How popular is the baby name Jeff 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 Jeff.

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Popularity of the baby name Jeff


Posts that mention the name Jeff

Quotes about animal and pet names

sloth

From an article about a baby two-toed sloth at the London Zoo:

Keepers have named the young male Edward after Johnny Depp’s famous character, Edward Scissorhands, due to his impressive claws – which will grow up to four inches in length and enable him to cling on and climb easily through the tree-top branches of his Rainforest Life home.

From an Orion Magazine article about an octopus named Athena:

I was struck by this, since Murphy and others had first described Athena’s personality to me as “feisty.” “They earn their names,” Murphy had told me. Athena is named for the Greek goddess of wisdom, war, and strategy. She is not usually a laid-back octopus, like George had been. “Athena could pull you into the tank,” Murphy had warned. “She’s curious about what you are.”

From a LIFE article about Ham, the First Chimpanzee in Space:

The most famous of all the Mercury chimps, due to his landmark January 1961 flight, Ham was actually not publicly called Ham until after the flight succeeded. The name by which he’s now known — an acronym for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center at the Air Force base — was only widely used when he returned safely to earth; NASA reportedly wanted to avoid bad publicity should a named (and thus a known, publicly embraced) animal be killed; all the Mercury chimps were known by numbers.

From “Maine”s GOP governor, veto record-holder, names new dog Veto” in The Seattle Times:

Republican Gov. Paul LePage, the state’s all-time veto champion, has named his new dog Veto.

LePage, who has earned renown for exercising his veto pen on bills he didn’t like, adopted a Jack Russell terrier mix from a shelter.

[…]

LePage chose the name Veto because his pet “is the mascot of good public policy, defender of the Maine people and protector of hardworking taxpayers from bad legislation,” his spokesman Peter Steele said.

Steele joked that the governor is going to train the dog to deliver vetoes from his office to legislative leaders.

From an AP News article about a baby deer named after a K-pop star:

Fans of the K-pop group NCT 127 donated money in January to name a baby pudu at the Los Angeles Zoo after one of its members, Haechan (HECH’-ehn). This week, the human Haechan got to meet his namesake, snapping selfies with the little deer at his enclosure.

From an article about the trendiness of giving human names to pets in The Atlantic:

Long, long ago — five years, to be precise — Jeff Owens accepted that his calls to the vet would tax his fortitude. When the person on the other end asks his name, Owens, a test scorer in Albuquerque, says, “Jeff.” When they ask for his cat’s name, he has to tell them, “Baby Jeff.” The black exotic shorthair, a wheezy female with a squashed face and soulful orange eyes, is named for Owens, says his partner, Brittany Means, whose tweet about Jeff and Baby Jeff went viral this past spring. The whole thing started as a joke several years ago, when Means started calling every newcomer to their home — the car, the couch — “Baby Jeff.” Faced with blank adoption paperwork in 2017, the couple realized that only one name would do.

Flag of California
Flag of California

From an article about the bear on the California state flag:

Hearst put the bear on display [in 1889] in Golden Gate Park and named him Monarch. At more than 1,200 pounds, Monarch was the largest bear ever held captive.

[…]

Taking a cue from the Sonoma revolt in 1846 [after which a flag featuring a bear was created to represent the captured region], the state again decided to make the California Grizzly the flag’s focal point. Only this time they wanted a bear that actually looked like a bear.

Illustrators used the recently deceased Monarch as the model for the bear on our state flag.

(Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst took the name “Monarch” from the tagline of the San Francisco Examiner, the “Monarch of the Dailies.”)

About Pigcasso, a 450-pound painting pig in South Africa with a great name:

She’s fat, friendly and fabulous! Meet Pigcasso – the fine swine who was rescued from the brink of extinction at a South African pig ‘farm’. From pork chop to hog heaven, she loves the sweet things in life: Eat. Sleep. Eat. Repeat. She also loves to paint – and that’s no hogwash! Pigcasso’s primary purpose? To paint a better picture for farm animals.

(Titles of Pigcasso’s paintings include Grin, Vitality, Rockstar, and Brexit.)

From the description of a mid-2020 video released by the Australian Reptile Park of New South Wales:

We have a very special announcement… Our very first koala of the season has popped out of Mums pouch to say hello!

Keepers have decided to name her Ash! Ash is the first koala born at the park since the tragic Australian bushfires and is a sign of hope for the future of Australia’s native wildlife.

