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Popularity of the baby name Will


Posts that mention the name Will

Quotes about the names of writers

Irish playwright and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Oscar Wilde

From the 2000 book Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius by Barbara Belford:

“How ridiculous of you to suppose that anyone, least of all my dear mother, would christen me ‘plain Oscar,'” Wilde later said. “When one is unknown, a number of Christian names are useful, perhaps needful. As one becomes famous, one sheds some of them…I started as Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. All but two of the five names have already been thrown overboard. Soon I shall discard another and be known simply as ‘The Wilde’ or ‘The Oscar.'”

From a 2008 article by writer Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) in The Atlantic:

[F]or the record Ta-Nehisi (pronounced Tah-Nuh-Hah-See) is an Egyptian name for ancient Nubia. I came up in a time when African/Arabic names were just becoming popular among black parents. I had a lot of buddies named Kwame, Kofi, Malik (actually have a brother with that name), Akilah and Aisha. My Dad had to be different, though. Couldn’t just give me a run of the mill African name. I had to be a nation.

From a 2019 article about names by journalist Josanne Cassar in Malta Today:

In my case it can be mildly tiring because I am constantly having to explain that there is no “i” in Josanne, (simply because the most common spelling and pronunciation is Josianne) – one person had even asked me if I was sure I was spelling it right and asked me to check my own ID card. True story.

From the post “My name is not really Penelope” by blogger Penelope Trunk:

So when I signed up for my son’s preschool, I told them my name was Penelope Trunk. My husband had a fit. He told me I was starting our new life in Madison as an insane person and I cannot change my name now.

But I explained to him that it would be insane not to change my name now. I am way better known as Penelope than Adrienne. And my career is so closely tied with the brand Penelope Trunk, that I actually became the brand. So calling myself Penelope Trunk instead of Adrienne Greenheart is actually a way to match my personal life with my professional life and to make things more sane.

At first it was a little weird. For example, we were driving in the car one day and my son said, “Mom, who’s Penelope Trunk?”

But now it feels good to be Penelope Trunk. No more having to figure out what name to give where. No more pretending to be someone, sometimes. No more long explanations and short memories of who calls me what.

From the 2005 speech “How Everything Turns Away” by children’s book author Lois Lowry (b. 1937):

My first photograph…or the first photograph of me…was taken, by my father, when I was 36 hours old. My name was different then. They had named me Sena, for my Norwegian grandmother, and that was my name until she was notified; then she sent a telegram insisting that they give me an American name, and so I was renamed Lois Ann for my father’s two sisters.

American memoirist Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
Maya Angelou (who was a dancer in the 1950s!)

From the book Maya Angelou (2009) by Harold Bloom:

From that local bar she moves on to the Purple Onion, one of the most popular nightclubs on the entire West Coast. It is here that she is encouraged to replace the “s” in her last name with a “u”. She will now also need an exotic first name. This is when she remembered, “My brother has always called me Maya. For ‘Marguerite.’ He used to call me ‘My sister,’ then he called me ‘My,’ and finally, ‘Maya’.” Marguerite Johnson Angelos becomes Maya Angelou, and shortly thereafter she has more job offers than she is able to accommodate.

From the about page of writer Tsh Oxenreider:

My name is Tsh Oxenreider, and no, my name is not a typo (one of the first things people ask). It’s pronounced “Tish.” No reason, really, except that my parents were experimental with their names choices in the 70s. Until my younger brother was born in the 80s, whom they named Josh, quite possibly one of the most common names for people his age. Who knows what they were thinking, really.

From the about page of “Robert Galbraith,” pseudonym of writer J. K. Rowling:

I can only hope all the real Robert Galbraiths out there will be as forgiving as the real Harry Potters have been. I must say, I don’t think their plight is quite as embarrassing.

I chose Robert because it is one of my favourite men’s names, because Robert F Kennedy is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the Potter series or ‘The Casual Vacancy’.

Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. When I was a child, I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why. I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed, because I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. Be that as it may, the name had a fascination for me. I actually considered calling myself L A Galbraith for the Strike series, but for fairly obvious reasons decided that initials were a bad idea.

Odder still, there was a well-known economist called J K Galbraith, something I only remembered by the time it was far too late. I was completely paranoid that people might take this as a clue and land at my real identity, but thankfully nobody was looking that deeply at the author’s name.

From an 2009 New York Times article about Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept, a fictional account of the dangers of publishing Doctor Zhivago in the 1950s:

You could say she was born to write this historical novel: Prescott’s mother named her after the doomed heroine from her favorite movie, the 1965 adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s epic.

(The movie made the baby name Lara quite trendy during the second half of the 1960s, in fact.)

From a 2003 interview with Jhumpa Lahiri in the New York Times:

JG: In the new book, you explain that all Bengalis have private pet names and public “good names.” But the main character in “The Namesake” is given only one name: Gogol, after the Russian writer.

JL: That happened to me. My name, Jhumpa, which is my only name now, was supposed to be my pet name. My parents tried to enroll me in school under my good name, but the teacher asked if they had anything shorter. Even now, people in India ask why I’m publishing under my pet name instead of a real name.

