How popular is the baby name Alphonse 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 Alphonse.
The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.
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.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 9, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 9-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “nines” in numerology?
Turning names into numbers
Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.
First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.
For instance, the letters in the name Rockwell correspond to the numbers 18, 15, 3, 11, 23, 5, 12, and 12. The sum of these numbers is 99. The digits of 99 added together equal 18, and the digits of 18 added together equal 9 — the numerological value of Rockwell.
Baby names with a value of 9
Below you’ll find the most popular 9-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.
9
The letters in the unisex baby name Ace add up to 9.
9 via 18
The letters in the following baby names add up to 18, which reduces to nine (1+8=9).
Girl names (9 via 18)
Boy names (9 via 18)
Lea, Gaia, Ela, Acacia, Addi
Can, Adal, Acie, Edi, Jag
9 via 27
The letters in the following baby names add up to 27, which reduces to nine (2+7=9).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number nine. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 9 being described as “humanitarian,” “tolerant,” “helpful,” “determined,” and “compassionate.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 9:
Pregnancy (9 months long)
Baseball (9 players on the field; 9 innings)
K-9 (“canine”) police dog units
“Cloud nine” (expression)
“Nine lives” of a cat (expression)
“To the nines” (expression)
“The whole nine yards” (expression)
What does the number 9 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?
P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.
The image above, of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, was captured in early 1838 by Louis Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype.
It may be the earliest surviving photograph of a person. Two people, actually. Both are in the lower left.
Here’s a close-up:
The standing man is getting his shoe shined, and the other man (partially obscured) is doing the shoe-shining.
Of all the people on the sidewalk that day, these were the only two to stay still long enough (about 10 minutes) to be captured in the image.
Now for the fun part!
What would you name these two Frenchmen?
Let’s pretend you’re writing a book set in Paris in the 1830s, and these are two of your characters. What names would you give them?
Here’s a long list of traditional French male names, to get you started:
Abel Absolon Achille Adam Adolphe Adrien Aimé Alain Alban Albert Alexandre Alfred Alphonse Amaury Amroise Amédée Anatole André Anselme Antoine Antonin Apollinaire Ariel Aristide Armand Arnaud Arsène Arthur Aubert Aubin Auguste Augustin Aurèle Aurélien Baptiste Barnabé Barthélémy Basile Bastien Benjamin Benoit Bernard Bertrand Blaise Boniface Bruno Calixte Camille Céleste Célestin Césaire César Charles Christian Christophe
Clair Claude Clément Clovis Constant Constantin Corentin Corin Corneille Cosme Cyril Damien Daniel David Denis Déodat Désiré Didier Dieudonné Dimitri Diodore Dominique Donat Donatien Edgar Edgard Edmé Edmond Édouard Élie Eloi Émeric Émile Émilien Emmanuel Enzo Éric Ermenegilde Ernest Ethan Étienne Eugène Eustache Évariste Évrard Fabien Fabrice Félicien Félix Ferdinand Fernand Fiacre Firmin Florence Florent
Florentin Florian Francis François Frédéric Gabriel Gaël Gaëtan Gaspard Gaston Gaubert Geoffroy Georges Gérard Géraud Germain Gervais Ghislain Gilbert Gilles Gratien Grégoire Guatier Guillaume Gustave Guy Hector Henri Herbert Hercule Hervé Hilaire Hippolyte Honoré Horace Hubert Hugues Humbert Hyacinthe Ignace Irénée Isidore Jacques Jason Jean Jérémie Jérôme Joachim Jocelyn Joël Jonathan Joseph Josse Josué Jourdain
Jules Julien Juste Justin Laurent Laurentin Lazare Léandre Léo Léon Léonard Léonce Léonide Léopold Lionel Loïc Lothaire Louis Loup Luc Lucas Lucien Lucrèce Ludovic Maël Marc Marcel Marcellin Marin Marius Martin Mathieu Mathis Matthias Maurice Maxence Maxime Maximilien Michaël Michel Modeste Narcisse Nathan Nathanaël Nazaire Nicéphore Nicodème Nicolas Noé Noël Norbert Odilon Olivier Onésime Pascal
Patrice Paul Philippe Pierre Placide Pons Prosper Quentin Rainier Raoul Raphaël Raymond Régis Rémy René Reynaud Richard Robert Roch Rodolphe Rodrigue Roger Roland Romain Rosaire Ruben Salomon Samuel Sébastien Séraphin Serge Sévère Séverin Simon Sylvain Sylvestre Télesphore Théodore Théophile Thibault Thierry Thomas Timothée Toussaint Urbain Valentin Valère Valéry Vespasien Victor Vincent Vivien Xavier Yves Zacharie
For some real-life inspiration, here are lists of famous 19th century and 20th century French people, courtesy of Wikipedia. Notice that many of the Frenchman have double-barreled, triple-barreled, even quadruple-barreled given names. (Daguerre himself was named Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre.)
Last year, I wrote about a baby named Airlene who was born on an airplane in 1929.
Many of my sources explicitly stated that Airlene was the first baby to be born aboard an airplane. I hadn’t seen any contradictory evidence at the time, so I assumed this was correct.
Just the other day, though, I spotted an article about a French baby that was born on an airplane in the summer of 1922 — seven years earlier.
The article stated that Mme. Georges Breyer of Lyons “was at a remote seashore resort in Southern Italy when she felt her hour had come,” so she chartered an airplane for Naples. When the plane was “40 miles south of that city, 6,000 feet over the Mediterranean, she gave birth to the child.”
It also noted that the baby would be christened Guynemer (pronounced gheen-mehr, roughly), in honor of Georges Guynemer — the French fighter pilot who shot down more than 50 German planes during World War I. (He was killed in combat in 1917.)
I wasn’t able to find any extra information on the Breyer family, but, if this story is true, then the world’s first airplane baby was Guynemer Breyer, not Airlene Evans.
It also makes me wonder…how many other babies were named after the French flying ace?
According to the records I’ve seen, close to a dozen babies born in France in the 1910s and ’20s were given the name Guynemer. Some examples…
Guynemer Marceau Alphonse Morel (b. 1918)
Guynemer Henri Lacroix (b. 1918)
Guynemer Henri Ulysse Hottin (b. 1918)
Guynemer Louis Cancouet (b. 1920)
Hubert Guynemer Francois (b. 1922)
Guynemer Andre Esperance Louvin (b. 1923)
A later example, Guynemer Lindbergh Nungesser Bienfait (born in Normandy in 1937), was named after not one but three famous aviators: Georges Guynemer, Charles Lindbergh, and Charles Nungesser.
Babies were also named Guynemer in other countries, such as Canada and the United States (e.g., Guynemer Wilson Anderson, born in Louisiana in 1918).
This website or its third-party tools process personal data.In case of sale of your personal information, you may opt out by using the link Do not sell my personal information.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