From an article about dog names in New Orleans:

New Orleans dogs are often the namesakes of the cuisine (Gumbo, Roux, Beignet, Po-Boy, Boudin); the Saints (Brees, Payton, Deuce); music (Toussaint, Jazz, Satchmo); streets (Clio, Tchoupitoulas, Calliope); neighborhoods (Pearl, Touro, Gert) and Mardi Gras krewes (Zulu, Rex, Bacchus).

From Tropic Thunder: Making of a War Movie Satire by Emanuel Levy:

One cast member had very few complaints about shooting in Hawaii, never letting it get in the way of her own agenda on the set. The filmmakers found Bertha, the water buffalo that [Jack] Black’s character rides, in Texas and flew her to Kauai on a special plane. But about midway through filming, everyone was in for a big surprise. One day the trainer called us and said, Oh, by the way, Bertha can’t work because when we showed up at the corral this morning, she had a calf, recalls producer McLeod. We didn’t know she was pregnant. No one knew she was pregnant. Bertha having this baby was definitely kind of a humorous morale booster for everyone. In honor of Jack Black, the animal trainer named Bertha’s baby Little Jack.

(Here’s a video of Jack Black talking about getting bucked off Bertha during filming.)

From a 2022 National Park Service Instagram post:

Fun fact: The actual number of bobcats named Bob is fairly small.

Many actually prefer Robert.

Katmai bear "Walker" (NPS)
Katmai bear #151, a.k.a. “Walker”

From the Katmai National Park booklet Bears of Brooks River 2018 (PDF):

Bears at Brooks River are assigned numbers for monitoring, management, and identification purposes. Inevitably, some bears acquire nicknames from staff and these nicknames are included in this book, but naming wild animals is not without controversy. Is it appropriate to name wild animals?

[…]

Names also carry meaning, intentionally or not. What stigmas would you attach to a young bear nicknamed Fluffy versus a large male bear named Killer? How would those stigmas alter your experience when watching that animal?

(The booklet also included the nicknames of various Katmai brown bears. For example, “Walker” had “large dark eye rings” reminiscent of zombie eyes, and “Evander” was missing part of an ear — much like Evander Holyfield after his 1997 fight with Mike Tyson.)

From an article about medieval pet names at Medievalists.net:

In England we find dogs that were named Sturdy, Whitefoot, Hardy, Jakke, Bo and Terri. Anne Boleyn, one of the wives of King Henry VIII, had a dog named Purkoy, who got its name from the French ‘pourquoi’ because it was very inquisitive.

From “A Puppy Called Marvin” by Julie Lasky in the New York Times:

Clara is my 2-year-old Wheaten terrier and one of several dogs in my neighborhood with a name that sounds as if it came from a shuffleboard tournament on a golden-years cruise. Among her pals, Fern is red-nose pit bull, Alfie is (mostly) a black lab and Eleanor is a mix of Bernese mountain dog and poodle.

This pack has led me to conclude that whereas we look back to remote centuries when giving children trendy names like Emma, Sebastian, Julian or Charlotte, we name our dogs after our grandparents.

[…]

This means that future generations of dogs should be prepared to be called the mom-and-dad names of today. Names like Kimberly, Jason and Heather.

From a 2019 video of Vogue editor Anna Wintour talking about her new puppy, named Finch:

She’s called Finch because we call all of our dogs after characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. So we have had a Scout, a Radley, and a Harper. And let me tell you, they are not happy about Finch’s arrival.

DRAM's album "Big Baby DRAM" (2016)
DRAM album

From a video in which rapper DRAM talks about his goldendoodle named Idnit [vid]:

So, Idnit — as in, idn’t it so cute.

From a Mental Floss article about why we call parrots Polly by Kara Kovalchik:

The generic name “Pol” for a parrot can be traced back to England since at least the early 1600s. In his 1606 comedy Volpone, Renaissance playwright — and close friend of William Shakespeare — Ben Jonson assigned many of the characters animal personas which reflected their true nature.

[…]

Two comic relief-type characters, Sir Politic Would-Be (“Sir Pol” for short) and his wife, are visitors from England who are trying to ingratiate themselves into Venetian society, and they do so by simply mimicking the words and behavior of Volpone and his associates. Because of their endearing ignorance of what they are actually saying when they repeat phrases they’ve learned, Jonson describes them as parrots.

It is unclear whether Jonson actually coined the term “Pol” as a catch-all moniker for parrots, or if he simply popularized it. In any case, indulgent British pet owners eventually turned “Pol” into the much cutesier diminutive “Polly,” and both names made their way across the Atlantic.

From a Stuff.co.nz article about a bright orange seagull with a fitting name:

Staff at the Buckinghamshire, England [animal] hospital say the gull somehow got curry or turmeric all over his feathers, which prevented him from flying properly. The bird, named Vinny after the popular Indian dish Vindaloo curry, put up a fight but eventually let the staff scrub his feathers.