JG: What does Jhumpa mean?

JL: Jhumpa has no meaning. It always upset me. It’s like jhuma, which refers to the sound of a child’s rattle, but with a “p.” In this country, you’d never name your child Rattle. I actually have two good names, Nilanjana and Sudeshna. My mother couldn’t decide. All three are on the birth certificate. I never knew how to write my name.

From a 2020 lecture on creative writing given by author Brandon Sanderson [vid], an aside about the name Brandon:

When I grew up in Nebraska, I was the only Brandon, like, in my school. It was a really original, interesting name. I’m like, ‘My parents came up with this great, original, interesting name.’ And then I moved to Utah to go to BYU and there were five in my freshman dorm. And then I realized: It’s a Mormon name! Who would have thought? It’s not in any of the scriptures but it totally is a Mormon name. There’s a ton. Brandon Flowers, right? Brandon Mull, Brandon Sanderson. There’s a lot of Brandons out there with an LDS background. Who knew?

(Brandon Flowers is the lead singer of The Killers, while Brandon Mull — like Sanderson — writes fantasy. Brandon Sanderson is behind the debuts of the baby names Kaladin and Sylphrena, btw.)

From the book A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis (2013) by Devin Brown:

Although born and baptized as Clive [Staples Lewis], Lewis soon took a disliking to the name his parents had given him. Sometime around the age of four, he marched up to his mother and, pointing at himself, declared that he was now to be known as “Jacksie.” This name, later shortened to Jacks and then to just Jack, became the only name he would answer to. In his book Jack’s Life, Douglas Gresham, Lewis’s stepson, provides the following background on why Lewis chose this name: ‘It was actually because of a small dog that he was fond of that he picked the name Jacksie, which was what the dog was called. It was run over (probably by a horse and cart as there were almost no cars in the time and place where he was a child), and Jack, as he later became known just took the name for himself.’

From a 2014 article by journalist Kerry Parnell in The Daily Telegraph:

[W]hen I was born and my parents proudly announced my name to the family, my great-grandma was disgusted and informed them Kerry was a dog’s name.

She never wavered from this conviction until one day, when I was about five, we visited her to see her new poodle puppy.

“What’s his name?” I asked. “Kerry,” she replied, stony faced. There was a long, awkward silence and no one ever mentioned it again.

Ironically, great-grandma went by the name of “Pete”, which, unless I am very much mistaken, is a man’s name.

One day, I vow, I will get a dog just so I can call it Pete, for revenge.

From the book Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew (1997) by Christine Wallace:

In the autumn of 1938 came the first conception. Peggy’s pregnancy was easy, with little more than queasiness. But the labor was long and difficult. The baby, a girl, was bruised around the head from the traumatic delivery and arrived in floods of blood as Peggy hemorrhaged from a retained placenta. The baby was named Germaine, with no middle initial to interrupt the elegant alliteration with Greer. According to Peggy, it was the name of a minor British actress she found in an English magazine Reg had brought home from work. In Germaine’s version, her mother was reading George Sand’s The Countess of Rudolstadt when she fell pregnant, and drew the name from one of its characters, the Comte de Saint-Germain — ‘because she liked the sound of it, I reckon.’ It was the height of the last Australian summer before the war: 29 January 1939.

From the book Here at The New Yorker (1975) by Brendan Gill:

Indeed, there are writers remembered not for their novels but for their names: Mazo de la Roche, Ouida, Warwick Deeping.

From a 2006 article about poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) in NYC newspaper The Villager:

There is hardly an account of Greenwich Village in the ’20s in which she does not prominently figure. Yet her roots in the neighborhood preceded even her fame. The poet’s unusual middle name came from St. Vincent’s Hospital on 12th St. Millay’s uncle was nursed back to health there after a sailing accident, and her mother wished to show her gratitude by naming her first-born child after the place.

And another about Millay from What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (2001) by Daniel Mark Epstein:

She preferred the triumphant-sounding title to plain “Edna” (Hebrew for “rejuvenation”) and asked to be called “Vincent,” which somehow rubbed the school principal, Frank Wilbur, the wrong way. He made sport of calling her by any woman’s name beginning with a V: Vanessa, Viola, Vivian, anything but Vincent. “Yes, yes, Mr. Wilbur,” she would answer, with weary patience, “but my name is Vincent.”

From Duncan McLaren’s Evelyn Waugh website, an interesting fact about the English writer and his first wife, also named Evelyn:

Although I call the couple he- and she-Evelyn in my book, Alexander [Evelyn Waugh’s grandson] has mentioned that at the time [late 1920s] they were called Hevelyn and Shevelyn.

(Evelyn Waugh’s first name was pronounced EEV-lyn, so “Hevelyn” and “Shevelyn” would have been HEEV-lyn and SHEEV-lyn.)

From Nina Sankovitch’s memoir Tolstoy and the Purple Chair (2011):

For my father, the consequences of war brought him far from home, and eventually across an ocean, to start over in a new world. My parents tell me I was named after the members of the corps de ballet of the Bolshoi, most of whom were named Nina. They went to see a performance of the Bolshoi just days before I was born. But I also know that my name is another ripple effect of the war, coming from my father’s sister Antonina, who was murdered that night in 1943.

