How popular is the baby name Tycho 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 Tycho.

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Popularity of the baby name Tycho


Posts that mention the name Tycho

The last intellectual to Latinize his name?

German physicist and mathematician Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888)
Rudolf Clausius (born Rudolf Gottlieb)

German physicist and mathematician Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888) was one of the founders of the science of thermodynamics.

Another interesting thing about Rudolf Clausius? He was born Rudolf Gottlieb.

I couldn’t find a concrete explanation for the name change, but I did find this in a college physics book: “Born with the name Rudolf Gottlieb, he adopted the classical name of Clausius, which was a popular thing to do in his time.”

(Clausius is based on the Latin clausus, meaning “closed, shut off.” Some sources say Clausius is an alternate name for Janus, the ancient Roman god of beginnings and endings.)

Yes, many historical European scholars/artists did adopt Latinized names. Astronomer Tycho Brahe was born Tyge Ottesen Brahe. Artist Jheronimus (Hieronymus) Bosch was born Jeroen van Aken. Violin maker Antonius Stradivarius was born Antonio Stradivari. Map maker Gerardus Mercator was born Gerard de Cremer.

But these folks lived during the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s. It was trendy for Renaissance thinkers, who embraced Classical philosophies and attitudes, to Latinize their names. (Wikipedia has a long list of Latinized names coined during the Renaissance if you want more examples.)

Rudolf Clausius, on the other hand, lived during the 1800s. I can’t think of any other public figure who adopted a Latinized name as late as the mid-19th century.

Was Rudolf Clausius the last European intellectual to Latinize his name? Or do other outliers exist?

(At first I thought Carl Linnæus (1707-1778) might fit the bill, but his surname was the legitimate family name, coined by his father Nils before Carl was born. It’s based on the Småland dialect word “linn,” meaning “linden tree,” in reference to a stately linden tree on the family property.)

Sources:

Image: Rudolf Clausius

Names collected in the Czech Republic

Earlier this month, my husband and I spent a couple of weeks in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

old town, prague
Old Town Square, Prague

Here are some of the names we spotted:

Wenceslas

Our hotel was located in Wenceslas Square, which was named in honor of Duke of Bohemia Wenceslas I (907-935).

His name is a Latinized form of the Slavic name Veceslav, which is made up of the Old Slavic words veche, meaning “more, greater,” and slava, meaning “glory, fame.” (The name Václav is a contracted form of Veceslav.)

Mikulas

We didn’t spend much time checking out Wenceslas Square (which was mainly for shopping) but did hang out a lot in Old Town Square (which was more historical). One of the big attractions there is the astronomical clock:

Astronomical Clock, Old Town Square, Prague
Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square, Prague

The oldest part of the clock was created by clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň in 1410, making this the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world (and the oldest one still working).

The name Mikuláš is simply the Czech form of Nicholas, which can be traced back to the Greek words nike, meaning “victory,” and laos, meaning “people.”

Tyge & Tycho

Also in Old Town is a Gothic church called the Church of Mother of God before Týn. (The church is in the center of that top photo of Old Town Square.)

Danish nobleman and astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), who relocated to Bohemia toward the end of his life, is buried here. Tycho’s birth name was Tyge (pron. tee-geh), but he Latinized it to Tycho (pron. tee-ko) as a teenager.

According to the site Nordic Names, Tyge is a form of Tyki, which is the Danish form of Týki, which has several possible derivations. Tycho, on the other hand, is based on the Greek word tyche, which means “luck.”

Karel & Deniska

A short walk from Old Town Square is the Vltava river. From the early 1400s until the mid-1800s, the only way to cross the Vltava was the Karlův most (Charles Bridge; literally, “Karel’s bridge”) which was named in honor of 14th-century King Charles IV.

A gold-colored cross on the bridge parapet marks the spot where, in 1393, St. John of Nepomuk was thrown into the river and drowned. Behind the cross decorative railing on which people like to put love locks:

Love Locks on Charles Bridge, Prague
Charles Bridge, Prague

A couple of the locks:

Love locks on Charles Bridge, Prague
Love locks on Charles Bridge, Prague

I don’t know about the origins of Buka and Makc, but Deniska is a diminutive of Denisa, the feminine form of Denis, which comes from Dionysius, which is based on the name of the Greek god Dionysus, whose name is made up of elements referring to Zeus (dios) and the legendary Mount Nysa.