From a late 2020 Zoological Society of London news release:

ZSL Whipsnade Zoo’s giraffe herd welcomed a giant six-foot-tall new arrival this week — on what has been dubbed ‘the day of hope’ by staff at the UK’s largest zoo.

The female calf was born at the same time [that] the first COVID-19 vaccine was given to 90-year-old Margaret Keenan, during the early hours of Tuesday 8 December — and in recognition of the poignant moment, the infant has been named Margaret.

From a late 2023 BBC article about a rescued turtle:

The tiny turtle was found in a pretty bad condition off the Scottish island of Iona – which she was named after – in January 2022.

Her rescuers weren’t sure if she was going to make it at first, as she is a loggerhead turtle, a tropical species that needs warm temperatures to survive.

But after almost two years of recovery in the UK and Portugal, Iona has now been released back into the ocean by marine scientists.

Images: sloth by Sophia Müller from Unsplash, flag adapted from Flag of California (public domain), bear by NPS (public domain), the album Big Baby DRAM (2016)

[Latest update: Oct. 2023]

Popular and unique baby names in Quebec (Canada), 2019

Flag of Quebec
Flag of Quebec

According to Retraite Québec, the most popular baby names in Quebec in 2019 were Olivia and Liam.

Here are the province’s top 10 girl names and top 10 11 boy names of 2019:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 549 baby girls
  2. Emma, 517
  3. Alice, 513
  4. Charlie, 499
  5. Charlotte, 497
  6. Lea, 465
  7. Florence, 418
  8. Livia, 407
  9. Rosalie, 354
  10. Beatrice, 343

Boy Names

  1. Liam, 695 baby boys
  2. William, 659
  3. Thomas, 648
  4. Leo, 596
  5. Noah, 585
  6. Logan, 561
  7. Nathan, 505
  8. Felix, 492
  9. Raphael, 489
  10. Edouard, 482 (tied)
  11. Emile, 482 (tied)

In the girls’ top 10, Rosalie re-entered and ousted Zoe (now ranked 15th).

In the boys’ top 10, Raphael and Emile replaced Jacob (now ranked 12th).

Here are some of the baby names that were bestowed just once in Quebec last year:

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Allegresse, Berangere, Clarity, Daxia, Elixanne, Fenskerly, Flechanne, Gersia, Hugh-Laury, Izalie, Judicia-Wonder, Klermona, Lyriel, Merope, Nelli Nord, Nelsy, Ophelia Gipsy, Pleroma, Qetzia, Ryzlene, Sarassie, Thiziri, Tulugaq, Umi, Virgo, Waapikun, Xochitl Lilou, Yrina, ZackaelleAzai, Bonheur, Chalifix, Chogyal, Delson, Espoir, Fesley, Guerby, Heliodore, Inupak, Jeff-Smart, Kapukutat, Keawolf, Light-Shine, Miami-Liam Zion, Nendley, Ochre, Osric, Pelly, Quintus, Ronnoco, Skysun, Tiki Bolt, Ulrick, Vainqueur, Wibnerley, Xayren, Yalas, Zephyr Meteor

Background and/or possible explanations for some of the above:

  • Allegresse (allégresse) means “elation, joy, gladness” in French.
  • Hugh-Laury…a reference to English actor Hugh Laurie?
  • Merope is one of the seven Pleiades.
  • Tulugaq means “raven” in Inupiaq.
  • Bonhuer means “happiness” in French.
  • Espoir means “hope” in French.
  • Vainqueur means “conqueror” or “victor, winner” in French.

In 2018, the top two names in Quebec were Emma and William.

Sources: List of Baby Names – Retraite Québec, Wiktionary

Image: Adapted from Flag of Quebec (public domain)

Numerology: Baby names with a value of 9

Baby names with a numerological value of 9

If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 9, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 9-names.

Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “nines” in numerology?

Turning names into numbers

Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.

First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.

For instance, the letters in the name Rockwell correspond to the numbers 18, 15, 3, 11, 23, 5, 12, and 12. The sum of these numbers is 99. The digits of 99 added together equal 18, and the digits of 18 added together equal 9 — the numerological value of Rockwell.

Baby names with a value of 9

Below you’ll find the most popular 9-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.

9

The letters in the unisex baby name Ace add up to 9.

9 via 18

The letters in the following baby names add up to 18, which reduces to nine (1+8=9).