(Three of her Belarusian father’s siblings — Sergei, Antonina, and Boris — were killed one night during WWII.)

From a 2012 interview with Somali British poet Warsan Shire:

Warsan means “good news” and Shire means “to gather in one place”. My parents named me after my father’s mother, my grandmother. Growing up, I absolutely wanted a name that was easier to pronounce, more common, prettier. But then I grew up and understood the power of a name, the beauty that comes in understanding how your name has affected who you are. My name is indigenous to my country, it is not easy to pronounce, it takes effort to say correctly and I am absolutely in love with the sound of it and its meaning. Also, it’s not the kind of name you baby, slip into sweet talk mid sentence, late night phone conversation, whisper into the receiver kind of name, so, of that I am glad.

From a 2012 New York Magazine article about author Toni Morrison, born Chloe Wofford, who “deeply regrets” not putting her birth name on her books:

“Wasn’t that stupid?” she says. “I feel ruined!” Here she is, fount of indelible names (Sula, Beloved, Pilate, Milkman, First Corinthians, and the star of her new novel, the Korean War veteran Frank Money), and she can’t own hers. “Oh God! It sounds like some teenager–what is that?” She wheeze-laughs, theatrically sucks her teeth. “But Chloe.” She grows expansive. “That’s a Greek name. People who call me Chloe are the people who know me best,” she says. “Chloe writes the books.” Toni Morrison does the tours, the interviews, the “legacy and all of that.”

From the Amazon.com bio of author Caitlin Moran:

Caitlin isn’t really her name. She was christened ‘Catherine.’ But she saw ‘Caitlin’ in a Jilly Cooper novel when she was thirteen and thought it looked exciting. That’s why she pronounces it incorrectly: ‘Catlin.’ It causes trouble for everyone.

From Little Failure: A Memoir (1996) by Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Steinhorn):

I have clearly spent thirty-nine years unaware that my real destiny was to go through life as a Bavarian porn star, but some further questions present themselves: If neither Gary nor Shteyngart is truly my name, then what the hell am I doing calling myself Gary Shteyngart? Is every single cell in my body a historical lie?

From a 2020 article about baby names by journalist Dilvin Yasa in the Sydney Morning Herald:

When you have a name like Dilvin, you spend an awful amount of time thinking about baby names and the role our monikers play in our lives. Will little Exoduss ever spearhead a Fortune 500 company? Can Bambi push through our collective prejudice and go on to become a respected neurosurgeon? Had my parents named me Deborah, Sally or Carolyn, would I really be a CEO by now instead of a writer, as a famous LinkedIn survey suggests?

From the 2012 obituary of author Maurice Sendak in Slate:

He adored Melville, Mozart, and Mickey Mouse (and would have noted the alliteration with pleasure — he wrote in different places about the mysterious significance he attached to the letter M, his own first initial and that of many of his characters, beginning with Max of Where the Wild Things Are).

From The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography (2012) by Lois Potte:

Though contemporary sonneteers populated their world with lovers called Astrophil, Parthenophil, Stella, Delia, and Idea, the only names that appear in Shakespeare’s sonnets are Adonis, Helen, Mars, Saturn, Philomel, Eve, Cupid, Diana, and Time — and the one non-mythological figure, the author, “Will.”

From a 1911 newspaper article about writers such as Georgia writer Corra Mae Harris (1869-1935):

Mrs. Harris finds much trouble in impressing the fact that her name is “Corra” and not “Cora” — the word being a family name.

(I quoted the same source in this post about author Zane Grey.)

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

Images: Oscar Wilde, Maya Angelou

[Latest update: Oct. 2023]

Quotes about celebrity baby names

American actress Zooey Deschanel
Zooey Deschanel

From a 2015 Today show interview during which actress Zooey Deschanel explains why she named her daughter Elsie Otter:

Well, we just really liked the name Elsie, and then we both love otters — they’re very sweet, and they’re also smart. They use tools, they keep their favorite tools, they hold hands while they sleep. There are so many amazing things about otters. They’re wonderful animals.

From a 2019 Us Weekly article about the weirdly common celebrity baby name combo “Charlie Wolf“:

Celebrity moms and dads are going wild for the animal-inspired baby name Charlie Wolf.

Zooey Deschanel and her estranged husband, Jacob Pechenik, kicked off the trendy moniker when they welcomed their baby boy in 2017.

[…]

Lauren Conrad and William Tell welcomed their second little one in October 2019 — and named him Charlie Wolf as well.

[…]

The following month, another Charlie Wolf arrived — or rather, Charles Wolfe.

(The third one was born to former Bachelor in Paradise contestants Evan Bass and Carly Waddell.)

From a 2017 Rap Radar interview during which rapper Jay-Z spoke about the names of his twins, Rumi and Sir:

Rumi is our favorite poet, so it was for our daughter. And then Sir was just like, man, like, come out the gate. […] He carries himself like that. He just came out, like, Sir.

