How popular is the baby name Metallica 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 Metallica.

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Popularity of the baby name Metallica


Posts that mention the name Metallica

Where did the baby name Dokken come from in 1989?

The Dokken album "Beast from the East" (1988).
Dokken album

The unusual baby name Dokken debuted in 1989 and never came back, making it a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data.

  • 1991: unlisted
  • 1990: unlisted
  • 1989: 5 baby boys named Dokken [debut]
  • 1988: unlisted
  • 1987: unlisted

Where did it come from?

My guess is the ’80s rock band Dokken, which “was a fixture on MTV in the eighties and enjoyed a string of best-selling albums through the decade.”

The band formed in 1979 and became a commercial success in the mid-1980s. The Dokken song “Dream Warriors” was featured in the slasher movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987).

In 1989, Dokken scored its first and only Grammy nomination (in the brand new “Best Metal Performance” category) with the live album Beast from the East. But — along with Faith No More, Queensrÿche, and Soundgarden — they ended up losing to Metallica.

The band was named after vocalist Don Dokken, whose Norwegian surname can be traced back to an Old Norse geographical word meaning “hollow, depression.”

…And now it’s time for the question of the day! The Dokken-like, cologne-inspired baby name Drakkar popped up in the data just a few years before Dokken did. Which late ’80s name do you prefer, Dokken or Drakkar?

Sources:

  • Dokken – Wikipedia
  • Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • Phillips, William and Brian Cogan. Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal Music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2009.

Name in the news: Metallica

Swedish couple Michael and Karolina Tomaro welcomed a baby girl in late 2006 and christened her Metallica, in honor of the legendary American rock band.

When the family tried to register the name with Sweden’s National Tax Agency, however, the name was rejected because it was deemed “inappropriate.”

The Tax Agency apparently refused to register the name Metallica for two specific reasons: it’s the name of a rock group, and it includes the word “metal.” (The parents also mentioned that the official handling the case called the name “ugly.”)

The parents are now “locked in a court battle” with the Tax Agency.

What are your thoughts on “Metallica” as a baby name?

Update, 4/20/2007: A few weeks after this story became international news, the Tax Agency “said it was dropping its appeal, allowing young Metallica to keep her name.”

Sources: Baby named Metallica rocks Sweden, Baby Metallica allowed to keep her name

P.S. Did you know that Metallica co-founder Lars Ulrich — who is Danish, not Swedish, but Nordic nonetheless — has a father named Torben, and that Torben Ulrich influenced U.S. baby names back in the 1960s?