Girl names (9 via 18)Boy names (9 via 18)
Lea, Gaia, Ela, Acacia, AddiCan, Adal, Acie, Edi, Jag

9 via 27

The letters in the following baby names add up to 27, which reduces to nine (2+7=9).

Girl names (9 via 27)Boy names (9 via 27)
Leia, Alma, Aleah, Aya, Chana, Adele, Dalia, Elia, Emi, Amal, Eila, Safa, Koa, Daila, AdleeCaden, Koa, Jake, Ahmad, Eddie, Cain, Cian, Job, Geo, Oak, Jeff

9 via 36

The letters in the following baby names add up to 36, which reduces to nine (3+6=9).

Girl names (9 via 36)Boy names (9 via 36)
Malia, Lina, Angie, Kiana, Halo, Anika, Maddie, Vida, Belle, Darla, Zia, Erica, Nila, Reece, Emme, Aoife, Nahla, Lani, Irha, Leen, Sanaa, Coco, Indi, Amila, Maila, Una, Safia, AikoChase, Reid, Jay, Caiden, Reece, Alden, Lian, Kiaan, Kase, Bilal, Davi, Kip, Ilan, Neel, Deegan, Zade, Fidel, Dakoda, Earl, Caelan, Halo, Chet, Luc, Rael, Mick, Chip, Abdias

9 via 45

The letters in the following baby names add up to 45, which reduces to nine (4+5=9).

Girl names (9 via 45)Boy names (9 via 45)
Remi, Arya, Ariel, Fiona, Selah, Raya, Kora, Helena, Emelia, Briana, Yara, Tiana, Kenna, Emmie, Dulce, Amelie, Paola, Ayra, Kacey, Jayde, Eleni, Anita, Zadie, Areli, Nailah, Amilia, Nechama, Delani, Regan, Ahlani, Tania, Cori, Iqra, Makena, Audra, Alaska, Debora, Denali, Minha, Ivie, Jiya, Oona, Cove, Marla, Denim, Auden, Alahni, Kyah, Zen, Avila, Rhema, Luci, Caleigh, Ilani, Camari, Arlie, Kalli, Ilse, MahaliaElijah, Daniel, Luka, Cohen, Clark, Tadeo, Ariel, Kayce, Emir, Ty, Remi, Koen, Enoch, Azael, Damir, Zen, Khalid, Vance, Meir, Fox, Kacey, Keon, Gino, Kenan, Denim, Aydan, Lamar, Cove, Coby, Rico, Jaleel, Aziah, Auden, Camari, Chayce, Saleh, Duane, Jamil, Haider, Kolbe, Lucah, Melo, Rakan, Arya, Ciro, Jakub, Opie, Gohan, Wali, Ojas

9 via 54

The letters in the following baby names add up to 54, which reduces to nine (5+4=9).

Girl names (9 via 54)Boy names (9 via 54)
Elliana, Bailey, Alayna, Alivia, Regina, Marlee, Carmen, Ariya, Zahra, Margo, Melina, Karina, Love, Milena, Keyla, Hadleigh, Zola, Mazie, Melani, Gianni, Zarah, Siya, Lori, Keidy, Sofie, Geneva, Elly, Sheila, Jessa, Tamara, Brenna, Zari, Maura, Bowie, Kaori, Arayah, Emmalee, Inez, Devin, Alyana, Maleni, Elisha, Kamaria, Joann, Kaley, Carrie, Aithana, Malinda, Raiya, Syeda, Nikki, Kolbie, Kiyah, Layana, Runa, JadynMateo, Gabriel, Kairo, Angelo, Gideon, Gianni, Devin, Rocco, Izaiah, Musa, Harlan, Elisha, Jrue, Lyle, Bowie, Jaxen, Eason, Dovid, Ayman, Henri, Azlan, Bailey, Axell, Keoni, Shaya, Hardin, Valen, Camren, Hazen, Lenin, Iver, Diesel, Kainen, Salim, Azir, Lior, Banner, Jadyn, Amaru, Arlin, Keion, Khaleel, Rider, Aeson, Sayed

9 via 63

The letters in the following baby names add up to 63, which reduces to nine (6+3=9).