From a 2016 Instagram post by singer Darius Rucker:

My daughter Dani with the guy she was named after, Dan Marino.

From a 2013 People interview with singer Dido, whose son Stanley was born in 2011:

Dido’s duet with Eminem […] “Stan,” [was] a collaboration which she never imagined fans would connect to her son’s moniker.

“Stanley was actually our favorite name, coincidentally both of our favorite names. He could never have been called anything else to be honest,” Dido shares. “I’m so stupid, I didn’t think anyone would make the connection.”

From the 2006 article about actress Sandra Bernhard in the weekly NYC newspaper The Villager:

Bernhard […] appropriate[d] from Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” the name Cicely that graces Bernhard’s daughter born July 4, 1998, nine or so months after the flamethrowing actress/singer/faghag/friend of the famous said to herself one fine day: “Enough! Get real.”

From a 2012 People interview with actress Drew Barrymore:

Asked why she and her husband Will Kopelman chose Olive, the actress says it came from a book — though not one of baby-names.

“I was reading a book with my husband. I was three months pregnant, and they said, ‘Your baby is the size of an olive.’ And that was it. We never looked back,” Barrymore, 37, says in an interview airing Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

From a 2018 Vice interview with actor Jeff Goldblum:

Vice: Amazing. That’s Charlie Ocean right?

Jeff: Yeah that’s Charlie Ocean! And then our other son [with wife Emilie Livingston, a Canadian aerialist, actress, and former Olympian] who’s now 11 months old is River Joe.

Vice: Any musical streaks in either of them yet?

Jeff: I’ve always sat at the piano these last couple years with Charlie Ocean and he kinda bangs around. But I must say, River Joe, when I play or we put on music, boy he’s just standing up at this point, but he rocks to the music and bounces up and down. He seems to really like it so maybe he’s musical. I’d like to play with them.

From a 2021 New York Times interview with actress Kate Winslet:

[Ms. Winslet] has a son, Bear, 7, with her current husband, who has gone back to his original name, Edward Abel Smith, from his playful pseudonym, Ned Rocknroll.

“He added ‘Winslet’ as one of his middle names, just simply because the children have Winslet,” the actress said. “When we’re all traveling together, to all have that name on the passports makes life easier.” (Bear’s middle name is Blaze, after the fire that Kate and Ned escaped that burned down the British Virgin Islands home of Richard Branson, her husband’s uncle.)

(The article also mentioned that a Delco sandwich shop now sells a hoagie called “The Mare” in honor of Kate’s Mare of Easttown character, Mare Sheehan.)

From a 2015 Yahoo Parenting interview during which TV personality Holly Madison defends her decision to name her daughter Rainbow:

People love to say, “That’s a stripper name.” But I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas and strippers aren’t named Rainbow. They’re named Amber, Crystal and Jessica.

From a 2007 People interview with film director Robert Rodriguez (whose kids are named Rocket, Racer, Rebel, Rogue, and Rhiannon):

Asked about his children’s unusual names, Robert attributes them to side effects he sustained from his college years when he subjected himself to medical tests to make extra money.

“Rocket is the first one. And once you name your first kid Rocket, you can’t name your next kid Marty. Racer, Rebel, Rogue…I’m just gonna blame this on the medical experiments. But they do have regular middle names in case they don’t want to start their own wrestling team.”

From a 2013 Maxim interview with film director Ron Howard:

Q: Is it true that your kids’ middle names come from the locations where they were conceived?

A: David Letterman got that out of me, and my kids will never let me forget it. My daughter, Bryce [Dallas Howard], was conceived in Dallas, and our twins [Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard] were conceived while we were doing a publicity tour at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. For the last one [Reed Cross Howard], we were on Lower Cross Road, so we decided to go with Cross. “Volvo” wouldn’t be such a good middle name.

From an early 2018 E! Online article about singer Justin Timberlake:

Timberlake’s interview comes weeks before the release of his new album Man of the Woods, which is set to hit stores on February 2. He said his son inspired the name of the record and its title track.

“I literally just went on Google like, ‘meaning of the name Silas,’ and it sent me to this to this site and it said, ‘of Latin origin, meaning ‘Man of the woods,'” he said. “I was like, ‘How serendipitous that my last is Timberlake, like what does that mean?'”

On the origin of the name of George Harrison’s son, Dhani, from The Beatles Encyclopedia (2014) by Kenneth Womack:

Born on August 1, 1978, in Windsor, England, Dhani Harrison is the only son of Harrison and his second wife Olivia Trinidad Arias. His unusual name is a composite of the sixth and seventh notes of the Indian music scale — “dha” and “ni.”

From actress Cloris Leachman‘s autobiography Cloris (2009), a scene set in early 1966, soon after the birth of her daughter Dinah:

Sometime the following week — I think it was five days later — we gave a dinner party, and Dinah Shore was among the guests. She wanted to see the new baby, so we brought her to the crib, and she oohed and aahed about how beautiful she was.

“What’s her name?” she asked as she leaned over the baby.

