How popular is the baby name Abel in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Abel.

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Popularity of the Baby Name Abel


Posts that Mention the Name Abel

Popular baby names in the Netherlands, 2022

The Netherlands

The country of the Netherlands, located in Northwestern Europe, is bordered by both Belgium and Germany.

Last year, from January to November, the Netherlands welcomed more than 168,000 babies — over 82,000 girls and over 86,000 boys.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Emma and Noah.

Here are the Netherlands’ top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2022:

Girl Names

  1. Emma, 677 baby girls
  2. Julia, 655
  3. Mila, 624
  4. Sophie, 620
  5. Olivia, 591
  6. Yara, 559
  7. Saar, 532 – short form of Sarah
  8. Nora, 524
  9. Tess, 509
  10. Noor, 501
  11. Milou, 489
  12. Sara, 486
  13. Liv, 482
  14. Zoë, 473
  15. Evi, 466
  16. Anna, 455
  17. Luna, 451
  18. Lotte, 423 (tie)
  19. Nina, 423 (tie)
  20. Eva, 405
  21. Emily, 389
  22. Lauren, 386
  23. Maeve, 384
  24. Lina, 383
  25. Elin, 379
  26. Maud, 368
  27. Sarah, 350
  28. Nova, 345
  29. Loïs, 340 (tie)
  30. Sofia, 340 (tie)
  31. Mia, 339
  32. Sofie, 332
  33. Lieke, 330
  34. Fleur, 328
  35. Isa, 325
  36. Fien, 324 – short form of Josefien
  37. Lynn, 319
  38. Hailey, 312
  39. Roos, 297
  40. Julie, 290
  41. Livia, 288
  42. Fenna, 284 – feminine form of Fen (a Frisian short form of Ferdinand)
  43. Ella, 279
  44. Sophia, 275
  45. Bo, 274
  46. Lily, 252
  47. Ivy, 248
  48. Romée, 246
  49. Lena, 244
  50. Noé, 241

Boy Names

  1. Noah, 871 baby boys
  2. Liam, 666
  3. Luca, 664
  4. Lucas, 652
  5. Mees, 621 – short form of Bartholomeus
  6. Finn, 596
  7. James, 594
  8. Milan, 591
  9. Levi, 585
  10. Sem, 582
  11. Daan, 538
  12. Noud, 533 – short form of Arnoud (the Dutch form of Arnold)
  13. Luuk, 518
  14. Adam, 508
  15. Sam, 495
  16. Bram, 470
  17. Zayn, 447
  18. Mason, 440
  19. Benjamin, 409
  20. Boaz, 369
  21. Siem, 360 – short form of Simon
  22. Guus, 356
  23. Morris, 353
  24. Olivier, 349 (tie)
  25. Thomas, 349 (tie)
  26. Teun, 346 – short form of Antonius
  27. Gijs, 335 (tie) – short form of Gijsbert
  28. Mats, 335 (tie)
  29. Max, 326
  30. Jesse, 317
  31. Julian, 315
  32. Otis, 314
  33. Floris, 312
  34. Lars, 307
  35. David, 304 (tie)
  36. Jake, 304 (tie)
  37. Moos, 303 – short form of Mozes
  38. Rayan, 300
  39. Jens, 291
  40. Joep, 289
  41. Owen, 286
  42. Thijs, 273
  43. Jan, 270 (3-way tie)
  44. Oliver, 270 (3-way tie)
  45. Willem, 270 (3-way tie)
  46. Mick, 269
  47. Jack, 262
  48. Jurre, 259 – short form of Jurryt (the Frisian form of Gerard)
  49. Abel, 254
  50. Kai, 253

Dutch onomastician Gerrit Bloothooft noted that, if similar names had been counted together, the name-groups Saar/Sara/Sarah and Luca/Lucas/Luuk would have topped the girls’ list and the boys’ list, respectively.

The girls’ top 100 included Cato (55th), Veerle (60th), Puck (75th), and Merel (83rd).

The boys’ top 100 included Jaxx (56th), Sven (64th), Hidde (72nd), and Jip (78th).

Finally, here are the Netherlands’ 2021 rankings, if you’d like to compare.