Girl names (9 via 63)Boy names (9 via 63)
Madeline, Brielle, Olive, Noelle, Miriam, Angelina, Hattie, Fernanda, Zariah, Paris, Beatrice, Reyna, Johanna, Rayne, Meilani, Luella, Kailey, Korra, Kaylie, Imogen, Maizie, Ireland, Kamille, Keeley, Lakyn, Divine, Odessa, Tess, Carleigh, Janyla, Navya, Kyrah, Aliyana, Nyx, Vanya, Asiyah, Goldy, Melodie, Aster, Anissa, Emeline, Landrie, Leylah, Sandy, Atley, Aziza, ElloraMatias, Emilio, Leonel, Saint, Jaziel, Kylo, Nehemiah, Kylan, Otis, Caspian, Gatlin, Azrael, Bridger, Roger, Kaiser, Jones, Rishi, Coleman, Bentlee, Anson, Carmine, Macklin, Zealand, Ranger, Deangelo, Ismail, Shaun, Santi, Chevy, Jhett, Divine, Yohan, Avyan, Amauri, Keller, Mikhail, Reyan, Jeyden, Naftali, Domenic, Nicolai, Konrad, Rayne, Deonte, Paris, Jaylan, Jaidyn, Nikhil, Tyr, Kellin, Mahlon, Kavon, Romel, Mikey

9 via 72

The letters in the following baby names add up to 72, which reduces to nine (7+2=9).

Girl names (9 via 72)Boy names (9 via 72)
Sophie, Aubrey, Valerie, River, Magnolia, Everlee, Holly, Lorelai, Itzel, Jayleen, Mikayla, Charley, Savanna, Jaylani, Lilianna, Judith, Ryann, Soleil, Kynlee, Emmaline, Betty, Jaylene, Kaylin, Mercedes, Karely, Silvia, Kailyn, Cooper, Kenley, Chevelle, Zylah, Saphira, Blakeleigh, Ashanti, Laikyn, Blythe, Izabelle, Rainey, Theadora, Hosanna, Elyanna, Kylani, Karley, Loralei, Maisey, ZemiraCooper, River, Tanner, Kylian, Darius, Mohammed, Rocky, Jordy, Yasir, Tylan, Khyree, Canyon, Dwayne, Aubrey, Phineas, Kamron, Irvin, Charley, Hendrick, Jahaziel, Pranav, Casimir, Lucky, Reyes, Deshaun, Clement, Broly, Markell, Brendon, Masyn, Kavion, Syair, Elimelech, Cashmere, Rony

9 via 81

The letters in the following baby names add up to 81, which reduces to nine (8+1=9).

Girl names (9 via 81)Boy names (9 via 81)
Brynlee, Vanessa, Xiomara, Jennifer, Malaysia, Louise, Jenesis, Sariyah, Arlette, Yasmin, Aubriella, Tiffany, Lottie, Elisabeth, Ruthie, Jaelynn, Nathaly, Lavender, Venus, Tenley, Maisyn, Gitty, Karolina, Stori, Vivien, Hudson, Jaslyn, Kalliope, Beatriz, Destinee, Ivette, Taylin, Elisheva, Ramsey, Reilly, Ozzie, Arantza, Twyla, Novella, ElyssaOliver, Hudson, Nicholas, Lawrence, Samson, Jamison, Nikolas, Mustafa, Zavier, Rodney, Aurelio, Rogelio, Ernest, Kolter, Eliyahu, Orson, Ozzie, Ramsey, Jamarion, Dezmond, Kyzen, Taylin, Braylin, Conway, Eliott, Dayvon, Heston, Reilly, Selvin, Alastair, Marius, Jenesis, Timur, Davonte, Prynce, Tavion, Baltazar

9 via 90

The letters in the following baby names add up to 90, which reduces to nine (9+0=9).

Girl names (9 via 90)Boy names (9 via 90)
Autumn, Saylor, Leighton, Skyler, Evangelina, Anderson, Paxton, Bridgette, Honesti, Payson, KensleighTheodore, Sebastian, Matthew, Waylon, Maxwell, Paxton, Clayton, Anderson, Raymond, Westin, Skyler, Leighton, Curtis, Terrell, Aleksander, Reyansh, Atreyu, Gonzalo, Sulaiman, Marcelino, Saylor, Romello, Yonatan, Olivier, Alphonse

9 via 99

The letters in the following baby names add up to 99, which reduces to nine (9+9=18; 1+8=9).

Girl names (9 via 99)Boy names (9 via 99)
Emersyn, Gracelynn, Priscilla, Yoselin, Jupiter, Verity, Yitty, Stormie, Grayson, Presleigh, Swayze, CerenityGrayson, Cristobal, Kassius, Rockwell, Jupiter, Stuart, Jeronimo, Kingsten, Whitten

9 via 108

The letters in the following baby names add up to 108, which reduces to nine (1+0+8=9).

Girl names (9 via 108)Boy names (9 via 108)
Journey, Roselyn, Emberlynn, Violette, Kollyns, Rylynn, Jacquelyn, Gwenivere, Scotlyn, Yatziri, EllingtonAlessandro, Vincenzo, Cristiano, Journey, Fitzgerald, Truitt

9 via 117

The letters in the following baby names add up to 117, which reduces to nine (1+1+7=9).

