spot are Jacob, Johnmichael (a family name), Jenai and Jane.

For first names, I think occupational and habitational names would be a good place to start:

Bailey
Carter
Chase
Cooper
Finley
Fisher
Fletcher
Harper
Hunter
Marley
Parker
Piper
Presley
Ridley
Ripley
Roscoe
Ryder
Sawyer
Slater
Tanner
Tatum
Taylor
Tucker
Turner
Thatcher
Tyler
Wesley

They are rooted in the physical (as Aspen is), but they won’t lock Kendra into noun-names (as names like Sage or Willow would). Most are also theoretically gender-neutral — again, like Aspen — though in real life they tend to be used for either one gender or the other.

These names also came to mind:

  • Bryce, Cody, Cole, Max, Rory, Royce, Ryker, and Ulysses for boys,
  • Carley, Chloe, Daphne, and Heidi for girls, and
  • Cassidy and Emery for either boys or girls.

(Daphne does refer to another kind of tree, but the connection is subtle, so I think it would be all right with Aspen.)

It’s tricky to suggest middle names without a definitive first name in place. I do really like Johnmichael and Jane, though. I also thought Kendra might find Jonah, Jett or Jude appealing, as they became fashionable (as first names) right around the same time Aspen did.

Do you like any of the above names? What others would you suggest?

Update – The baby is here! Scroll down to see what name Kendra chose.