“Dinah,” I said. Then I thought, Oh, oh.

Dinah Shore turned to us, emotion visible on her face. “You named her after me?” There was a tremble in her voice.

The truth was, we hadn’t thought of Dinah Shore or anybody else while we cruised around for a name. Some very fast footwork was called for.

“Yes,” I said, my eyes mirroring the emotion in hers. “George and I thought you were the perfect role model for our baby.”

I mean, what could I do? She was having something close to a religious experience. I couldn’t slap my forehead and say, “Can you believe it? We never once thought of you when we picked the name.”

From an Instagram post by actor Josh Brolin, whose daughter Chapel Grace was born in 2020:

Everywhere we have traveled the one place Kathryn and I always found a great solace in were chapels. Not being particularly religious, but a God feeling heavily inundating our lives, chapels have always been the sanctuaries where we felt most connectedly free to give thanks. Chapel Grace is, to us, a manifestation of that celestial feeling that was always felt as we meandered and knelt.

From a 2020 People interview with actress Mindy Kaling, whose two children are named Katherine Swati and Spencer Avu:

“I don’t trust my own judgment with those kinds of names,” she admits. “If I name my son River, that connotes a certain kind of person who is very go with the flow, artsy. But what if he’s not like that at all? Will he be furious with me?”

“I just tried to pick classic names that felt like they would have to work really hard to get mad at me about later,” Kaling says, with a laugh.

From a 2016 Tampa Bay Times interview with musician Robin Zander (of Cheap Trick):

In the early ’90s, he and wife, Pam, who grew up in Pinellas County, settled down in the Sunshine State, drawn by family ties and the promise of a nice, safe community in which to raise their son, Robin Taylor, now 23, and daughter, Robin-Sailor, 15. (Zander’s go-to line about his kids’ quirky names: “My wife just calls us Robin, and we all come running.”)

From a 1998 BBC article about English singer Melanie Blatt (of All Saints):

Melanie and her boyfriend, musician Stuart Zender [of Jamiroquai], revealed in a magazine interview that they intend to name their daughter Lily Ella: Lily after the first flowers he bought her during their courtship and Ella after the music legend Ella Fitzgerald.

(Their daughter Lilyella was born in November.)

From a 2020 Entertainment Weekly article about comedian Amy Schumer, who legally changed her son’s name:

The I Feel Pretty star revealed her decision to change her 11-month-old son’s name on the newest episode of her podcast 3 Girls, 1 Keith on Tuesday. Schumer and her husband Chris Fischer named their first child Gene Attell Fischer, born May 5, with his middle name serving as a tribute to their good friend comic Dave Attell.

“Do you guys know that Gene, our baby’s name, is officially changed? It’s now Gene David Fischer. It was Gene Attell Fischer, but we realized that we, by accident, named our son ‘genital.'”

From a 2016 Elle interview during which comedian Alexandra “Ali” Wong spoke about her baby:

Q: What’s her name?

A: Mari, inspired by my hero Marie Kondo, who wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

…And, as confirmation, from Ali‘s New York Times interview one month later:

Q: Is it true that you named your daughter after the home-organizing expert Marie Kondo?

A: I don’t expect her to be the magical tidying baby, but yeah.

From a 2022 article in People, talk show host Kelly Ripa tells the story behind the name of her daughter Lola (b. 2001):

“Lola was supposed to be Sophia, but on the way to the hospital in the taxi cab, the driver was listening to the radio — the 70s station — and ‘Copacabana’ by Barry Manilow was playing,” the mom of three recalled.

“I heard that [lyric], when he said, ‘Her name was Lola,’ and I said to Mark, ‘Lola Consuelos would be a really cool name.’ And he said, ‘If she’s a girl, let’s name her Lola.’ And that was it,” she shared.

From the book Indiana’s 200: The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State (2016) by James E. St. Clair:

Amid much publicity in the early 1950s, [Herb Shriner and his wife] had given their children names that reflected his Hoosier heritage: They had a daughter named Indiana (known as “Indy”) and a son, Kin, named in honor of Abe Martin creator Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard. Kin Shriner became a soap opera actor; his twin brother, Wil (named for Will Rogers, but with one l), became a comedian, television, director, and talk show host with a laid-back style reminiscent of his father.

From a 2008 interview with singer Erykah Badu, whose daughter Puma was born in 2004:

The puma is one of the biggest and strongest cats in the feline family, but it has no roar. I thought that was very unique.

(Thanks to Badu, the name Erykah was the highest-debuting girl name of 1997.)

From a 2012 People interview during which singer Nick Lachey (of 98 Degrees) spoke about the name of his son Camden John:

“It’s kind of a funny story. I’ve always liked the name Colin. We thought that Colin would be the name. And John is my dad’s name. […] But as we got further into it, I learned that Vanessa wasn’t a big fan of the name Colin, so we started looking for another ‘C’ name.”

Nick, who frequented Vanessa’s obstetrician’s office with her on Camden Drive [in Beverly Hills], one day suggested, “Hey, what about Camden?”