Girl names (9 via 117)Boy names (9 via 117)
Novalynn, Marguerite, Quinnley, Augustine, RoslynnAugustine, Yitzchok, Treyton, Maximillian, Trystan, Stockton

9 via 126

The letters in the following baby names add up to 126, which reduces to nine (1+2+6=9).

Girl names (9 via 126)Boy names (9 via 126)
Brooklynn, Quinlynn, Tennyson, Quinnlyn, StellaroseTennyson, Dionysus, Marvelous, Artavious, Atharvreddy

Number 9: Significance and associations

What does the number nine mean in numerology?

There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number nine. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 9 being described as “humanitarian,” “tolerant,” “helpful,” “determined,” and “compassionate.”

We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 9:

  • Pregnancy (9 months long)
  • Baseball (9 players on the field; 9 innings)
  • K-9 (“canine”) police dog units
  • “Cloud nine” (expression)
  • “Nine lives” of a cat (expression)
  • “To the nines” (expression)
  • “The whole nine yards” (expression)

What does the number 9 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?

P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.

Sources: SSA, Numerology – Cafe Astrology, The meaning of the numbers 1 – 9 – World Numerology, 9 – Wikipedia

[Latest update: Jan. 2024]

Quotes about celebrity baby names

American actress Zooey Deschanel
Zooey Deschanel

From a 2015 Today show interview during which actress Zooey Deschanel explains why she named her daughter Elsie Otter:

Well, we just really liked the name Elsie, and then we both love otters — they’re very sweet, and they’re also smart. They use tools, they keep their favorite tools, they hold hands while they sleep. There are so many amazing things about otters. They’re wonderful animals.

From a 2019 Us Weekly article about the weirdly common celebrity baby name combo “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 a 2017 Rap Radar interview during which rapper Jay-Z spoke about the names of his twins, Rumi and Sir:

Rumi is our favorite poet, so it was for our daughter. And then Sir was just like, man, like, come out the gate. […] He carries himself like that. He just came out, like, Sir.

From a 2016 Instagram post by singer Darius Rucker:

My daughter Dani with the guy she was named after, Dan Marino.

From a 2013 People interview with singer Dido, whose son Stanley was born in 2011:

Dido’s duet with Eminem […] “Stan,” [was] a collaboration which she never imagined fans would connect to her son’s moniker.

“Stanley was actually our favorite name, coincidentally both of our favorite names. He could never have been called anything else to be honest,” Dido shares. “I’m so stupid, I didn’t think anyone would make the connection.”

From the 2006 article about actress Sandra Bernhard in the weekly NYC newspaper The Villager:

Bernhard […] appropriate[d] from Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” the name Cicely that graces Bernhard’s daughter born July 4, 1998, nine or so months after the flamethrowing actress/singer/faghag/friend of the famous said to herself one fine day: “Enough! Get real.”

From a 2012 People interview with actress Drew Barrymore:

Asked why she and her husband Will Kopelman chose Olive, the actress says it came from a book — though not one of baby-names.

“I was reading a book with my husband. I was three months pregnant, and they said, ‘Your baby is the size of an olive.’ And that was it. We never looked back,” Barrymore, 37, says in an interview airing Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

From a 2018 Vice interview with actor Jeff Goldblum:

Vice: Amazing. That’s Charlie Ocean right?

Jeff: Yeah that’s Charlie Ocean! And then our other son [with wife Emilie Livingston, a Canadian aerialist, actress, and former Olympian] who’s now 11 months old is River Joe.

Vice: Any musical streaks in either of them yet?

Jeff: I’ve always sat at the piano these last couple years with Charlie Ocean and he kinda bangs around. But I must say, River Joe, when I play or we put on music, boy he’s just standing up at this point, but he rocks to the music and bounces up and down. He seems to really like it so maybe he’s musical. I’d like to play with them.

From a 2021 New York Times interview with actress Kate Winslet:

[Ms. Winslet] has a son, Bear, 7, with her current husband, who has gone back to his original name, Edward Abel Smith, from his playful pseudonym, Ned Rocknroll.

“He added ‘Winslet’ as one of his middle names, just simply because the children have Winslet,” the actress said. “When we’re all traveling together, to all have that name on the passports makes life easier.” (Bear’s middle name is Blaze, after the fire that Kate and Ned escaped that burned down the British Virgin Islands home of Richard Branson, her husband’s uncle.)

