How popular is the baby name Samuel 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 Samuel.

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Popularity of the baby name Samuel


Posts that mention the name Samuel

Popular baby names in Arizona, 2024

Flag of Arizona
Flag of Arizona

The state of Arizona will likely welcome more than 77,000 babies in 2024.

What will the top baby names of the year be? Olivia and Liam, according to provisional data released in late December, 2024, by the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Here are Arizona’s projected top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2024:

Girl names

  1. Olivia
  2. Emma
  3. Isabella
  4. Sophia
  5. Amelia
  6. Mia
  7. Camila
  8. Charlotte
  9. Sofia
  10. Luna
  11. Evelyn
  12. Aurora
  13. Aria
  14. Violet
  15. Ava
  16. Gianna
  17. Penelope
  18. Eliana
  19. Elena
  20. Ellie
  21. Valentina
  22. Hazel
  23. Layla
  24. Mila
  25. Lily
  26. Emily
  27. Harper
  28. Ivy
  29. Scarlett
  30. Chloe
  31. Emilia
  32. Leilani
  33. Delilah
  34. Eleanor
  35. Elizabeth
  36. Victoria
  37. Nora
  38. Avery
  39. Maria
  40. Abigail
  41. Nova
  42. Ella
  43. Madison
  44. Liliana
  45. Grace
  46. Daisy
  47. Natalia
  48. Genesis
  49. Athena
  50. Maya

Boy names

  1. Liam
  2. Noah
  3. Mateo
  4. Sebastian
  5. Oliver
  6. Elijah
  7. Alexander
  8. Benjamin
  9. Daniel
  10. Julian
  11. Santiago
  12. Michael
  13. James
  14. Ethan
  15. Aiden
  16. David
  17. Angel
  18. Logan
  19. Mason
  20. Jacob
  21. Ezra
  22. Gabriel
  23. William
  24. Adrian
  25. Isaac
  26. Levi
  27. Anthony
  28. Lucas
  29. Joseph
  30. Ezekiel
  31. Wyatt
  32. Elias
  33. Luke
  34. Samuel
  35. Jose
  36. Henry
  37. Isaiah
  38. Jackson
  39. Matthew
  40. Jayden
  41. Jesus
  42. Luis
  43. Jack
  44. Theodore
  45. Dylan
  46. Carter
  47. Owen
  48. Andrew
  49. Lincoln
  50. Grayson

In the girls’ top 10, Sofia replaced Evelyn.

In the boys’ top 10, Alexander, Daniel, and Julian replaced Santiago, Ezra, and Levi.

And Juniper, which was the #1 girl name in Arizona’s Coconino County in 2022, only managed to rank 90th state-wide in 2024.

If you’d like to see Arizona’s projected rankings for 2023, you can find them in this post.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Arizona (public domain)

Popular baby names in Italy, 2023

Flag of Italy
Flag of Italy

In 2023, the Southern European country of Italy welcomed 379,890 babies — 184,514 girls and 195,376 boys.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Sofia and Leonardo, yet again.

Here are Italy’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2023:

Girl names

  1. Sofia, 4,971 baby girls
  2. Aurora, 4,648
  3. Ginevra, 4,274
  4. Vittoria, 4,194
  5. Giulia, 3,732
  6. Beatrice, 3,425 – pronounced beh-a-TREE-cheh
  7. Ludovica, 3,157
  8. Alice, 3,014 – pronounced a-LEE-cheh
  9. Emma, 2,529
  10. Matilde, 2,465
  11. Anna, 2,128
  12. Camilla, 2,091
  13. Bianca, 1,992
  14. Azzurra, 1,922
  15. Chiara, 1,914 – pronounced KYAH-rah
  16. Nicole, 1,792
  17. Giorgia, 1,780
  18. Isabel, 1,667
  19. Greta, 1,635
  20. Noemi, 1,439
  21. Martina, 1,392
  22. Arianna, 1,389
  23. Gaia, 1,370
  24. Sara, 1,368
  25. Rebecca, 1,328
  26. Viola, 1,325
  27. Elena, 1,270
  28. Ambra, 1,257
  29. Chloe, 1,196 (tie)
  30. Diana, 1,196 (tie)
  31. Adele, 1,194
  32. Mia, 1,192
  33. Margherita, 1,095
  34. Sole, 1,088 – pronounced SOH-leh
  35. Francesca, 1,082
  36. Cecilia, 1,060
  37. Gioia, 1,018
  38. Emily, 1,017
  39. Marta, 964
  40. Elisa, 953
  41. Nina, 929
  42. Lavinia, 912
  43. Anita, 875
  44. Amelia, 870
  45. Eleonora, 853
  46. Carlotta, 833
  47. Maria, 803
  48. Celeste, 788
  49. Eva, 751
  50. Giada, 735

