How popular is the baby name Christopher 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 Christopher.
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The similar names Chrisangel and Crisangel also popped up in the early 2000s.
Where did these names come from?
Magician and illusionist Criss Angel, whose reality series Criss Angel Mindfreak aired on A&E from 2005 to 2010. The show, focused on street magic and stunts, had episodes with titles like “Shark Cage Escape,” “Mass Levitation,” “SUV Nail Bed,” and “Burning Man.”
Criss Angel was born in New York in 1967 as Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos. (He’s of Greek descent.) These days he primarily performs live shows in Las Vegas.
He also has three children with his wife, Shaunyl. Their names are:
Johnny Crisstopher, b. 2014
Xristos Yanni, b. 2019
Illusia Angelina, b. 2021
His sons’ names echo one another in that “Johnny” and “Yanni” are diminutives of John and Yiannis (a Greek equivalent of John), and “Crisstopher” and “Xristos” are both based on the ancient Greek word khristos (“anointed one”).
His daughter’s first name, Illusia, is clearly a reference to dad’s line of work.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Crissangel?
A few days ago, I stumbled upon a set of baby name data for Austin, Texas, for the year 2017. While it isn’t current, it does seem to be complete — so it includes hundreds of rare and single-use names (which are always fascinating!).
The data accounts for nearly 19,900 births (9,733 girls and 10,163 boys), and features nearly 6,100 names (3,431 given to girls, 2,656 given to boys).
According to this data, which comes from the City of Austin’s Open Data Portal, the top baby names in the capital of Texas five years ago were Emma and James.
Here are Austin’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2017:
Girl Names
Emma, 98 baby girls
Isabella, 88
Olivia, 84
Mia, 81
Evelyn, 77
Sophia, 75
Ava, 73
Abigail, 59 (tie)
Charlotte, 59 (tie)
Emily, 58
Camila, 56 (tie)
Elizabeth, 56 (tie)
Harper, 53
Amelia, 52
Penelope, 51 (tie)
Sofia, 51 (tie)
Scarlett, 46
Ella, 45
Avery, 43 (tie)
Zoe, 43 (tie)
Lillian, 41
Layla, 40 (tie)
Madison, 40 (tie)
Eleanor, 39
Victoria, 38
Allison, 37
Claire, 36 (3-way tie)
Elena, 36 (3-way tie)
Luna, 36 (3-way tie)
Aria, 35 (tie)
Chloe, 35 (tie)
Ellie, 34 (tie)
Katherine, 34 (tie)
Samantha, 33
Hannah, 30 (4-way tie)
Hazel, 30 (4-way tie)
Mila, 30 (4-way tie)
Stella, 30 (4-way tie)
Leah, 29
Cora, 28 (5-way tie)
Genesis, 28 (5-way tie)
Grace, 28 (5-way tie)
Natalie, 28 (5-way tie)
Ximena, 28 (5-way tie)
Clara, 27 (3-way tie)
Eliana, 27 (3-way tie)
Ruby, 27 (3-way tie)
Audrey, 26 (tie)
Sarah, 26 (tie)
Alexa, 25 (3-way tie)
Everly, 25 (3-way tie)
Lily, 25 (3-way tie)
Boy Names
James, 104 baby boys
Noah, 85
Daniel, 83
Benjamin, 82
William, 80
Oliver, 75
Liam, 74
Alexander, 73
Sebastian, 70
Henry, 67
Elijah, 66 (tie)
Mateo, 66 (tie)
Ethan, 65
Jackson, 63
Anthony, 61
Jacob, 60
Aiden, 59 (tie)
Luke, 59 (tie)
David, 58 (tie)
Samuel, 58 (tie)
John, 56
Isaac, 55 (tie)
Julian, 55 (tie)
Michael, 54
Charles, 53 (3-way tie)
Jack, 53 (3-way tie)
Matthew, 53 (3-way tie)
Jose, 52 (tie)
Joshua, 52 (tie)
Wyatt, 50
Aaron, 49 (4-way tie)
Grayson, 49 (4-way tie)
Joseph, 49 (4-way tie)
Levi, 49 (4-way tie)
Dylan, 48
Hudson, 47
Josiah, 46 (3-way tie)
Logan, 46 (3-way tie)
Santiago, 46 (3-way tie)
Jayden, 45
Nathan, 44
Christopher, 43 (tie)
Thomas, 43 (tie)
Andrew, 42 (4-way tie)
Gabriel, 42 (4-way tie)
Luis, 42 (4-way tie)
Owen, 42 (4-way tie)
Lucas, 41
Adrian, 40 (3-way tie)
Axel, 40 (3-way tie)
Christian, 40 (3-way tie)
On the girls’ list, Allison caught my eye. It ranked 26th in Austin in 2017, but 61st nationally the same year. Interesting.
