How popular is the baby name Sanford 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 Sanford.
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“Everly” is hot…”Beverly” is not. It’s a one-letter difference between fashionable and fusty.
If you’re sensitive to style, you’ll prefer Everly. It fits with today’s trends far better than Beverly does.
But if you’re someone who isn’t concerned about style, or prefers to go against style, then you may not automatically go for Everly. In fact, you may be more attracted to Beverly because it’s the choice that most modern parents would avoid.
If you’ve ever thought about intentionally giving your baby a dated name (like Debbie, Grover, Marcia, or Vernon) for the sake of uniqueness within his/her peer group — if you have no problem sacrificing style for distinctiveness — then this list is for you.
Years ago, the concept of “contrarian” baby names came up in the comments of a post about Lois. Ever since then, creating a collection of uncool/contrarian baby names has been on my to-do list.
Finally, last month, I experimented with various formulas for pulling unstylish baby names out of the SSA dataset. Keeping the great-grandparent rule in mind, I aimed for names that would have been fashionable among the grandparents of today’s babies. The names below are the best results I got.
Interestingly, thirteen of the names above — Bobbie, Cary, Dale, Jackie, Jimmie, Jody, Kerry, Kim, Lynn, Robin, Sandy, Tracey, Tracy — managed to make both lists.
Now some questions for you…
Do you like any of these names? Would you be willing to use any of them on a modern-day baby? Why or why not?
The U.S. National Park Service has a birthday coming up!
When the NPS was created on August 25, 1916, there were only 35 national parks and monuments. (The world’s first, Yellowstone, had been established in 1872.)
Nowadays the agency oversees 411 units. These units are located in the 50 states and beyond, and include national monuments (82), national historic sites (78), national parks (59), national historical parks (50), national memorials (30), national battlefields (11), national seashores (10), national lakeshores (4), national scenic trails (3), and more.
Let’s celebrate the upcoming centenary with over 100 baby names that pay tribute to the national parks specifically:
The derivation of Kenai is unknown, but it could come from either Dena’ina Athabascan (“big flat” or “two big flats and river cut-back” or “trees and brush in a swampy marsh”), Russian (“flat barren land”), or Iniut (“black bear”).
The registrar of Providence, Rhode Island, published a series of documents listing all “of the names of persons deceased, born and married in the city of Providence” during years 1866, 1867 and 1868. The series may have been longer, but these are the only documents I could find online.
I’ve finally finished creating a set of rankings using one of the documents — 1867. But before we get to the rankings, here are some stats:
1,547 babies were born in Providence in 1867, going by the number of babies listed in the document itself. According to the document’s introduction, though, the number is 1,625. Not sure what to make of this discrepancy.
1,431 of these babies (713 girls and 718 boys) had names that were registered with the government at the time of publication. The other 116 babies got blank spaces. Either their names hadn’t been registered yet, or they hadn’t been named yet, or perhaps they died young and never received a name.
254 unique names (141 girl names and 113 boy names) were shared among these 1,431 babies.
And now, on to the names…
Top 5
A quick look at the top 5 girl names and boy names in Providence in 1867:
Top Baby Girl Names
Top Baby Boy Names
1. Mary
2. Catherine
3. Ellen
4. Margaret
5. Sarah
1. John
2. William
3. James
4. Charles
5. George
Girl Names
Notice how the #1 name, Mary, was bestowed three times as often as the #2 name, Catherine.
Twenty-one sets of twins and two sets of triplets were born in Providence in 1867. (All of these names were accounted for above — I just thought it’d be fun to check out the sibsets.)
Twins (b/b)
Twins (b/g)
Twins (g/g)
Triplets
Abraham & George
Charles & George
Charles & John
Daniel & David
Dunlap & Frank
Eugene & Timothy
George & John
George & William
James & John
John & Martin
Albert & Harriet
Ashel & Ida
George & Grace
James & Mary
Maurice & Ann
Annie & Fannie
Annie & Mary
Ann & Ellen
Jennie & Minnie
Margaret & Martha
(blank) & (blank)
Carl, (blank) & (blank)
James, Alexander & Sarah
I’ll post Providence’s 1866 and 1868 rankings as soon I get them done. Until then, here are two older posts featuring uniquely named Rhode Islanders: Aldaberontophoscophornia (b. 1812) and Idawalley (b. 1842).
(In some cases, a different spelling of the name is more popular than what’s shown here. For instance, Laurence is rare, but Lawrence is moderately popular.)
This Saturday’s lunar eclipse will be the last total lunar eclipse until 2014, so I guess now is the time to post about people named Eclipse!
Below are people with Eclipse as either a first or a middle name. I’ve even matched a few with specific historical solar eclipses listed on NASA’s website.
1700s
Maria Eclipse Moor, born in England on September 5, 1793, the day of a partial solar eclipse.
1800s
Emma Eclipse Earl, born in England on September 7, 1820, the day of a partial solar eclipse.
William Moore Eclipse Reddall, born in England in 1820.
Eclipse Mitchell, born in South Carolina circa 1828.
Eclipse Sabourin, born in Quebec circa 1823.
Eclipse Thomas, born in North Carolina in 1829. (Father of Eclipse J. Thomas, below.)
Eclipse Northeast, born in England circa 1831.
Charles Eclipse Bennett, born in England in 1836.
Maria Eclipse Wilson, born in England in 1836.
Augusta Caroline Eclipse Golden, born in England in 1837.
Eclipse Scott, born in Virginia on May 26, 1854, the day of a partial solar eclipse.
Eclipse Hilsden, born in England circa 1862.
Eclipse J. Thomas, born in Georgia in 1867. (Son of Eclipse Thomas, above.)
Eclipse Smith, born in Kentucky circa 1869.
Eclipse Newton, born in Missouri circa 1871.
Nina Eclipse Gain, born in Canada circa 1873.
Luna Eclipse Hill, born in Texas on October 24, 1874. (Daughter of Luna Eclipse Weaver, birth date unknown.)
Ida/Ada Eclipse Wade, born in Massachusetts in 1874. (I found records for both Ida and Ada — could be a misspelling, or could mean twins.)
Eclipse Green, born in Mississippi in 1877.
Lily Eclipse Monks, born in England circa 1878.
Henry Eclipse Monheim, born in Utah on July 29, 1878, the day of a partial solar eclipse.
Marvin Eclipse Wallace, born in Texas on July 29, 1878, the day of total solar eclipse.
Sanford Eclipse Gantt, born in Texas on July 29, 1878, the day of a total solar eclipse.
May Eclipse Glass, born in England circa 1890.
Essie Eclipse McGill, born in Tennessee on January 29, 1892.
Eclipse Blackman, born in Georgia circa 1898.
1900s
Eclipse Eley, born in Georgia circa 1900.
Eclipse Ruth Green, born in Mississippi circa 1914.
Vivian Eclipse Cubine, born in Oklahoma on May 2, 1920.
Eclipse Deutschman, born in New York circa 1925.
Eclipse De Marco, born in Rhode Island circa 1925.
Angelina Eclipse Ramos, born in Hawaii on May 5, 1941.
Jennifer Eclipse Kerr, born in Texas on July 6, 1982, the day of a total lunar eclipse.
Kathleen Eclipse Hernandez, born in Texas on July 11, 1991, the day of a partial solar eclipse.
Kathleen Eclipse Long, born in Texas on June 12, 1992.
And, in June of 2001, at least a few kids in southern Africa were given eclipse-related names (like Eclipse Glasses, Annular and Totality) around the time of the total solar eclipse.