How popular is the baby name Mikhail 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 Mikhail.

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Popularity of the baby name Mikhail


Posts that mention the name Mikhail

Popular and unusual baby names in Moscow, 2017

Flag of Russia
Flag of Russia

According to the Moscow Civil Registry Office, the most popular baby names in the city in 2017 were Sofiya and Aleksandr.

Here are Moscow’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2017:

Girl Names
1. Sofiya, 3,780 baby girls
2. Mariya, 2,709
3. Anna, 2,595
4. Alisa (Alice), 2,200
5. Viktoriya, 2,124
6. Anastasiya, 2,082
7. Polina, 1,962
8. Aleksandra, 1,817
9. Yelizaveta (Elizabeth), 1,806
10. Yekaterina (Catherine), 1,676

Boy Names
1. Aleksandr, 3,201 baby boys
2. Mikhail, 2,677
3. Artem, 2,621
4. Maksim, 2,568
5. Daniil, 2,405
6. Ivan, 2,289
7. Dmitriy, 1,968
8. Kirill, 1,478
9. Matvey, 1,459
10. Andrey (Andrew), 1,453

The top names, Sofiya and Aleksandr, were the same back in 2014.

Last year’s uncommon baby names included…

  • Girl names: Agrafena, Dorofeya, Galina, Inna, Isidora, Iskra, Ladislava, Larisa, Lyudmila, Vassa, Zinaida, Zlatozara
  • Boy names: Anatoliy, Forvard (Forward), Franklin, Gennadiy, Kharlampiy, Ladomir, Nord, Orpheus, Patrikey, Valentin, Valeriy, Velesvet, Vitaliy

And here’s something cool: If you want to see month-by-month baby name data for Moscow, it’s available at Moscow’s Open Data website.

Source: Moscow registry offices named the most unusual children’s names of 2017

Image: Adapted from Flag of Russia (public domain)

Where did the baby name Gelsey come from in 1979?

American ballerina Gelsey Kirkland (as Kitri from "Don Quixote") on the cover of Time magazine (May 1978)
Gelsey Kirkland

One of the pop culture baby names we’re keeping an eye on right now is Misty, which may have gotten a boost in 2015 thanks to ballerina Misty Copeland.

But before we find out about Misty (in a matter of days!) let’s talk about Gelsey, which first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1979:

  • 1981: unlisted
  • 1980: unlisted
  • 1979: 5 baby girls named Gelsey [debut]
  • 1978: unlisted
  • 1977: unlisted

The inspiration?

American ballerina Gelsey Kirkland, whose first name is pronounced with a hard g, like Gilbert and Gertrude.

Gelsey Kirkland started dancing at the age of 8. She was asked to join the New York City Ballet (NYCB) in 1968, at the age of 15. She was promoted to soloist in 1970, then promoted to principal dancer (the highest rank possible) in 1972.

In the mid-1970s, she left the NYCB to join the American Ballet Theater and begin her memorable partnership with Mikhail Baryshnikov. They danced together in Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, and most famously in a televised performance of The Nutcracker, which aired in late 1977.

In May of 1978, Gelsey — dressed as Kitri from Don Quixote — was featured on the cover of Time magazine. This is likely what gave her name the exposure it needed to debut in the baby name data in 1979.

[She might have had an even earlier impact on the charts had she performed alongside Baryshnikov, as planned, in the dance movie The Turning Point (1977). Instead the part was played by ballerina Leslie Browne, who received an Oscar nomination.]

She left dance for a while during in the mid-1980s (due to drug addiction, among other things) but eventually returned. During the 2010s, she taught at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet in New York City.

The name Gelsey also returned: It’s been a regular in the U.S. baby name data since the mid-1990s.

What do you think of the name Gelsey?

Sources:

Image: © 1978 Time

Name news from Azerbaijan

Flag of Azerbaijan
Flag of Azerbaijan

Sayali Sadiqova, deputy chairperson of Azerbaijan’s Terminology Commission, has been in the news twice recently talking about baby names.

In the first article, she mentioned that the top baby names in Azerbaijan are Ali, Hasan and Huseyn for boys and Fatima and Zeyneb for girls. She also noted that Azerbaijani parents tend to prefer religious baby names to non-religious baby names.

In the second, she said that the government had been receiving requests to use “strange names” such as Newton, Galileo, Ingilis (meaning “English”), and Frunze (refers to Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze). She stated that there was “a definitive ban on these names,” and that hundreds of such names had been banned already.

In the past, the Terminology Commission has also taken issue with Russian baby names, Russian-sounding baby names, baby names influenced by Soviet ideology, Armenian baby names, and so forth.

Sources: Parents prefer religious baby names in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan bans strange baby names ‘Frunze’, ‘Newton’, ‘Galileo’

Image: Adapted from Flag of Azerbaijan (public domain)

Popular baby names in Malta, 2014

Flag of Malta
Flag of Malta

According to data from Malta’s National Statistics Office, the most popular name-groups in Malta in 2014 were Elena/Elenia/Helena/Ella and Luke/Luca/Lucas.

Here are Malta’s top 10 girl and boy name-groups of 2014:

Girl Names

  1. Elena/Elenia/Helena/Ella, 97 baby girls
  2. Julia/Yulia/Julianne, 72
  3. Emma/Emmanuela/Ema, 70
  4. Eliza/Elisa/Elizabeth/Elise, 69
  5. Catherine/Katrina/Kate/Katya, 46
  6. Maya/Mia/Myah, 44
  7. Lea/Leah/Leia, 42
  8. Emilia/Emily/Emelie, 41
  9. Amy/Aimee, 39
  10. Maria/Marija/Mariah/Marie, 37 [tie]
    • Anna/Hannah/Ann, 37 [tie]

Boy Names

  1. Luke/Luca/Lucas, 98 baby boys
  2. Matthew/Matthias/Matteo, 97
  3. Jacob/Jake, 77
  4. Zachary/Zak/Zack, 59
  5. Michael/Miguel/Mikhail, 53
  6. Liam/William, 51 [tie]
    • John/Jean/Jonathan/Juan/Gan, 51 [tie]
  7. Benjamin/Ben, 51
  8. Kaiden/Kayden/Kai ,46 [tie]
    • Alexander/Alessandro/Alec, 46 [tie]
  9. Andrew/Andreas/Andre/Andy, 45
  10. Joseph/Beppe/Giuseppe/Josef, 40

Down in 15th place on the boys’ side is “Yannick/Yan” — both are versions of John, and yet they’re not part of the John group, which is tied for 6th.

Speaking of strange things…

Quote about Malta being unable to use Maltese fonts for birth registrations (Times of Malta)

(My blog also cannot handle Maltese fonts, or else I’d be able to write out that paragraph for you.)

I’ve seen governments (e.g., NWT, California) make excuses about not being able to render minority/ethnic names properly on birth certificates, but I’ve never heard of a country that couldn’t render names from its own national language.

Oh, Malta.

Here are the 2013, 2012, 2009, 2007, and 2006 rankings.

Sources: Naming Babies – National Statistics Office – Malta, Luke and Elena remain most popular names given to newborns, ‘Dotty’ system bars patriot baby names

Image: Adapted from Flag of Malta (public domain)