At this point, he says, “We didn’t really know anyone else named Camden. It was such a neat name. We fell in love with it and decided on it five or six months ago.”

From a 2017 E! Online article about singer Liam Payne:

The One Direction singer-turned-solo artist explained the origin of son Bear Payne’s name during a Total Access radio interview, which he said was decided upon by mom Cheryl Cole.

“It was an internal battle,” Liam reflected. “I wanted a more traditional name and she wanted a name that was more unusual. “The reason she chose Bear was because Bear is a name that when you leave a room, you won’t forget.”

“And I like that,” the U.K. native decided eventually.

From a 2015 interview with actor Dax Shepard [vid] on The Ellen DeGeneres Show:

Ellen: Where does the name Delta come from, was that something you had thought of before?

Dax: So Delta actually — it was a joke, because our first daughter’s name is Lincoln, which is very masculine, so a friend of mine teasingly texted me, “Oh great, what’s this one gonna be, Navy Seal? Delta Force? Green Beret?” And I was reading this text out loud to Kristen, I’m like, “Oh listen to how funny this is, Steve said, what if we named her Delta Force” and I was like…Delta! Delta Bell Shepard, that’s it! And that’s it.

From a 2019 Instagram post by English singer Stacey Solomon, who explained why she named her son Rex Toby Francis:

Rex because our boys think he sounds like a T-Rex. Francis is Joe’s Nanna’s name and Toby is my Nanna’s name.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

Image: Adapted from Zooey Deschanel by Genevieve719 under CC BY 2.0.

[Latest update: Oct. 2023]

Where did the baby name Sheena come from in the 1940s?

sheena, queen of the jungle, comic, 1940s, baby name

If you meet someone in the U.S. named Sheena, chances are she was born in the 1980s. That’s when the usage of baby name Sheena spiked impressively thanks to Scottish singer Sheena Easton, whose first big hit was “9 to 5 (Morning Train)” and whose name was no doubt based on Sìne, the Scottish form of Jeanne.

But the name Sheena has been on the onomastic map (here in the U.S.) a lot longer than that. And I think the initial influence was a comic book character.

“Queen of the Jungle” Sheena, who always wore a skimpy, leopard-print outfit, started appearing in the adventure anthology comic book Jumbo Comics in 1938. She’d been created by artist Will Eisner as a female counterpart to Tarzan, and her name was inspired by H. Rider Haggard’s novel She: A History of Adventure.

By the second half of 1940, Sheena was being featured on the cover of Jumbo Comics regularly. And in the spring of 1942, Sheena became the first female character to star in her own comic book in the spin-off series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. (The first issue of Wonder Woman didn’t appear until later in 1942.)

Around the same time, the baby name Sheena debuted in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1945: 14 baby girls named Sheena
  • 1944: 11 baby girls named Sheena
  • 1943: 9 baby girls named Sheena [debut]
  • 1942: unlisted
  • 1941: unlisted

The next decade, Sheena got her own TV series. Sheena, Queen of the Jungle first aired from 1955 to 1956 and the title character was played by Nellie Elizabeth “Irish” McCalla. The show gave the name a boost in the mid-1950s:

  • 1958: 121 baby girls named Sheena
  • 1957: 163 baby girls named Sheena
  • 1956: 136 baby girls named Sheena
  • 1955: 34 baby girls named Sheena
  • 1954: 20 baby girls named Sheena

The name got another (lesser) boost in the late ’70s with the release of the Ramones song “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” (1977), but it was nothing like the rise that was to come a few years later thanks to Sheena Easton.

What are your thoughts on the name Sheena?

Sources: Sìne – Behind the Name, Eisner and Iger – WillEisner.com, First female character to star in her own comic book | Guinness World Records, SSA
Image from the Digital Comic Museum.

Numerology: Baby names with a value of 2

Baby names with a numerological value of 2

If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 2, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 2-names.

Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “twos” in numerology?

Turning names into numbers

Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.

First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.

For instance, the letters in the name Aurora correspond to the numbers 1, 21, 18, 15, 18, and 1. The sum of these numbers is 74. The digits of 74 added together equal 11, and the digits of 11 added together equal 2 — the numerological value of Aurora.

Baby names with a value of 2

Below you’ll find the most popular 2-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.

2 via 11

The letters in the following baby names add up to 11, which reduces to two (1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 11)Boy names (2 via 11)
Adea, Fe, AiaAj, Ja, Cabe

2 via 20

The letters in the following baby names add up to 20, which reduces to two (2+0=2).