Sources: Kindernamen home | Kindernamen | SVB, Emma en Noah de populairste kindernamen van 2022, Population growth almost doubled in 2022, Behind the Name

Popular baby names in Hungary, 2021

hungary

Landlocked Hungary, located in Central Europe, shares a border with seven other countries (including Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria).

Last year, Hungary welcomed over 93,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Hanna and Levente (pronounced leh-vehn-teh).

Here are Hungary’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Hanna, 1,355 baby girls
  2. Zoé, 1,138
  3. Anna, 1,133
  4. Léna, 1,019
  5. Luca, 940
  6. Emma, 783
  7. Boglárka, 682 – means “buttercup” in Hungarian.
  8. Lili, 646
  9. Lilien, 601
  10. Lara, 594
  11. Zsófia, 588
  12. Laura, 577
  13. Mira, 553
  14. Sára, 523
  15. Olívia, 518
  16. Nóra, 506
  17. Lilla, 505
  18. Maja, 501
  19. Gréta, 496
  20. Izabella, 484
  21. Flóra, 476
  22. Jázmin, 475
  23. Alíz, 462
  24. Fanni, 430
  25. Adél, 426
  26. Janka, 425
  27. Dorka, 409 – a diminutive of Dorottya (Dorothea).
  28. Szofia, 406
  29. Zselyke, 396
  30. Liza, 393
  31. Csenge, 373
  32. Bella, 363
  33. Panna, 362 – a diminutive of Anna.
  34. Liliána, 361
  35. Kamilla, 352
  36. Linett, 351
  37. Dóra, 340
  38. Natasa, 333
  39. Viktória, 328
  40. Bianka, 321
  41. Szófia, 311
  42. Rebeka, 309
  43. Réka, 305
  44. Blanka, 304
  45. Szofi, 297
  46. Petra, 296
  47. Dorina, 295
  48. Nara, 286
  49. Emília, 285
  50. Noémi, 280

Boy Names

  1. Levente, 1,332 baby boys
  2. Máté, 1,314
  3. Dominik, 1,289
  4. Bence, 1,276
  5. Olivér, 1,199
  6. Noel, 1,122
  7. Marcell, 1,083
  8. Dániel, 1,057
  9. Zalán, 1,026 – popularized (and perhaps invented?) by Hungarian poet Mihály Vörösmarty, who published the epic poem “Zalán Futása” (transl. “The Flight of Zalan”) in 1825.
  10. Ádám, 1,024
  11. Milán, 954
  12. Botond, 934
  13. Benett, 880
  14. Dávid, 870
  15. Zsombor, 813
  16. Áron, 808
  17. Balázs, 681
  18. Benedek, 639
  19. Márk, 620
  20. Nimród, 607
  21. Péter, 590
  22. László, 583
  23. Tamás, 580
  24. Gergo, 530
  25. Zente, 517 – based on the Hungarian word szent, meaning “holy.”
  26. Bálint, 508 – a form of Valentine.
  27. Barnabás, 508
  28. Kristóf, 507
  29. Zétény, 484
  30. András, 453
  31. Kornél, 446
  32. Nolen, 444
  33. Márton, 433
  34. István, 426
  35. Hunor, 420 – a name from Hungarian mythology. Legendary brothers Hunor and Magor were the ancestors of the Huns and the Hungarians (also known as the Magyars), respectively.
  36. Attila, 402
  37. Ákos, 399
  38. Zoltán, 393
  39. Martin, 391
  40. Alex, 388
  41. Vince, 370
  42. Gábor, 365
  43. János, 358 (tie)
  44. Patrik, 358 (tie)
  45. Ábel, 357
  46. Bendegúz, 337
  47. Erik, 328
  48. Zsolt, 323
  49. Krisztián, 315
  50. József, 283

Notably, the girls’ top 50 included three different versions of the name Sophia: Zsófia, Szofia, and Szófia. If the spellings had been combined, the Sophia-group would have ranked 2nd overall.

The girls’ top 100 included Zorka (70th), Fruzsina (72nd), Kinga (86th), and Kincso (96th).

