How popular is the baby name Albert 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 Albert.
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Versatile American author Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842, the tenth of thirteen children. His parents, Laura and Marcus Aurelius Bierce, gave all their children A-names, curiously. Here are all the siblings, in order of birth:
Abigail Bell
Amelia Josephine
Ann Maria
Addison Byron (who “worked as a strong man in a traveling circus”)
Aurelius
Augustus, nicknamed “Gus”
Almeda Sophia
Andrew, nn “Dime”
Albert Sherwood, nn “Grizzly”
Ambrose Gwinnett
“It is possible that Bierce got the names he did because his father may have read Douglas Jerrold’s Ambrose Gwinnett; or, A Sea-Side Story (1828).”
Arthur
twin Adelia (died in infancy)
twin Aurelia (also died in infancy)
Which of the above names do you like best?
Source: Gale, Robert L. An Ambrose Bierce companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Last month, Canadian singer Bryan Adams and his girlfriend welcomed their second baby girl, Lula RosyLea. Lula’s middle name is a reference to her time of birth, as per this tweet by Adams:
Lula Rosylea arrived @ teatime this wk. a cup of ‘rosie lee’ = ‘cup of tea’ in cockney. Lula comes from Gene Vincent’s song Be-Bop-A-Lula
This is the first baby I know of to be named via Cockney rhyming slang.
What’s Cockney rhyming slang? It involves word substitution based on rhyme. Typically, a word in a sentence is replaced with a rhyming phrase, and then the rhyming part of the phrase is dropped. This makes the resulting sentence hard for those not in-the-know to understand.
Here’s an example: “Use your loaf.” It’s really “use your head,” but the phrase loaf of bread was used instead of head, and then loaf of bread was shortened to just loaf. Hence, “use your loaf.” Get it?
Speaking of bread, if you’ve ever heard people use the slang word bread to mean money, that’s CRS too. Money rhymes with the old expression bread and honey, which shortens to bread.
So that’s how Bryan Adams turned tea into Rosie Lee, which is a common CRS rhyme for tea. (And now, if you’re ever in London and someone asks you if you want a cup of Rosie, you’ll know what they’re talking about!) “Rosie Lee” refers to American burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee (1911-1970).
I thought this was a rather cool way to come up with a baby name, so I’ve collected a few dozen other well-known CRS rhymes that involve names. On the left you’ll find the original word, in the middle is the name/phrase substitution, and on the right is the shortened version.
back – rhymes with Cilla Black – shortens to Cilla
ball – rhymes with Albert Hall – shortens to Albert
belly – rhymes with Darby Kelly – shortens to Darby
brake – rhymes with Veronica Lake – shortens to Veronica
cake – rhymes with Sexton Blake – shortens to Sexton
coat – rhymes with Billy goat – shortens to Billy
curry – rhymes with Ruby Murray – shortens to Ruby (if these parents had had a girl instead of a boy, Ruby would have been a great option)
door – rhymes with Rory O’Moore – shortens to Rory
fairy – rhymes with Julian Clairy – shortens to Julian
fish – rhymes with Lillian Gish – shortens to Lillian
gin – rhymes with Anne Boleyn – shortens to Ann
gin – rhymes with Vera Lynn – shortens to Vera
ice – rhymes with Vincent Price – shortens to Vincent
kettle – rhymes with Hansel and Gretel – shortens to Hansel
lisp – rhymes with Quentin Crisp – shortens to Quentin
mess – rhymes with Elliot Ness – shortens to Elliot
neck – rhymes with Gregory Peck – shortens to Gregory
old man (father) – rhymes with Peter Pan – shortens to Peter
rail – rhymes with Toby Ale – shortens to Toby
Stella (brand of beer) – rhymes with Yuri Geller – shortens to Yuri
Stella – rhymes with Nelson Mandela – shortens to Nelson
table – rhymes with Betty Grable – shortens to Betty
tea – rhymes with Bruce Lee – shortens to Bruce
tea – rhymes with Kiki Dee – shortens to Kiki
tea – rhymes with Rosie Lee – shortens to Rosie
telly – rhymes with Liza Minnelli – shortens to Liza (e.g., “What’s on the Liza?”)
trouble – rhymes with Barney Rubble – shortens to Barney
undies – rhymes with Eddie Grundies – shortens to Eddie
wedding – rhymes with Otis Redding – shortens to Otis
I think Darby (for “belly”) might be an especially tempting one baby namers, no? :)
Bryan’s first baby girl, Mirabella Bunny, was born last Easter.
Update, Dec. 2016: A reader named Sam recently told me about the Complete Dictionary of Cockney Rhyming Slang, which contains a bunch more names — like Errol Flynn for “chin,” and Euan Blair for “Leicester Square.” Enjoy!
I listed all the female names in the Domesday Book a while back, so today I thought I’d complete the project by listing all the male names.
The male names below appeared in the Open Domesday database just once, except where noted. (For the record, I overlooked entries in which one person’s name was used to refer to another person, e.g., “Aelfric’s uncle.”)
The most-mentioned name within each letter group is in bold.
If you make it all the way to the bottom, your reward is a top ten list. :)
Which male were mentioned most often in the Domesday book? The #1 name was William, followed by Robert and Ralph:
William (166)
Robert (127)
Ralph (124)
Aelfric (88)
Alwin (76) [tie]
Hugh (76) [tie]
Roger (73)
Godwin (72)
Walter (64)
Godric (59)
Though the names in the book aren’t necessarily representative of name usage in England overall, it does make sense than William took the top spot. The Domesday Book was created a couple of decades after the Norman Conquest, at a time when the name William was very fashionable, thanks to William the Conqueror.
Yesterday’s post on the Rosado family of Brazil reminded me of a Tennessee family I spotted in the 1880 U.S. Census.
The parents were Stephen and Maria Baker, ages 52 and 45, and the three youngest children were listed as…
Billy (?) Seventeen (male, age 4)
Lady Eighteen (female, age 3)
Aurilla Nineteen (female, age 0)
My hunch is that they were the 17th, 18th, and 19th children, but I haven’t been able to verify it yet.
The older children still at home in 1880 were named Millie, Buddy, Willie, and Albert.
On the 1870 U.S. Census, the family’s children were listed as Rachel, James, Francis, Florence, Milley, Budie, and Wm (an abbreviation for William).
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