Where did the baby name Unseld come from in 1971?

Basketball players Wes Unseld and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wes Unseld & Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The unusual baby name Unseld was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data in 1971:

  • 1973: unlisted
  • 1972: unlisted
  • 1971: 5 baby boys named Unseld [debut]
  • 1970: unlisted
  • 1969: unlisted

Why?

If you remember the image above — which was also in the post about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the other day — then you already know the answer: professional basketball player Westley “Wes” Unseld.

Unseld played in the NBA from 1968 to 1981, always for the same team: the Baltimore Bullets, which in 1973 became the the Capital Bullets, which in 1974 became the Washington Bullets. (Today they’re the Washington Wizards.)

Though Wes Unseld was clearly the influence behind the name, it’s hard to connect the appearance of “Unseld” in the data with a specific moment in his career. Wes was an All-Star in 1971, but that wasn’t the first time he was an All-Star. Likewise, 1971 was a couple of years after he won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award.

The surname Unseld can be traced back to the Middle High German word unsælde, which meant “misfortune.” It was a nickname for a sad or unlucky person.

Sources:

  • Wes Unseld – Wikipedia
  • Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Popular and unique baby names in Sonoma County (California), 2020

Flag of California
Flag of California

According to the government of Sonoma, California, the most popular baby names in the county last year were Isabella and Liam.

Here are Sonoma’s top 5 girl names and top 5 boy names of 2020:

Girl Names

  1. Isabella, 29 baby girls
  2. Evelyn/Camila/Sofia, 22 each (3-way tie)
  3. Olivia/Charlotte, 21 each (tie)
  4. Gianna, 20
  5. Sophia, 19

Boy Names

  1. Liam, 27 baby boys
  2. Mateo, 22
  3. Gael/Sebastian, 21 each (tie)
  4. Logan/Lucas/Mason/Santiago, 19 each (4-way tie)
  5. Luca, 18

And what about the names bestowed just once in Sonoma in 2020? Here are some of the unique baby names from the other end of the list:

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Ariathna, Avenue, Blix, Clementine, Daphna, Dianara, Elencia, Florence, Galexia, Ginger, Helena, Itzalia, Ixzeliana, Jadaline, Kitiara, Lindiso, Metzli, Nebiat, Ocelia, Peri, Rumneya, Sisiana, Taytu, Uriela, Wrenley, Yolotzin, ZeruiahAscari, Athanasius, Banyan, Bniel, Conrad, Drako, Epeli, Figaro, Gustavo, Hobbs, Inzo, Izandro, Jersain, Kekoa, Kitai, Llyr, Mobius, Narodom, Ostreicher, Phaelan, Raziel, Solemn, Taumaloto, Ullr, Wylen, Yojan, Zadkiel

In 2019, the top names in Sonoma were Camila and Mateo.

Source: Sonoma County Baby Names

Image: Adapted from Flag of California (public domain)

How did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar influence baby names?

Basketball players Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wes Unseld
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Wes Unseld

Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played with the Milwaukee Bucks from 1969 to 1974 and with the Los Angeles Lakers from 1975 to 1989. And, like player Hakeem Olajuwon, he underwent a name change during his career.

Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis “Lew” Alcindor, Jr., in New York City in 1947. Twenty years later he was a standout player on the UCLA varsity basketball team (1967-1969). During this time period, the name Alcindor started appearing in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1970: 9 baby boys named Alcindor
  • 1969: 7 baby boys named Alcindor
  • 1968: 7 baby boys named Alcindor [debut]
  • 1967: unlisted
  • 1966: unlisted

It stuck around for four consecutive years, and might have stuck around even longer had Lew not changed his name upon converting to Islam in 1971.

In an essay about his conversion, he mentioned that “Alcindor was a French planter in the West Indies who owned my ancestors. […] Keeping the name of my family’s slave master seemed somehow to dishonor them.” So he “became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (meaning “the noble one, servant of the Almighty”).”

His name change had an immediate effect upon U.S. boy names:

KareemAbdulJabbarKareen
1974324812748
1973243852930
19723789877*36**
19714449..
19701243..
*Debut (overall), **Gender-specific debut

In 1972, the usage of all three names — Kareem, Abdul, and Jabbar — increased. In fact, Jabbar was the top debut name of the year in 1972. The name Jabarr also popped up that year. Jabar, the best-guess phonetic version, arrived a year early.

