Where did the baby name Mauri come from in the late 1940s?

Race car driver Mauri Rose
Mauri Rose

The name Mauri first appeared in the U.S. baby name data — for both genders — in the late 1940s:

  • 1949: 5 baby boys named Mauri
  • 1948: 5 baby boys named Mauri & 7 baby girls named Mauri [debut]
  • 1947: 6 baby boys named Mauri [debut]
  • 1946: unlisted
  • 1945: unlisted

Now, the unisex name Maurie was already in the data by this point, so Mauri could simply have been a variant of Maurie.

That said, the specific spelling “Mauri” may have debuted in 1947 (and 1948) thanks to race car driver Maurice “Mauri” Rose, who won the Indianapolis 500 automobile race back-to-back in 1947 and 1948. (He was also a winner in 1941, but that time he co-won with another driver, Floyd Davis.)

What are your thoughts here? How much influence do you think a race car driver might have had on U.S. baby names in the ’40s?

Sources: List of Indianapolis 500 winners – Wikipedia, SSA

Top male names in Early Medieval Ireland

Cliffs of Moher, Ireland
Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

Which names were the most popular among males in early medieval Ireland?

To find out, researcher Heather Rose Jones compiled a list of the most-used male names in the book Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae, “a collection of Irish genealogical material from the pre-Norman period (i.e., roughly pre-12th century).”

The 10 most-used names were…

  1. Áed, 248 instances
  2. Óengus/Áengus, 191
  3. Ailill, 145
  4. Fergus, 140
  5. Eochaid, 130
  6. Lugaid, 129
  7. Domnall, 120
  8. Cairpre, 109
  9. Conall, 108
  10. Cormac, 105

It’s pretty interesting that Áed came out on top, as Áed is the ultimate root of the Aidan-names (e.g. Ayden, Aedan, Adyn) that became so trendy during the first decade of the 2000s.

Other names in Ireland’s medieval top 100 include Crimthann, Crundmáel, Indrechtach, and Imchad. Click the link below to see the rest.

Source: 100 Most Popular Men’s Names in Early Medieval Ireland by Heather Rose Jones

Image: Adapted from Cliffs of Moher 3 by Carogonmu under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Where did the baby name Kirsten come from in 1937?

Opera singer Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962).
Kirsten Flagstad

The name Kirsten first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1937:

  • 1939: 16 baby girls named Kirsten
  • 1938: 14 baby girls named Kirsten
  • 1937: 10 baby girls named Kirsten
  • 1936: unlisted
  • 1935: unlisted

The reason?

Norwegian opera singer Kirsten (pronounced keer-sten) Flagstad, who became famous in America in the mid-1930s, particularly for playing Wagnerian roles (like Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre). People would have been able to hear her on 1930s radio shows like Kraft Music Hall (NBC) with Bing Crosby and The Ford Sunday Evening Hour (CBS).

Her first name is the Norwegian form of Christina. (She also had an interesting middle name, Malfrid, which is made up of Old Norse elements meaning “ore” and “beautiful.”)

Do you like the name Kirsten?

Sources: Kirsten Flagstad – Wikipedia, Malfrid – Nordic Names Wiki

Popular baby names in Manitoba (Canada), 2020

According to Manitoba’s Vital Statistics Agency, the most popular baby names in the province last year were Olivia and Liam.

Oddly, Manitoba didn’t publish two gender-specific sets of rankings for 2020. Instead, the province’s annual report featured a single set of rankings that combined both genders.

So here are Manitoba’s top 10 baby names overall for 2020:

  1. Liam
  2. Olivia
  3. Oliver
  4. Noah
  5. Levi
  6. James
  7. Lucas
  8. Sophia
  9. Amelia
  10. Emily, Theodore (tied)

From this, we can deduce that…

  • The top four girl names were Olivia, Sophia, Amelia and Emily.
  • The top seven boy names were Liam, Oliver, Noah, Levi, James, Lucas, and Theodore.

We don’t have enough information to compare these rankings to the 2019 rankings, but we do know that the top two names stayed the same, and that Oliver jumped from 8th place to 2nd place.

Sources: Annual Report | Manitoba Vital Statistics Branch | Province of Manitoba, Annual Report 2020-2021 (pdf)