(The article also mentioned that a Delco sandwich shop now sells a hoagie called “The Mare” in honor of Kate’s Mare of Easttown character, Mare Sheehan.)

From a 2015 Yahoo Parenting interview during which TV personality Holly Madison defends her decision to name her daughter Rainbow:

People love to say, “That’s a stripper name.” But I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas and strippers aren’t named Rainbow. They’re named Amber, Crystal and Jessica.

From a 2007 People interview with film director Robert Rodriguez (whose kids are named Rocket, Racer, Rebel, Rogue, and Rhiannon):

Asked about his children’s unusual names, Robert attributes them to side effects he sustained from his college years when he subjected himself to medical tests to make extra money.

“Rocket is the first one. And once you name your first kid Rocket, you can’t name your next kid Marty. Racer, Rebel, Rogue…I’m just gonna blame this on the medical experiments. But they do have regular middle names in case they don’t want to start their own wrestling team.”

From a 2013 Maxim interview with film director Ron Howard:

Q: Is it true that your kids’ middle names come from the locations where they were conceived?

A: David Letterman got that out of me, and my kids will never let me forget it. My daughter, Bryce [Dallas Howard], was conceived in Dallas, and our twins [Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard] were conceived while we were doing a publicity tour at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. For the last one [Reed Cross Howard], we were on Lower Cross Road, so we decided to go with Cross. “Volvo” wouldn’t be such a good middle name.

From an early 2018 E! Online article about singer Justin Timberlake:

Timberlake’s interview comes weeks before the release of his new album Man of the Woods, which is set to hit stores on February 2. He said his son inspired the name of the record and its title track.

“I literally just went on Google like, ‘meaning of the name Silas,’ and it sent me to this to this site and it said, ‘of Latin origin, meaning ‘Man of the woods,'” he said. “I was like, ‘How serendipitous that my last is Timberlake, like what does that mean?'”

On the origin of the name of George Harrison’s son, Dhani, from The Beatles Encyclopedia (2014) by Kenneth Womack:

Born on August 1, 1978, in Windsor, England, Dhani Harrison is the only son of Harrison and his second wife Olivia Trinidad Arias. His unusual name is a composite of the sixth and seventh notes of the Indian music scale — “dha” and “ni.”

From actress Cloris Leachman‘s autobiography Cloris (2009), a scene set in early 1966, soon after the birth of her daughter Dinah:

Sometime the following week — I think it was five days later — we gave a dinner party, and Dinah Shore was among the guests. She wanted to see the new baby, so we brought her to the crib, and she oohed and aahed about how beautiful she was.

“What’s her name?” she asked as she leaned over the baby.

“Dinah,” I said. Then I thought, Oh, oh.

Dinah Shore turned to us, emotion visible on her face. “You named her after me?” There was a tremble in her voice.

The truth was, we hadn’t thought of Dinah Shore or anybody else while we cruised around for a name. Some very fast footwork was called for.

“Yes,” I said, my eyes mirroring the emotion in hers. “George and I thought you were the perfect role model for our baby.”

I mean, what could I do? She was having something close to a religious experience. I couldn’t slap my forehead and say, “Can you believe it? We never once thought of you when we picked the name.”

From an Instagram post by actor Josh Brolin, whose daughter Chapel Grace was born in 2020:

Everywhere we have traveled the one place Kathryn and I always found a great solace in were chapels. Not being particularly religious, but a God feeling heavily inundating our lives, chapels have always been the sanctuaries where we felt most connectedly free to give thanks. Chapel Grace is, to us, a manifestation of that celestial feeling that was always felt as we meandered and knelt.

From a 2020 People interview with actress Mindy Kaling, whose two children are named Katherine Swati and Spencer Avu:

“I don’t trust my own judgment with those kinds of names,” she admits. “If I name my son River, that connotes a certain kind of person who is very go with the flow, artsy. But what if he’s not like that at all? Will he be furious with me?”

“I just tried to pick classic names that felt like they would have to work really hard to get mad at me about later,” Kaling says, with a laugh.

From a 2016 Tampa Bay Times interview with musician Robin Zander (of Cheap Trick):

In the early ’90s, he and wife, Pam, who grew up in Pinellas County, settled down in the Sunshine State, drawn by family ties and the promise of a nice, safe community in which to raise their son, Robin Taylor, now 23, and daughter, Robin-Sailor, 15. (Zander’s go-to line about his kids’ quirky names: “My wife just calls us Robin, and we all come running.”)

