The quirkiest baby name blog this side of Nevaeh.
How popular is the baby name Jacob 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 Jacob.
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According to Houston’s Health Department, the most popular baby names in the city last year were (again) Emma and Liam.
Here are Houston’s top 5 girl names and top 5 boy names of 2019:
Girl Names
Boy Names
Source: 10 Names Houstonians Just Can’t Stop Giving Their Babies
It’s a new month — time for a new batch of name-related quotations!
From a write-up about Ryan Reynolds’ appearance on the Today show in mid-December:
After Hoda asked how he and Blake came up with the name of their third (a clever way to get the actor to publicly confirm what the name actually is), Reynolds quipped, “We haven’t yet! We’re gonna be original, and all the letters in her name are silent.” […] He continued, “I want to give her something to push against in life.”
From an article about the science of baby name trends (thank you, Uly!):
You can even see how the zeitgeist of the age affected American’s [sic] desire for novelty. As Matthew W. Hahn and Alexander Bentley found, the incidence of new, unusual names rose in the 20s, peaked around 1930, but then plummeted in the 40s and 50s. Then it shot up again in the 60s, before reversing and plummeting again in the late 70s. Why? If you wanted to engage in some armchair zeitgeist analysis, you could argue that this makes a crude sort of cultural sense: The “roaring 20s” and the 60s were both periods when significant subsets of the population treasured creative, rule-breaking behavior; the 50s and early 80s weren’t.
From an article announcing the cancellation of a TV series with a name-referencing title:
The Netflix and CBC drama Anne With an E, adapted from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s beloved Anne of Green Gables, has been cancelled after three seasons.
From an article about the weirdly common celebrity baby name Charlie Wolf:
Celebrity moms and dads are going wild for the animal-inspired baby name Charlie Wolf.
Zooey Deschanel and her estranged husband, Jacob Pechenik, kicked off the trendy moniker when they welcomed their baby boy in 2017.
[…]
Lauren Conrad and William Tell welcomed their second little one in October 2019 — and named him Charlie Wolf as well.
[…]
The following month, another Charlie Wolf arrived — or rather, Charles Wolfe.
(The third one was born to former Bachelor in Paradise contestants Evan Bass and Carly Waddell.)
From an article and a blog post about the naming of Wendy’s:
When it came to deciding what to call the chain, [Dave Thomas] tried out the names of all five of his children before he settled on the nickname for his daughter, Melinda, which was Wendy.
Before my dad left us [in 2002], we had a long conversation about him naming the restaurant Wendy’s. It was the first time we’d ever had this conversation. He said, “You know what? I’m sorry.” I asked him what he meant. He explained, “I should’ve just named it after myself, because it put a lot of pressure on you.”
From an article about the “-Mae” trend in Australia:
Marlie-Mae, Gracie-Mae, Mila-Mae… you may have noticed the trend.
Aussie celebs are giving their baby girls hyphenated names with a sweet, old-fashioned sound. The Bachelor’s Matty J and Laura Byrne went for Marlie-Mae, Bachelor In Paradise’s Simone Ormesher and partner Matt Thorne chose Gracie-Mae, while Married at First Sight’s Davina Rankin and boyfriend Jaxon Manuel decided on Mila-Mae.
[…]
Although these names might sound American – think Elly May Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies – this is actually a huge British trend that seems to be just taking off in Australia.
For more name-related quotes, check out the name quotes category.
Time for the latest batch of name-related quotations!
From a 1997 article in Jet magazine about how Jamie Foxx (born Eric Bishop) found success in comedy after changing his name:
Foxx, who was determined to make it as a stand-up comedian, went to Santa Monica “where nobody really knew who I was,” he reveals, “and changed my name to Jamie Foxx.” He remembers, “Three girls would show up and 22 guys would show up [at Amateur Night]. They had to put all the girls on who were on the list to break up the monotony. So when they look up and they see Tracey Green, Tracey Brown, and these unisex names I had written on the list, they picked Jamie Foxx. ‘Is she here?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, Brother, right over here man,'” Foxx said in a deep, macho voice. “I’d go up and do my thing with the Cosby and Tyson (impersonations), and they were like ‘Who is this Jamie Foxx kid?'”