The boys’ top 100 included Csaba (55th), Kende (75th), Imre (76th), and Gellért (92nd).

Finally, here are Hungary’s rankings for 2017 through 2020, in case you’d like to compare.

Sources: Statistics – Hungary’s Deputy State Secretariat for the Administration of the Ministry of the Interior, Number of live births in Hungary from 2010 to 2021 – Statista, Hungary – Wikipedia, Magyar Keresztnevek Tara, Wiktionary

Popular baby names in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1868

19th-century Providence, Rhode Island
19th-century Providence

Years ago, I discovered three documents with relatively complete lists of births for the city of Providence, Rhode Island, for the years 1866, 1867, and 1868. I’ve already created Providence’s baby name rankings for 1866 and 1867 using the first two documents, and today (finally!) I’ve got the third set of rankings for you.

Let’s start with some stats:

  • 1,762 babies were born in Providence in 1868, by my count. According to the introduction of the document I’m using a source, however, the total number is 1,866. I don’t know how to account for this discrepancy.
  • 1,617 of these babies (791 girls and 826 boys) had names that were known at the time of publication. The other 145 babies got blank spaces. Either their names hadn’t been registered yet, or they hadn’t been named yet, or perhaps these babies died young and never received a name.
  • 284 unique names (143 girl names and 141 boy names) were shared among these 1,617 babies.

And now, on to the names!

Top 5

A quick look at the top 5 girl names and boy names in Providence in 1868:

Top baby girl namesTop baby boy names
1. Mary
2. Catherine
3. Sarah
4. Ellen
5. Margaret
1. John
2. William
3. James
4. Charles
5. George

All Girl Names

  1. Mary, 149 baby girls
  2. Catherine, 39
  3. Sarah, 38
  4. Ellen, 31
  5. Margaret, 28
  6. Elizabeth, 25
  7. Alice, 24
  8. Anna, 20
  9. Ann, 16
  10. Emma, 14
  11. Eliza, 13
  12. Clara & Martha, 11 each (tie)
  13. Hannah & Lucy, 10 each (tie)
  14. Bridget, Grace, Jennie, Julia & Maria, 9 each (5-way tie)
  15. Annie, Florence, Jane, Minnie & Susan, 8 each (5-way tie)
  16. Agnes, Caroline, Cora, Ella & Harriet, 7 each (5-way tie)
  17. Anne, Carrie, Hattie, Ida, Mabel & Nellie, 6 each (6-way tie)
  18. Eva, Joanna, Lydia & Rosanna, 5 each (4-way tie)
  19. Abby, Charlotte, Emily, Jessie, Josephine, Lillian, Lizzie, Louisa, Louise, Marion, Phebe, Rosella & Theresa, 4 each (13-way tie)
  20. Anastasia, Bertha, Edith, Gertrude, Isabella, Nettie, Pearl, Rebecca & Susanna, 3 each (9-way tie)
  21. Ada, Almira, Edna, Fannie, Flora, Frances, Helen, Henrietta, Inez, Laura, Lelia, Lillie, Lottie, Maud, Priscilla & Virginia, 2 each (16-way tie)
  22. Addie, Adelaide, Adelicia, Adeline, Agatha, Allene, Amanda, Amy, Angelica, Antoinette, Arabella, Augusta, Aurelia, B.*, Belle, Bessie, Betsey, Catharine, Celia, Claudia, Della, Eleanor, Eleanora, Estella, Estelle, Esther, Eudavelia, Eulalie, Evelyn, Francenia, Genevieve, Georgia, Honora, Imogene, Jesse, Juliette, Kate, Leonora, Lilla, Lillias, Lorena, Luella, Luetta, Magdalena, Marian, Marietta, Matilda, Mercy, Minerva, Miriam, Myra, Myrtis, Nanoan, Nora, Pauline, Reberta, Rhoda, Roberta, Rosa, Rose, Ruth, Sabrina, Sophia, Stella & Winifred, 1 each (65-way tie)

*What do you think the “B.” might have stood for?