Dalibor

In that photo with the bridge with the railing, there’s a cluster of spires off in the distance. That’s the Prague Castle complex, which includes the Old Royal Palace, St. Vitus Cathedral, St. George’s Basilica, Rosenberg Palace, and Daliborka Tower.

Daliborka Tower, a former prison, was named after early prisoner Dalibor of Kozojedy (d. 1498). According to a legend that arose after his death, Dalibor learned to play the fiddle during his imprisonment and “people came from far and wide and listened, enraptured, to his soul-stirring playing.”

But an informational sign inside Daliborka debunks this myth:

The reality of Dalibor’s musical talent was, however, quite different: “the fiddle” was a nickname for an instrument of torture, a sort of rack on which the convicted man was stretched till […] the victim began “to fiddle” (change his tune, confess).”

Torture devices inside Daliborka Tower, Prague
Torture devices inside Daliborka Tower, Prague

The name Dalibor is made up of the Old Slavic words daleko, meaning “far, distance,” and bor meaning “war, fight.” (Daliborka is also the feminine form of the name.)

Svatopluk

Getting back to the river…one of the other bridges over the Vltava is the art deco Svatopluk Čech Bridge, named after Czech writer Svatopluk Čech (1846-1908).

Svatopluk Bridge, Prague
Svatopluk Bridge, Prague

The name Svatopluk is made up of the Old Slavic words svetu, meaning “blessed, holy,” and pulku, meaning “people, folk.”

Avigdor

You guys know I love graveyards, but sadly I didn’t get a chance to see Prague’s famous Old Jewish Cemetery. (We walked by it a few times, but always on our way somewhere else.)

I do remember reading, though, that the oldest stone there belongs to a rabbi named Avigdor Kara (d. 1439). The name Avigdor may be based on the phrase Avi Gedor (I Chron. 4.18), which means “father of Gedor,” with the name Gedor meaning “wall” or “fence.”

Now let’s wrap things up with this gratuitous shot of St. Vitus Cathedral:

St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague
St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague

Have you ever been to the Czech Republic? Do you remember seeing/hearing any interesting names while there?

Sources:

  • Behind the Name
  • Cohn, Rella Israly. Yiddish Given Names: A Lexicon. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2008.
  • Thoren, Victor E., John Robert Christianson. The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Baby names needed: “Whimsical, weird” names for quadruplets

Estelle wrote to me recently with a tall order:

I’m having quads (!!!) in 4 weeks and I need names! I’m having one boy and three girls. My 4 year old son’s name is Cosmo. My husband and I like spacey, whimsical and weird names.

In fact, they “don’t have any limits on how weird a name can be.”

One girl name they’re considering is Ione, which is a family name.

The combination of Cosmo and the adjective “spacey” made me think of star and constellation names right off the bat:

Adhara
Aldebaran
Altair
Aludra
Antares
Antlia
Aquarius
Aquila
Aries
Auriga
Azha
Carina
Corvus
Cygnus
Deneb
Denebola
Hamal
Kastra
Lacerta
Libra
Lyra
Meissa
Musca
Nashira
Norma
Orion
Pavo
Polaris
Rana
Rigel
Shaula
Sheratan
Sirius
Sirrah
Suhail
Taurus
Thuban
Vega
Vela

One nice thing about these is that several together probably wouldn’t scream “star names” to the average person. Unlike, say, a group of flower names. (Though I’m sure stargazers would catch on pretty quickly.)

And here’s what we have for non-galactic suggestions:

Allegra
Althea
Apollonia
Artemis
Aurora
Briony
Calypso
Clio
Danae
Demetria
Echo
Eulalia
Freya
Hestia
Imelda
Imogen
Isis
Lucasta
Luna
Jonquil
Minerva
Olympia
Rhea
Sapphira
Severina
Ursula
Vita
Xanthe
Zelda
Zenobia

Those were the girl names, these are the boy names:

Agni
Aldous
Barnaby
Casper
Cyril
Elan
Evander
Erasmus
Fabio
Gideon
Horatio
Ignatius
Isidore
Jethro
Leander
Loki
Magnus
Milo
Nigel
Odin
Pascal
Peregrine
Reuben
Rémy
Silas
Taliesin
Theron
Tycho
Ulysses
Zenon

What other whimsical names can you come up with for Estelle? And, can you put together any good combinations of 1 boy and 3 girl names?

Update: The babies have arrived! Scroll down to see what names Estelle selected.