From an opinion piece asking scientists to stop naming species after awful people:
There’s even a beetle named after Adolf Hitler, and specimens have become a collectible item among neo-Nazis to the point that it’s actually affecting wild populations of the species.
From an Eater article about the delicious pork product Spam:
Although lore behind the name Spam varies, [George A.] Hormel himself claimed the product was named for a combination of the words “spice” and “ham,” despite the fact that neither ingredient appears in Spam. The confusion has led some to speculate that Spam is an acronym for “Shoulder of Pork And Ham,” but company line gives Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of a Hormel VP, credit for naming the product. As Hormel tells it, he launched a naming contest for the new product during a New Year’s Eve party, when Daigneau spit out “Spam” as if “it were nothing at all,” Hormel told Gill. “I knew then and there that the name was perfect.”
From an article about Amazon Alexa’s influence on the baby name Alexa:
About 4,250 Alexas are turning five in the U.S. this year. One of them is Amazon’s.
The voice-computing technology that can now control more than 85,000 different devices debuted Nov. 6, 2014.
[…]
In 2015, the year after Amazon Alexa debuted, Alexa was the 32nd most popular female baby name in the U.S., bestowed upon 6,052 newborns that year, according to Social Security Administration data.
Alexa as a baby name has since declined in popularity.
From a DMNES blog post announcing the publication of “Names Shakespeare Didn’t Invent“:
In this article, we revisit three names which are often listed as coinages of Shakespeare’s and show that this received wisdom, though oft-repeated, is in fact incorrect. The three names are Imogen, the heroine of Cymbeline; and Olivia and Viola, the heroines of Twelfth Night. All three of these names pre-date Shakespeare’s use. Further, we show in two of the three cases that it is plausible that Shakespeare was familiar with this earlier usage.
From an article about a surname mash-up in Australia:
Sydney couple Courtney Cassar, 31, and Laura Sheldon, 29, welcomed daughter Lyla Jill last month, but rather than using a hyphen between their family names, they bestowed the ‘mashed-up’ moniker ‘Casseldon’ on their baby girl instead.
From a Fader article about musician/rapper (and snappy dresser) Fonzworth Bentley:
That man was Derek Watkins, but he’d become known to millions as Fonzworth Bentley. His moniker was inspired in part by Bootney Lee Farnsworth, the underdog boxer from the 1975 Sidney Poitier-directed movie Let’s Do It Again.
From an article about the most common names among students at Michigan’s conservative Hillsdale College, which has about 1,500 undergraduates:
The most popular names at Hillsdale are John, with 22 carrying the name; Hannah, appearing 20 times; and Andrew, Emma, and Jacob, which all appear 19 times. Other popular names include Jacob [sic], Michael, Joseph, Matthew, Nicholas, Sarah, and Emily.
Several of these names are popular nationwide, but Hillsdale bucks certain national trends. Many of these students are namesakes to biblical or family figures.
[…]
The majority of Hillsdale students are between the ages of 18 and 22, with a large portion born in the early 2000s.
For more name-related quotes, check out the name quotes category.
According to New York City’s Department of Health, the most popular baby names in the city in 2018 were Emma and Liam.
Here are New York City’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2018:
Girl Names
Boy Names
In the girls’ top 10, Amelia and Chloe replace Emily and Abigail.
In the boys’ top 10, Alexander replaces Jayden.
In 2017, the top two names were also Emma and Liam.
Within each of the five boroughs, the top baby names were…
And, finally, a few of the baby names bestowed just 10 times each in NYC last year were the girl names Aminah, Ida and Zadie, and the boy names Bentley, Lucian and Warren.
Source: The Top Baby Names of 2018