Girl names (2 via 20)Boy names (2 via 20)
Jade, Dana, Jia, Deja, Ara, HibaAbel, Adan, Gage, Kace, Jai, Ean, Chace, Jade, Fahad

2 via 29

The letters in the following baby names add up to 29, which reduces to two (2+9=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 29)Boy names (2 via 29)
Aria, Alana, Diana, Nadia, Dania, Ann, Sia, Adina, Calla, Asha, Aira, Isa, Sade, Kacie, Aine, BeauBeau, Aidan, Dax, Khai, Isa, Lake, Eliab, Alek, Sai, Kael, Eian, Abiel, Aman

2 via 38

The letters in the following baby names add up to 38, which reduces to two (3+8=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 38)Boy names (2 via 38)
Sadie, Alaina, Nina, Paige, Amina, Aisha, Cecelia, Hanna, Amani, Chaya, Noah, Analia, Aliana, Aleena, Halle, Jamie, Belen, Ocean, Kaya, Frida, Malka, Kaleah, Malak, Agatha, Naima, Keila, Kaeli, Rena, Dora, Nava, Elli, AlyNoah, Max, Bodhi, Jared, Jaime, Ocean, Jamie, Mike, Jair, Gadiel, Cayde, Deon, Isai, Craig, Asiah, Amare, Eddy, Oden, Amani, Bohdi, Ames, Glen, Aren, Naeem, Alpha, Ameen, Zach, Lipa, Nabil, Asael, Chaz, Kamal, Kaz

2 via 47

The letters in the following baby names add up to 47, which reduces to two (4+7=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 47)Boy names (2 via 47)
Sarah, Kamila, Hallie, Rachel, Alora, Leona, Blaire, Reina, Adley, Capri, Iyla, Galilea, Jream, Birdie, Kaiya, Leanna, Renee, Ivana, Avani, Dalilah, Leilah, Liz, Jalani, Myah, Aylah, Maple, Althea, Khari, Juana, Raine, Cambria, Liya, Nadine, Ayat, Tegan, Macey, Amor, Belinda, Ines, Isra, Taya, Adaleigh, Jolee, Roma, Anjali, Banks, Malika, Amarie, Havana, Vaani, Klani, Legend, Kendal, Azara, Cambree, Adrian, Sahar, Taleah, Dearra, Enola, VaniaJohn, Isaiah, Adrian, Legend, Malachi, Omar, Cody, Banks, Damon, Callen, Shane, Zeke, Dario, Rex, Trace, Wes, Khari, Khaza, Crue, Darian, Ivaan, Gerald, Gus, Malaki, Aslan, Loki, Deklan, Arman, Canon, Avian, Deion, Viaan, Advik, Aris, Kota, Nigel, Jream, Jahari, Zaki, Amor, Kato, Tegan, Jhon, Conan, Hart, Maleek, Judge, Bauer, Caesar, Jamin, Khalan

2 via 56

The letters in the following baby names add up to 56, which reduces to two (5+6=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 56)Boy names (2 via 56)
Ivy, Charlie, Norah, Aliyah, Selena, Elianna, Maisie, Armani, Lyra, Emmy, April, Dylan, Noemi, Marina, Arlet, Azaria, Khalani, Aubrie, Sariah, Nori, Sarahi, Kahlani, Haylee, Marian, Ayanna, Jovi, Cassie, Kenya, Denise, Zella, Blayke, Karlie, Noelia, Namari, Isis, Marwa, Alanis, Graciela, Camellia, Moira, Emoni, Kinlee, Arabelle, Hellen, Ananya, Ryla, Miyah, Ruhi, Amorah, Jailani, Kelis, Teigan, Klaire, Romee, Kyara, AnsleeLucas, Dylan, Nolan, Charlie, Felix, Oscar, Mario, Armani, Omari, Pierce, Zayd, Rohan, Yadiel, Jasiel, Will, Jacoby, Kilian, Malikai, Emmet, Davon, Xavi, Jovi, Wolf, Orin, Jordi, Kaito, Jaycob, Lathan, Orhan, Tahir, Damion, Damoni, Jahsiah, Hardy, Namari, Nyle, Ahron, Kayne, Musab, Abubakr, Dutch, Kayleb, Rion, Alexei, Kailer, Ammon, Walt, Arnav

2 via 65

The letters in the following baby names add up to 65, which reduces to two (6+5=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 65)Boy names (2 via 65)
Eloise, Rylee, Isabelle, Palmer, Alondra, Carter, Freyja, Vienna, Bridget, Kelly, Zayla, Chandler, Lenora, Desiree, Marcella, Salome, Lorena, Emberlee, Heather, Carmella, Brinlee, Elissa, Damaris, Aracely, Ashly, Daylin, Alessi, Avalon, Rihanna, Shyla, Addelyn, Calista, Jahzara, Mildred, Dailyn, Raeleigh, Elanor, Avaleigh, Ayzal, Aiyanna, Annabeth, Kenzi, Doris, Jaclyn, Seven, Haylen, Mindy, Devora, Kathy, Saraya, Alyza, Mayeli, Sanvi, Adilyn, Astraea, Larkin, Emorie, Jozie, Kirby, AinsleeCarter, Andrew, Javier, Prince, Collin, Uriel, Shawn, Conor, Chandler, Mylo, Dennis, Eliseo, Loyal, Seven, Lochlan, Reuben, Fisher, Ermias, Henrik, Stefan, Brett, Davion, Palmer, Benito, Kolby, Krish, Gannon, Tariq, Kelly, Rylee, Cosmo, Paulo, Radley, Mylan, Advaith, Dinero, Federico, Korben, Kaeson, Shlok, Daylin, Rivaan, Subhan, Demario, Hayze, Parks, Joniel, Jahsir, Dansby, Deondre, Rainer, Kirby, Ziyad