Boy names

  1. Leonardo, 7,096 baby boys
  2. Edoardo, 5,603
  3. Tommaso, 4,687
  4. Francesco, 4,534
  5. Alessandro, 4,383
  6. Mattia, 4,349
  7. Lorenzo, 4,006
  8. Gabriele, 3,954
  9. Riccardo, 3,600
  10. Andrea, 3,333
  11. Diego, 2,722
  12. Giuseppe, 2,661
  13. Matteo, 2,648
  14. Enea, 2,564
  15. Nicolò, 2,444
  16. Antonio, 2,424
  17. Federico, 2,313
  18. Giovanni, 2,093
  19. Filippo, 2,046
  20. Samuele, 2,041
  21. Pietro, 1,993
  22. Giulio, 1,749
  23. Gioele, 1,641 – pronounced jo-EH-leh
  24. Davide, 1,597
  25. Michele, 1,590
  26. Christian, 1,541
  27. Elia, 1,522
  28. Gabriel, 1,497
  29. Noah, 1,386
  30. Marco, 1,353
  31. Salvatore, 1,324
  32. Liam, 1,236
  33. Luca, 1,230
  34. Vincenzo, 1,211
  35. Thomas, 1,146
  36. Emanuele, 1,100
  37. Alessio, 1,056
  38. Nathan, 1,007
  39. Giorgio, 1,006
  40. Samuel, 1,005
  41. Jacopo, 1,002
  42. Giacomo, 1,000
  43. Ettore, 970
  44. Raffael, 900
  45. Daniele, 899
  46. Simone, 892
  47. Luigi, 886
  48. Damiano, 830
  49. Domenico, 818
  50. Santiago, 798

The girls’ top 100 included Anastasia (57th), Sveva (75th), Mariasole (83rd), and Letizia (97th).

The boys’ top 100 included Ludovico (56th), Niccolò (66th), Brando (73rd), and Ciro (94th).

The girl name Azzurra (which is associated with Italy’s national soccer team gli Azzurri, “the Blues”) ranked 20th in both 2022 and 2021 before jumping to 12th place last year.

Speaking of soccer…I recently learned that Italian soccer star Francesco Totti (who played for AS Roma from 1993 to 2017) influenced baby names in Italy via the names of his three children:

  • The usage of Cristian rose after his son Cristian was born in November of 2005:
    • 2006: 3,028 boys named Cristian (rank: 25th)
    • 2005: 1,619 boys named Cristian (rank: 39th)
    • 2004: 1,616 boys named Cristian (rank: 38th)
  • The usage of Chanel rose after his daughter Chanel was born in May of 2007:
    • 2008: 158 girls named Chanel (rank: 189th)
    • 2007: 63 girls named Chanel (rank: 314th)
    • 2006: fewer than five girls named Chanel
  • The usage of Isabel rose after his daughter Isabel was born in March of 2016:
    • 2017: 1,218 girls named Isabel (rank: 36th)
    • 2016: 910 girls named Isabel (rank: 50th)
    • 2015: 570 girls named Isabel (rank: 69th)

Sources: Contanomi – Quante bambine e quanti bambini si chiamano…? – Istat, Leonardo e Sofia “tengono”, risale Francesco – Istat (Jan. 2024), IstatData

Image: Adapted from Flag of Italy (public domain)

Babies named for Fletcher’s Castoria

Fletcher's Castoria newspaper advertisement (Jun. 1915)
Castoria newspaper ad (1915)

In yesterday’s post about the name Castara I mentioned a medicine called Castoria, which was a senna-based laxative made for children.

Castoria was developed in the mid-19th century by Massachusetts doctor Samuel Pitcher, who patented the medicine in 1868 and sold it as “Pitcher’s Castoria.” Three years later, the formula was purchased by the Centaur Company (headed by Charles H. Fletcher) and renamed “Fletcher’s Castoria.”