All Boy Names

  1. John, 112 baby boys
  2. William, 68
  3. James, 64
  4. Charles, 52
  5. George, 45
  6. Thomas, 37
  7. Frederick, 25
  8. Henry, 23
  9. Joseph, 22
  10. Edward, 19
  11. Daniel & Patrick, 18 each (tie)
  12. Robert, 17
  13. Frank, 16
  14. Francis, 15
  15. Walter, 13
  16. Michael, 11
  17. Albert, 10
  18. Arthur, 9
  19. Benjamin, Peter & Samuel, 7 each (3-way tie)
  20. Freddie, Harry, Herbert & Stephen, 6 each (4-way tie)
  21. Edwin, Lawrence, Lewis, Martin & Timothy, 5 each (5-way tie)
  22. Bernard, Edmund, Eugene, Louis, Philip & Richard, 4 each (6-way tie)
  23. Alfred, Augustus, Christopher, Eben, Horace, Howard, Hugh, Jeremiah, Matthew & Willard, 3 each (10-way tie)
  24. Abel, Barney, Byron, Dennis, Edgar, Ferdinand, Gilbert, Luke, Max, Nathaniel, Owen, Roger, Solomon & Victor, 2 each (14-way tie)
  25. Alden, Alexis, Allen, Alrick, Amos, Andrew, Ansel, Anson, Archibald, Asa, Ashby, Bartholomew, Calvin, Carlos, Clarence, Clark, Clarke, Clement, Clifford, Collyer, Crolander, Darius, David, Earl, Elisha, Ellis, Eri, Ernest, Erwin, Eusebe, Everett, Felix, Forrest, Foster, Franklin, Fred, Gardner, Jacob, Jason, Jerome, Jireh, Joaneto, Josiah, Jubal, Justin, Lawson, Lodovic, Louis, Lucien, Lyman, Major, Malachi, Manuel, Melbourne, Monroe, Morey, Morris, Myron, Nelson, Nicholas, Olney, Orville, Oscar, Pendleton, Ralph, Reuben, Rolfe, Rowland, Rufus, Simeon, Simon, Steven, Stewart, Theodore, Ulysses*, Volney, Warren, Whiting, Willie & Winchester, 1 each (80-way tie)

*Ulysses was likely named in honor of Ulysses S. Grant, who was elected president in 1868.

Twins

Finally, nineteen sets of twins were born in Providence in 1868. (All of these twin names are accounted for in the rankings above.)

Girl-girl twinsGirl-boy twinsBoy-boy twins
Caroline & Harriet
Lucy & Lydia
Mary & Rosanna
Margaret & Mary
Lizzie & Martha
(blank) & (blank)
Anne & Thomas
Emma & Charles
Florence & William
Hannah & Josiah
Ida & John
Isabella & John
Jennie & Horace
Charles & William
Francis & Robert
George & John
James & John
James & Stephen
(blank) & (blank)

Have any thoughts about these rankings, or about any of the specific names above?

Source: Snow, Edwin M. Alphabetical Lists of the Names of Persons Deceased, Born and Married in the City of Providence. Number three. Providence: Millard & Harker, 1870.

Name quotes #97: Netley, Cordelia, O’Shea

double quotation mark

From the book Anne of Green Gables (1908) by Lucy Maud Montgomery, a conversation about names between characters Anne Shirley and Marilla Cuthbert:

“Well, don’t cry any more. We’re not going to turn you out-of-doors to-night. You’ll have to stay here until we investigate this affair. What’s your name?”

The child hesitated for a moment.

“Will you please call me Cordelia?” she said eagerly.

“Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?”

“No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.”

“I don’t know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn’t your name, what is?”

“Anne Shirley,” reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, “but, oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can’t matter much to you what you call me if I’m only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is such an unromantic name.”

“Unromantic fiddlesticks!” said the unsympathetic Marilla. “Anne is a real good plain sensible name. You’ve no need to be ashamed of it.”

“Oh, I’m not ashamed of it,” explained Anne, “only I like Cordelia better. I’ve always imagined that my name was Cordelia–at least, I always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an E.”

“What difference does it make how it’s spelled?” asked Marilla with another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot.

“Oh, it makes such a difference. It looks so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you’ll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.”

