How popular is the baby name Nathaniel 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 Nathaniel.
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Years ago, I discovered three documents with relatively complete lists of births for the city of Providence, Rhode Island, for the years 1866, 1867, and 1868. I’ve already created Providence’s baby name rankings for 1866 and 1867 using the first two documents, and today (finally!) I’ve got the third set of rankings for you.
Let’s start with some stats:
1,762 babies were born in Providence in 1868, by my count. According to the introduction of the document I’m using a source, however, the total number is 1,866. I don’t know how to account for this discrepancy.
1,617 of these babies (791 girls and 826 boys) had names that were known at the time of publication. The other 145 babies got blank spaces. Either their names hadn’t been registered yet, or they hadn’t been named yet, or perhaps these babies died young and never received a name.
284 unique names (143 girl names and 141 boy names) were shared among these 1,617 babies.
And now, on to the names!
Top 5
A quick look at the top 5 girl names and boy names in Providence in 1868:
Top baby girl names
Top baby boy names
1. Mary 2. Catherine 3. Sarah 4. Ellen 5. Margaret
1. John 2. William 3. James 4. Charles 5. George
All Girl Names
Mary, 149 baby girls
Catherine, 39
Sarah, 38
Ellen, 31
Margaret, 28
Elizabeth, 25
Alice, 24
Anna, 20
Ann, 16
Emma, 14
Eliza, 13
Clara & Martha, 11 each (tie)
Hannah & Lucy, 10 each (tie)
Bridget, Grace, Jennie, Julia & Maria, 9 each (5-way tie)
Annie, Florence, Jane, Minnie & Susan, 8 each (5-way tie)
Agnes, Caroline, Cora, Ella & Harriet, 7 each (5-way tie)
A while back, I stumbled upon a register of people associated with Oxford University in the late 1500s and early 1600s. The most interesting part? The author of the register included a chapter dedicated to first names and surnames, and that chapter featured a table of male forenames ranked by frequency of occurrence from 1560 to 1621.
The author claimed that, for several reasons, these rankings were “probably…more representative of English names than any list yet published” for that span of time. One reason was that the names represented men from “different grades of English society” — including peers, scholars, tradesmen, and servants.
Ready for the list?
John, 3,826 individuals
Thomas, 2,777
William, 2,546
Richard, 1,691
Robert, 1,222
Edward, 957
Henry, 908
George, 647
Francis, 447
James, 424
Nicholas, 326
Edmund, 298
Anthony, 262
Hugh, 257
Christopher, 243
Samuel, 227
Walter, 207
Roger, 195
Ralph (sometimes confused with Raphael/Randall in the records), 182
Peter, 175
Humphrey, 168
Charles, 139
Philip, 137
David, 129
Matthew (sometimes confused with Matthias), 116
Nathaniel, 112
Michael, 103
Alexander, 98 (tie)
Arthur, 98 (tie)
Laurence, 90
Giles, 88
Stephen, 86
Simon (sometimes confused with Simeon), 83
Daniel, 79
Joseph, 78 (tie)
Lewis, 78 (tie)
Andrew, 69
Roland (also Rowland), 65
Griffith (also Griffin), 60
Evan, 55
Abraham, 54 (tie)
Leonard, 54 (tie)
Owen, 53
Gilbert, 52
Morris (sometimes confused with Maurice), 51
Bartholomew, 46 (3-way tie)
Oliver, 46 (3-way tie)
Timothy, 46 (3-way tie)
Morgan, 45
Martin, 44 (tie)
Rice (sometimes confused with Richard), 44 (tie)
Gabriel, 41
Benjamin, 40
Jeffrey (also Geoffrey; sometimes confused with Godfrey), 38
Ambrose, 36
Adam, 35
Toby (also Tobias), 34
Jerome, 33
Ellis, 30
Paul, 29
Bernard, 28 (3-way tie)
Gregory (sometimes confused with George), 28 (3-way tie)
Isaac, 28 (3-way tie)
Jasper (also Gaspar), 26
Randall (also Randle, Randolph; sometimes confused with Ralph), 26 (tie)
Did the relative popularity of any of these names surprise you?
Entries lower down on the list included Lancelot (23), Jarvis (22) Theophilus (19), Marmaduke (18), Fulke (17), and Cadwalader (9).
The author also included every other Oxford-associated name from that general time period, so here’s a sampling of the rare names that popped up in the register just once:
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