Where did the baby name Jodeci come from in 1991?

The album "Diary of a Mad Band" (1993) by Jodeci
Jodeci album

We’ve talked about babies named after Bon Jovi, Danity Kane, Roxette, and even Starship. So today let’s look at Jodeci.

In 1990, the four-man R&B group Jodeci was formed by Joel “JoJo” Hailey, Donald “DeVante Swing” DeGrate, Dalvin “Mr. Dalvin” DeGrate, and Cedric “K-Ci” Hailey. The name of the band was pieced together from the jo of JoJo, the de of DeGrate, and the ci of K-Ci.

Jodeci’s first album, the successful Forever My Lady, was released in 1991. Sure enough, that’s the year we start seeing babies named Jodeci:

  • 1996: 29 girls, 13 boys named Jodeci
  • 1995: 32 girls, 15 boys named Jodeci
  • 1994: 19 girls, 23 boys named Jodeci
  • 1993: 33 girls, 29 boys named Jodeci
  • 1992: 77 girls, 94 boys named Jodeci
  • 1991: 13 girls, 12 boys named Jodeci [debut]
  • 1990: unlisted
  • 1989: unlisted

We also see a steep rise in the usage of DeVante, which was the fastest-rising boy name of 1991:

  • 1994: 852 baby boys named Devante [rank: 309th]
  • 1993: 961 baby boys named Devante [rank: 289th]
  • 1992: 1565 baby boys named Devante [rank: 199th] (peak)
  • 1991: 131 baby boys named Devante [rank: 923rd]
  • 1990: 9 baby boys named Devante

(And the sudden trendiness of DeVante gave big boosts to variant forms like Davante, Dvonte, Devonta, Devonte, Davonte, Davonta, Devontae, Davontae, Devontay, Dvontae, Devaunte, etc.

And in 1992, Dalvin became the second-fastest-rising boy name:

  • 1994: 143 baby boys named Dalvin [rank: 912th]
  • 1993: 179 baby boys named Dalvin [rank: 789th] (peak)
  • 1992: 132 baby boys named Dalvin [rank: 923rd]
  • 1991: 6 baby boys named Dalvin
  • 1990: 13 baby boys named Dalvin

Jodeci put out a second album in 1993, a third in 1995, then went on hiatus in 1996. After they stopped releasing new material, usage of the name declined.

A related name that was used around this time was K-Ci:

  • 2001: unlisted
  • 2000: 6 boys named K-Ci
  • 1999: 6 boys named K-Ci
  • 1998: 5 boys named K-Ci
  • 1997: unlisted
  • 1996: unlisted
  • 1995: 7 boys named K-Ci [debut]
  • 1994: unlisted

This one was helped along by the band K-Ci & JoJo, formed by two Jodeci members around 1996.

The names Jodeci and K-Ci may be down, but don’t count them out. In about a month, a reality TV show starring K-Ci and JoJo will premiere on TVOne. Also, there’s a talented high school football player out there named Jodeci Mays. (He scored seven touchdowns a couple of weeks ago.) Visibility often leads to usage, so the TV show and/or the athlete could help revive the names, you never know…

Baby name story: Guus

In mid-2008, a Siberian couple named their baby boy after Guus Hiddink, the Dutch manager of the Russian national soccer team.

The child’s parents said they had decided to give their child the name ‘Guus’ to commemorate the recent success of the side. The name is as unusual to Russian ears as the sound of the team’s fans celebrating a number of recent notable victories.

Hiddink helped Russia reach the semifinals of Euro 2008 — Russia’s best performance since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, he has since left Russia and now manages Turkey’s national team.

Source: Siberian baby named in honor of Guus Hiddink

Taiwanese baby names vs. Chinese baby names

According to an article I spotted a few days ago in a Singaporean newspaper, Taiwanese baby names are more traditionally Chinese than Chinese baby names are, thanks to the Cultural Revolution. Here’s an excerpt:

In Taiwan, housing agents I met had words like meng or lun in their names, linking them to Mencius and Confucius. (Meng for Meng Zi or Mencius; Lun, as in lun li, or ethics, often used to refer to Confucian ethics).

In China, there is no sign of the sages in names so far. Rather, a guest on a TV show is named Zhou Mo, which means “weekend”. “My mum said a name only had to be easy to remember,” she explained.

Instant recall is not a quality that Taiwanese parents would normally look for in choosing baby names. By far more important is the hope that their children would grow up under the positive influence of the ancient philosophers they are named after.

In many ways, the Taiwanese are more “Chinese” than their compatriots on the mainland, where age-old traditions went up in flames in the bonfire of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Much was lost as young Red Guards set fire to books, including the classics, and smashed altars in the chaos of those years.

In contrast, Taiwan under the Kuomintang (KMT) went the other way, stressing the learning of the classics to show that the island represented the true China.

For anyone who’s lived in Taiwan and/or China: What names did you encounter there? Did they follow this pattern?

Source: Ho Ai Li. “Taipei a woman, Beijing a man.” Straits Times [Singapore] 12 Sept. 2010.

Baby name story: Harrison

Fish & chip shop

Emma and James Kennedy of West Bromwich, England, welcomed a baby boy about six weeks ago. They’d “been toying with a couple of names including Fraser and Harrison,” said Emma, but didn’t have a name chosen on the day she went into labor.

So it was fortuitous that her contractions began inside a Harry Ramsden’s fish and chip restaurant. They took that as a sign and named their son Harrison, nickname Harry.

This is the second fish and chip baby I’ve come across. The first one, Taylor, was named for Taylor’s Fish and Chip Shop in Stockport — just 90 miles south of of the Harry Ramsden’s in Brierley Hill.

Source: “Baby’s name inspired after Harry Ramsden’s drama.” Express & Star 17 Sept. 2010.

Image: Adapted from Mobile Fish and Chips by Stefan Schäfer under CC BY-SA 3.0.