From an early 2016 episode of The Graham Norton Show [vid] in which comedian Kevin Hart talks about baby names following a discussion between Graham and Ice Cube about Cube’s birth name (O’Shea Jackson):

Lemme educate you on something. Black people are notorious for picking things that they saw one day and saying, “That’s my baby name.” That’s all that was. That’s all that was, Graham. It was nothing — there was no amazing story behind it. We’d love to tell you, yes, it actually came from a Irish forefather that did this…that’s not the case. His mother was reading the paper, and she was eating some cereal, and somebody in back said, “O’Shea!” She said, “That’d be a good name for the baby.” That’s it. That’s how it happened.

(Name Quotes #41 includes a quote from O’Shea himself.)

From a New York Times interview with Kate Winslet:

[Ms. Winslet] has a son, Bear, 7, with her current husband, who has gone back to his original name, Edward Abel Smith, from his playful pseudonym, Ned Rocknroll.

“He added ‘Winslet’ as one of his middle names, just simply because the children have Winslet,” the actress said. “When we’re all traveling together, to all have that name on the passports makes life easier.” (Bear’s middle name is Blaze, after the fire that Kate and Ned escaped that burned down the British Virgin Islands home of Richard Branson, her husband’s uncle.)

(The article also mentioned that a Delco sandwich shop now sells a hoagie called “The Mare” in honor of Kate’s Mare of Easttown character, Mare Sheehan.)

From a Vogue UK interview with Thandiwe Newton (whose first name means “beloved” in Zulu):

Meanwhile Thandiwe and her younger brother attended a Catholic primary school run by joyless nuns […] where the W of her name drifted inward, out of sight and earshot, in a futile hope to make her feel less different.

[…]

No longer is Newton afraid of the red carpet because of how much it reminded her of her invisibility, and she looks forward to a future where the illusion of race will no longer narrow who we are. […] All her future films will be credited with Thandiwe Newton, after the W was carelessly missed out from her first credit. Now she’s in control. Many lives lived and she’s come out triumphant, preserved in the magic of the mist and sun that made her, and wanted her to shine. “That’s my name. It’s always been my name. I’m taking back what’s mine.”

Speaking of reclaiming names…from an article about immigrants reclaiming anglicized names on PEI (the speaker is a man named Chijioke Amadi, originally from Nigeria):

“What I didn’t really know then was I was trying to fit in, because that’s what society made me think, that my name was so hard to pronounce.”

Ironically, he found that going by CJ made it harder to fit in with his own community.

“The fact that I never used my real name made my community start veering away from me, rather than coming towards me,” he said.

“It makes you second guess who you are, what you are.”

From a review of a book about famous English con man/writer Netley Lucas (born circa 1903, died 1940):

Anyone keen to make sense of the chaotic career of Netley Lucas could usefully begin by compiling a list of his aliases. I managed a dozen; there are doubtless more. They include the debt-bilking naval officer Gerald Chilfont; the travel agency-swindling Viscount Knebworth; that fabled Asian potentate the Emir of Kurdistan, in whose name Lucas reserved accommodation at the Savoy; the hotel-haunting Honourable Basil Vaughan; the celebrity biographer Evelyn Graham; and a certain Lady Angela Stanley who, proposing to write a life of Queen Alexandra based on her years as a lady-in-waiting, was discovered to be quite unknown to the royal household that had supposedly employed her.

(He also claimed that he was born aboard a yacht anchored near the village of Netley in Southhampton, and that this was the source of his first name.)

From an article about Mormon baby names by USU professor Jennifer Mansfield:

It seems as though members [of the LDS Church] in Utah feel so similar to everyone else that (consciously or unconsciously) they try to find other ways to express their individuality in ways that do not carry negative consequences. Names carry an especially heavy weight in the LDS Church (perhaps inspired to some extent by Helaman 5:6-7), so naming feels like a meaningful place to invest creativity without suffering the repercussions that come from being different in other ways.

That all being said, my strong impression is that very few Mormons deliberately use baby naming practices to rebel against the pressures of social conformity that come along with being part of a tight-knit religious subculture. No one I’ve spoken with seems to realize that their “unique” names are not unique at all, but instead are yet another characteristic they share with many of their Mormon neighbors.