Farther down on the boys’ list was Austin itself, in 95th place — vs. 75th nationally — with 21 baby boys. Much farther down was Texas, with 2 baby boys.
And now it’s time for the unique names!
One-of-a-kind names were given to 24% of the baby girls and 17% of the baby boys born in Austin in 2017. Here’s a sampling of the names that were bestowed just once:
Some possible explanations/associations for a few of the above:
Cadeau is the French word for “present, gift.”
Ceiba is a type of tree.
Tsumugi Shirogane is a character from the 2017 video game Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
Ynafets is “Stefany” spelled backwards.
Bruges is the capital of West Flanders (a province of Belgium).
Mistral is a strong late-winter wind in southern France.
The Rigveda is a sacred Hindu text.
I’ve never posted rankings for Austin before, but I have posted rankings recently for two nearby Texas cities: Houston (which is more than twice the size of Austin, population-wise) and College Station (which is about an eighth of the size of Austin).
The unlikely name Notorious debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1995, dropped off in 1996, then returned in 1997:
1998: unlisted
1997: 9 baby boys named Notorious
1996: unlisted
1995: 9 baby boys named Notorious [debut]
1994: unlisted
1993: unlisted
Notorious has re-appeared in the data several times since, but, so far, 9 babies in a single year represents peak usage.
So, what turned this vocabulary word — a synonym of “infamous” — into a personal name?
New York City rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls), born Christopher Wallace in 1972.
His 1994 debut album, Ready to Die, featured the singles “One More Chance” (which peaked at #2 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart), “Big Poppa” (#6), and “Juicy” (#27).
“Big Poppa” was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance of 1995. Here’s the music video:
In March of 1997 — two weeks before the release of his second album, Life After Death — Biggie was murdered in a drive-by shooting while visiting Los Angeles.
[M]any rap fans suspect the shooting is connected to the East Coast-West Coast feud that has become prevalent in the hip-hop community over the last several years. Smalls and the label he’s on, Bad Boy Entertainment, had been in a fierce rivalry with Tupac Shakur and the Los Angeles-based gangsta rap label Death Row Records, and Shakur had accused Smalls of involvement in a 1994 robbery in which Shakur was shot.
Shakur had been murdered less than a year earlier (also in a drive-by shooting).
Biggie’s second album included the singles “Hypnotize” (which peaked at #1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart), “Mo Money Mo Problems” (#1), and “Sky’s the Limit” (#26).
What are your thoughts on the name Notorious?
P.S. The word may have a negative connotation nowadays, but the original meaning of notorious was simply “publicly known and spoken of” (via the Medieval Latin word notorius, meaning “well-known”).
Looking for baby names that feature the appealing letter-pair PH?
I’ve collected hundreds of options for you in this post!
Before we get to the names, though, let’s get one big question out of the way…
Why does PH sound like “F”?
In English, PH is a digraph, which means that it’s a pair of letters that make a single sound. (It’s interesting that the word “digraph” contains a digraph, isn’t it?)
Most of the English words that have PH were derived from Greek — specifically, from Greek words that included the Greek letter phi:
Phi (uppercase)
In ancient times, the Greek letter phi made an aspirated p-sound. (The unaspirated p-sound, on the other hand, was made by the Greek letter pi.)
When Greek was transliterated into Latin, the letter phi was written as “ph” to denote this aspiration — that is, to signal that the letter “p” was accompanied by a brief puff of air.
So, what happened?
In the first several centuries A.D., the pronunciation of the Greek letter phi changed. It slowly evolved from an aspirated p-sound into an f-sound.
As a result, the letter-pair “ph” underwent a corresponding (though somewhat illogical) pronunciation change. It, too, came to represent an f-sound — and still does to this day.
Now, on to the names!
Names with PH
Below you’ll find a long list of names that contain the letter-pair PH. Many of these names come directly from the U.S. SSA’s baby name data. Others are ancient names that aren’t used much (if at all) in modern times.
Aleph
Alpha
Alphaeus
Alpharetta
Alphie
Alphonsa
Alphonse
Alphonsine
Alphonso
Alphonsus
Amphion
Amphirho
Amphithea
Aphaea
Aphra
Seventeenth-century writer Aphra Behn was one of the first English women to earn her living by writing.
Image: Adapted from Fasan3 by Ragnhild & Neil Crawford under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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