Kareen, which had been charting a girl name, debuted impressively as boy name in ’72. And, in a nice show of symmetry, boy name Kareem debuted as a girl name the same year.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played in the NBA for twenty years, but it wasn’t until decades later, in the 2010s, that the tribute name Abduljabbar finally emerged in the data.

Source: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – Wikipedia

P.S. Ahmad Rashad, father of Condola, is another public figure who adopted an Muslim name in the early ’70s.

Babies named for the Eiffel Tower

Photo of the Eiffel Tower during the Paris Exposition (1889).
The Eiffel Tower in 1889

The Eiffel Tower was created by civil engineer Gustave Eiffel for the Paris Exposition of 1889, which marked the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. It took more than two years to construct and was the tallest man-made structure in the world until 1930.

The name Eiffel has never been common enough in the U.S. to appear in the SSA’s baby name data, but I’ve found U.S. babies named Eiffel born as early as 1887 (the year that construction began*) by searching through vital records and the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).

Here are the best-documented, U.S.-born Eiffels I came across from the last years of the 1880s and the first years of the 1890s. Two-thirds of them are female.

  • Eiffel Mae Checketts (née Napper), born in Utah in September of 1887
  • Mamie Eiffel Field (née Burk), born in California in October of 1887
  • Eiffel May Orcutt (née Stevenson), born in Missouri in June of 1888
  • Bayard Eiffel Mccanon, born in Iowa in March of 1889
  • Eiffel Dahl (née Plasket), born in Maryland in July of 1889
  • Eiffeline Blount (née Van Winkle) born in Iowa in July of 1889
  • Eiffel E. Larimer, born in July of 1889 in Kansas
  • Mary Eiffel Bessonett (née Kellogg), born in California in August of 1889
  • Tessie Eiffel Plummer (née Cahail), born in Iowa in August of 1889
  • Marcel Eiffel Taller, born in New York in September of 1889
  • Eiffel A. Perras, born in New York in September of 1889
  • Eiffel L. Hansen (née Klock), born in Illinois in Jan of 1890
  • Eiffel Warren, born in Tennessee in January of 1890
  • Eiffel Richison, born in Indiana in February of 1890
  • Eiffel B. Gale, born in New York in May of 1890
  • Eiffel Gochoel (née Palmer), born in Ohio in June of 1890
  • Mon Eiffel Anderson, born in Arkansas in June of 1891
  • Eiffel Eliza Raudio (née Henderson), born in California in August of 1891
  • Eiffel Beck (née Creer), born in Utah in February of 1892
  • Eiffel Crary (née Moats), born in Wisconsin in February of 1892
  • Eiffel Dantin (née Marionneaux), born in Louisiana in March of 1892
  • Eiffel T. Mateer, born in Virginia in April of 1892
  • Eiffel B. Hitchcock, born in Ohio in July of 1892
  • Eiffel Alfred Holm, born in Minnesota in October of 1892
  • Eiffel Tower Sutherland (née Collins), born in Indiana in January of 1894
    • In 1952, she was mentioned in a single-sentence news item: “Danville, Ind. — When Betty Jean Weesney, home from a recent European trip, brought back a souvenir replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it was the logical gift for just one friend — Eiffel Tower Sutherland.”

By the way, did you know that Gustave Eiffel’s surname at birth was actually Bönickhausen?

In the early 1700s, Gustave’s ancestor Jean-Rene Bönickhausen relocated from a town in the mountainous Eifel region of Germany to the capital of France and began going by Eiffel (perhaps because it was easier to pronounce than Bönickhausen). So the official surname of this branch of the family tree became “Bönickhausen, dit Eiffel.” Gustave didn’t legally shorten it to Eiffel until 1879.

The word “Eifel” can be traced back to the Early Middle Ages, but the etymology is unknown.

What are your thoughts on Eiffel as a first name? Would you use it?

*The Eiffel Tower was being mentioned in the newspapers was early as mid-1886, but the name wasn’t set yet; it was being called things like “the Great Tower,” “the Tower of Paris,” and “the Eiffel Tall Tower.”

Sources:

Image: Eiffel Tower, with Fountain Coutan to left, looking toward Trocadéro Palace, Paris Exposition, 1889 – LOC