From a 1998 BBC article about English singer Melanie Blatt (of All Saints):

Melanie and her boyfriend, musician Stuart Zender [of Jamiroquai], revealed in a magazine interview that they intend to name their daughter Lily Ella: Lily after the first flowers he bought her during their courtship and Ella after the music legend Ella Fitzgerald.

(Their daughter Lilyella was born in November.)

From a 2020 Entertainment Weekly article about comedian Amy Schumer, who legally changed her son’s name:

The I Feel Pretty star revealed her decision to change her 11-month-old son’s name on the newest episode of her podcast 3 Girls, 1 Keith on Tuesday. Schumer and her husband Chris Fischer named their first child Gene Attell Fischer, born May 5, with his middle name serving as a tribute to their good friend comic Dave Attell.

“Do you guys know that Gene, our baby’s name, is officially changed? It’s now Gene David Fischer. It was Gene Attell Fischer, but we realized that we, by accident, named our son ‘genital.'”

From a 2016 Elle interview during which comedian Alexandra “Ali” Wong spoke about her baby:

Q: What’s her name?

A: Mari, inspired by my hero Marie Kondo, who wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

…And, as confirmation, from Ali‘s New York Times interview one month later:

Q: Is it true that you named your daughter after the home-organizing expert Marie Kondo?

A: I don’t expect her to be the magical tidying baby, but yeah.

From a 2022 article in People, talk show host Kelly Ripa tells the story behind the name of her daughter Lola (b. 2001):

“Lola was supposed to be Sophia, but on the way to the hospital in the taxi cab, the driver was listening to the radio — the 70s station — and ‘Copacabana’ by Barry Manilow was playing,” the mom of three recalled.

“I heard that [lyric], when he said, ‘Her name was Lola,’ and I said to Mark, ‘Lola Consuelos would be a really cool name.’ And he said, ‘If she’s a girl, let’s name her Lola.’ And that was it,” she shared.

From the book Indiana’s 200: The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State (2016) by James E. St. Clair:

Amid much publicity in the early 1950s, [Herb Shriner and his wife] had given their children names that reflected his Hoosier heritage: They had a daughter named Indiana (known as “Indy”) and a son, Kin, named in honor of Abe Martin creator Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard. Kin Shriner became a soap opera actor; his twin brother, Wil (named for Will Rogers, but with one l), became a comedian, television, director, and talk show host with a laid-back style reminiscent of his father.

From a 2008 interview with singer Erykah Badu, whose daughter Puma was born in 2004:

The puma is one of the biggest and strongest cats in the feline family, but it has no roar. I thought that was very unique.

(Thanks to Badu, the name Erykah was the highest-debuting girl name of 1997.)

From a 2012 People interview during which singer Nick Lachey (of 98 Degrees) spoke about the name of his son Camden John:

“It’s kind of a funny story. I’ve always liked the name Colin. We thought that Colin would be the name. And John is my dad’s name. […] But as we got further into it, I learned that Vanessa wasn’t a big fan of the name Colin, so we started looking for another ‘C’ name.”

Nick, who frequented Vanessa’s obstetrician’s office with her on Camden Drive [in Beverly Hills], one day suggested, “Hey, what about Camden?”

At this point, he says, “We didn’t really know anyone else named Camden. It was such a neat name. We fell in love with it and decided on it five or six months ago.”

From a 2017 E! Online article about singer Liam Payne:

The One Direction singer-turned-solo artist explained the origin of son Bear Payne’s name during a Total Access radio interview, which he said was decided upon by mom Cheryl Cole.

“It was an internal battle,” Liam reflected. “I wanted a more traditional name and she wanted a name that was more unusual. “The reason she chose Bear was because Bear is a name that when you leave a room, you won’t forget.”

“And I like that,” the U.K. native decided eventually.

From a 2015 interview with actor Dax Shepard [vid] on The Ellen DeGeneres Show:

Ellen: Where does the name Delta come from, was that something you had thought of before?

Dax: So Delta actually — it was a joke, because our first daughter’s name is Lincoln, which is very masculine, so a friend of mine teasingly texted me, “Oh great, what’s this one gonna be, Navy Seal? Delta Force? Green Beret?” And I was reading this text out loud to Kristen, I’m like, “Oh listen to how funny this is, Steve said, what if we named her Delta Force” and I was like…Delta! Delta Bell Shepard, that’s it! And that’s it.

From a 2019 Instagram post by English singer Stacey Solomon, who explained why she named her son Rex Toby Francis:

Rex because our boys think he sounds like a T-Rex. Francis is Joe’s Nanna’s name and Toby is my Nanna’s name.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

Image: Adapted from Zooey Deschanel by Genevieve719 under CC BY 2.0.

[Latest update: Oct. 2023]