Advertising was the key to Castoria’s success. The Centaur Company “became a pioneer in mass marketing […] distributing millions of printed trade cards, running long-standing advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and painting the sides of hundreds of buildings.” (Case in point: You can see a massive Fletcher’s Castoria ad on the side of a building during the opening seconds of this clip of a train ride on the Brooklyn Bridge, recorded in 1899 by none other than Thomas Edison.) Castoria’s ubiquitous advertisements were so effective that the medicine continued to sell well for many decades — long after its patent had expired in 1885.

Fletcher's Castoria newspaper advertisement (Dec. 1923)
Castoria newspaper ad (1923)

So, was Castoria ever used as a human name?

Yes! In fact, Castoria popped up in the U.S. baby name data for the first and only time in 1919:

  • 1921: unlisted
  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: 5 baby girls named Castoria [debut]
  • 1918: unlisted
  • 1917: unlisted

But the SSA’s data doesn’t give a full picture of the name’s actual usage.

Records reveal that hundreds of U.S. babies were named Castoria, and that the majority of these babies were born after the medicine was put on the market. Some examples…

So, how did the medicine come to be called Castoria?

The inventor (Dr. Pitcher) named it after castor oil, a well-known laxative. (Marketing copy from the mid-1870s states, “Castoria is more than a substitute for Castor Oil.”) Castor oil, in turn, was likely named after an older medicine, castoreum — an oily fluid produced by beavers. And castoreum’s name is simply based on castor, the Latin word for “beaver.”

Interestingly, Fletcher’s Castoria remains on the market to this day, though it’s now called “Fletcher’s Laxative.”

P.S. Some of the earliest Castoria ads were rhymed verse that invariably paired “Castoria” with the name “Victoria.” One poem, for instance, included the lines: “The darling girls all named Victoria / And with the boys, they have Castoria.”

P.P.S. Speaking of babies named for laxatives, here’s Laxative Bromo Quinine Crim…

Sources:

Images: Clipping from the Holly Chieftain (18 Jun. 1915); clipping from the Chicago Tribune (16 Dec. 1923)

Popular baby names in the Dominican Republic, 2022 & 2021

Flag of the Dominican Republic
Flag of the Dominican Republic

The country of the Dominican Republic is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea. It shares Hispaniola with the country of Haiti, and nearby islands include Cuba and Jamaica (to the west) and Puerto Rico (to the east).

In 2022, the Dominican Republic welcomed 170,069 babies. What were the most popular names among these babies? Abigaíl and Sebastián.

Here are DR’s top 15 girl names and top 15 boy names of 2022:

Girl names, 2022

  1. Abigaíl, 460 baby girls
  2. Charlotte, 410
  3. Esther, 408
  4. Camila, 402
  5. Isabella, 380
  6. Ashley, 372
  7. Valentina, 350
  8. Génesis, 328
  9. Alaia, 310 (tie)
  10. Emma, 310 (tie)
  11. Elianny, 298 (tie)
  12. Nashla, 298 (tie)
  13. Daniela, 284
  14. Elizabeth, 260
  15. Alexandra, 242

Boy names, 2022

  1. Sebastián, 335 baby boys
  2. Emmanuel, 288
  3. Alexander, 282
  4. Adriel, 271
  5. Liam, 262
  6. Samuel, 261
  7. Daniel, 255
  8. Dylan, 244
  9. Aarón, 235
  10. Isaac, 235 (tie)
  11. Ismael, 235 (tie)
  12. Jayden, 221
  13. Dariel, 219
  14. Yadiel, 217
  15. Gael, 214

One year earlier, the Dominican Republic welcomed 170,520 babies. Here are DR’s top 5 girl names and top 5 boy names of 2021:

Girl names, 2021

  1. Abigaíl, 212 baby girls
  2. Charlotte, 188
  3. Isabella, 174
  4. Nashla, 157
  5. Camila, 149

Boy names, 2021

  1. Adriel, 274 baby boys
  2. Sebastián, 247
  3. Liam, 241
  4. Dylan, 224
  5. Samuel, 211

The curious name Nashla was likely influenced by Dominican actress Nashla Bogaert, who was a judge on both seasons of Dominicana’s Got Talent (2019-2021). The name Nashla is also seeing usage in the U.S. — mainly in New York and New Jersey, the two states in which more than half of all Dominican Americans reside.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of the Dominican Republic (public domain)

[Latest update: Aug. 2025]