2 via 74

The letters in the following baby names add up to 74, which reduces to two (7+4=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 74)Boy names (2 via 74)
Aurora, Madelyn, Audrey, Melody, Margot, Zuri, Lennon, Marley, Lucille, London, Daleyza, Camryn, Estella, Winnie, Zaylee, Penny, Paulina, Novalee, Giuliana, Lilyana, Laylani, Raquel, Landry, Elowen, Susan, Antonia, Robyn, Sailor, Lucero, Aryanna, Zamora, Sonya, Maylin, Natalya, Katrina, Acelynn, Maizy, Josey, Zalayah, Emelyn, SahilyJoshua, Easton, Myles, Jesus, Matteo, Messiah, Muhammad, Desmond, Axton, Lennon, Ryland, Tony, Larry, Byron, Cartier, London, Ramiro, Landry, Marley, Wiley, Rylen, Ziggy, Juelz, Agastya, Yakov, Fredrick, Deshawn, Wylie, Kysen, Camryn, Isidro, Gavriel, Nehemias, Mavrik, Jaxyn, Finnigan, Conley, Cross, Orrin, Lucifer, Korey, Demetri, Grayden, Oswald, Vikram, Willem, Jaysen, Sailor, Remmy, Yadriel, Ayush, Dhruva, Elwood

2 via 83

The letters in the following baby names add up to 83, which reduces to two (8+3=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 83)Boy names (2 via 83)
Evelyn, Violet, Margaret, Catherine, Valery, Emmalyn, Giovanna, Addilynn, Memphis, Yuliana, Bentley, Kinsey, Jehilyn, Sury, Harmonie, Berkeley, Klover, Averly, WisdomJonathan, Jaxson, Bentley, Memphis, Alonzo, Shepherd, Forest, Judson, Coleson, Thatcher, Branson, Foster, Mattias, Markus, Milton, Zaylen, Brysen, Stephan, Roderick, Jetson, Stellan, Riggins, Kyron, Wisdom, Hershy

2 via 92

The letters in the following baby names add up to 92, which reduces to two (9+2=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 92)Boy names (2 via 92)
Oaklynn, Sydney, Sylvie, Madilynn, Kaitlyn, Mckinley, Estrella, Marilyn, Sapphire, Everley, Heavenly, Rilynn, Vivianna, Lorraine, Journei, Journie, Rosalind, Kollins, Litzy, Rooney, Harlynn, Porter, Collette, Charlette, Aniston, OzzyJulius, Santino, Porter, Yusuf, Ozzy, Wilson, Salvador, Watson, Zakariya, Khyson, Tyrell, Avrohom, Morris, Lisandro, Jennings, Jarrett, Hamilton, Tyrese, Calloway, Leviathan, Juanpablo, Mckinley, Marvens, Tyron

2 via 101

The letters in the following baby names add up to 101, which reduces to two (1+0+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 101)Boy names (2 via 101)
Josephine, Murphy, Christina, Brynley, Wrenleigh, Kristina, Sherlyn, Jaylynn, Everlyn, Lynette, AllissonChristian, Tristan, Forrest, Murphy, Kristian, Garrison, Brentley, Jovanny, Binyomin, Rustin, Marquez

2 via 110

The letters in the following baby names add up to 110, which reduces to two (1+1+0=2).

Girl names (2 via 110)Boy names (2 via 110)
Loyalty, Stormy, Sullivan, Amaryllis, SparrowTimothy, Sullivan, Quinton, Youssef, Justus, Tristian, Alexzander, Octavius, Tyshawn, Joseluis

2 via 119

The letters in the following baby names add up to 119, which reduces to two (1+1+9=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 119)Boy names (2 via 119)
Gwendolyn, Josselyn, Suttyn, Lovelynn, CarringtonKingstyn, Treyvon, Aristotle, Theodoros, Carrington

2 via 128

The letters in the following baby names add up to 128, which reduces to two (1+2+8=11; 1+1=2).

Girl names (2 via 128)Boy names (2 via 128)
Kensington, Scottlyn, Jazzlynn, Yuritzi, CourtlynVittorio, Remmington, Huckleberry, Quintrell, Florentino

Number 2: Significance and associations

What does the number two mean in numerology?

There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number two. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 2 being described as “diplomatic,” “cooperative,” “peaceful,” “gentle,” and “understanding.”

We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 2:

  • Hands
  • Feet
  • Eyes
  • Ears
  • Lungs
  • Chopsticks
  • Knitting needles
  • Complementary pairings (e.g., pen and paper, bow and arrow, peanut butter and jelly)
  • Dualities (e.g., day and night, yin and yang, war and peace)
  • Boxing (2 competitors; 2 fists)
  • Partner dancing
  • DNA double helix

What does the number 2 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?

P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.

Sources: SSA, Numerology – Cafe Astrology, The meaning of the numbers 1 – 9 – World Numerology, 2 – Wikipedia

[Latest update: Jan. 2024]