How popular is the baby name April 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 April.

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Popularity of the baby name April


Posts that mention the name April

Popular baby names in Gibraltar, 2022

gibraltar

The British overseas territory of Gibraltar is a narrow peninsula jutting out from the southern coast of Spain.

Though the official language of Gibraltar is English, most Gibraltarians also speak Spanish. (In fact, the mix of Andalusian Spanish and British English spoken by locals has its own name: Llanito.)

Last year, Gibraltar welcomed 364 babies — “almost a baby for every day of 2022.” There were 179 baby girls and 185 baby boys.

And what were the most popular names among these babies? Sienna and Elijah/Leo (tie).

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

Girl Names

  1. Sienna, 6 baby girls
  2. Ava and Lucia, 5 each (tie)
  3. Emily, Isabella, and Valentina, 4 each (3-way tie)
  4. Amelia, Chloe, Isla, Lauren, and Lily, 3 each (5-way tie)
  5. Charlotte, Eliza, Elsie, Gabriella, India, Luna, Mia, Robyn, Sophie, Thalia, and Tiana, 2 each (11-way tie)

Boy Names

  1. Elijah and Leo, 5 baby boys each (tie)
  2. Noah, Oliver, Theo, and Thomas, 4 each (4-way tie)
  3. Jamie, Lewis, Lucas, and Thiago, 3 each (4-way tie)
  4. Amir, Arthur, Erik, Freddie, Gabriel, Hugo, Isaac, Jack, Jacob, James, Jason, Joseph, Kai, Liam, Logan, Louie, Luca, Mason, Matthew, Niall, Nico, Ryan, Theodore, and Zayn, 2 each (24-way tie)

The rest of the names were each bestowed once. (Except for Riley, which was bestowed twice overall — once for each gender.)

Unique girl names (120)Unique boy names (93)
Ada, Adeline, Adelyn, Ahriella, Alba, Alessandra, Alis, Alisha, Aliyanna, Alona, Amaya, Amelie-Rae, Amira, Ana, Andie, Anna, Aoife, April, Arabella, Ari, Aria, Ariana, Arianna, Arieya, Aris, Aubrey, Avery, Cali, Callie, Celeste, Cipbelynn, Cora, Daisy, Daisy-Ray, Dayana, Elise, Ellen, Emma, Esme, Estella, Evelyn, Fae, Farah, Faye, Fern, Florence, Haley, Harlequin, Hayley, Ines, Jessie, Josephine, Josie, Julia, Kairo, Kennan, Kian, Killian, Kyel, Kylo, Kate, Katie, Kyla, Kythea, Layan, Layla, Leah, Leticia, Lina, Lottie, Maeva, Maia, Manuela, Margaret, Margot, Mariam, Matilde, Maya, Mayra, Melianne, Mila, Millie, Molly, Neriah, Nora, Nylah-Mae, Poppy, Presley, Quinn, Radhika, Raya, Renaelia, Rhianne, Riley, Roeeya, Rose, Ruby, Rumi, Sara, Savannah, Selina, Shannah, Siera, Snow, Sophia, Stella, Summer, Talia, Tasnim, Thea, Tillie, Willow, Winter, Yael, Yara, Yasmin, Yui, Zahra, Zaphyr, ZoeAbdurhman, Abel, Airam, Alaa, Alfie, Alfred, Andrei, Anthony, Archie, Ariel, Asher, Ashton, Austin, Axton, Bear, Benas, Bowie, Bradley, Cairo, Carlos, Charlie, Cody, Crislee, Dante, Domenico, Dominic, Dylan, Elias, Elis, Emilian, Emilio, Ethan, Evan, Finley, Frankie, Gary, Gian, Graham, Haroun, Henry, Hudson, Imram, Iyad, Jake, Jax, Jay, Jayce, Jayden, Jesse, Jonah, Joud, Leigh, Louis, Luis, Luke, Manuel, Marco, Mattia, Maxwell, Michael, Millel, Nassim, Nathan, Neo, Nicholas, Nicolas, Nilan, Noa, Nuveshshing, Nyan, Nyle, Oscar, Otis, Otto, Ray, Rayan, Remy, Riley, Rocco, Romeo, Samy, Scott, Sebastian, Shane, Stephen, Teo, Tommy, Tyler, Wael, Yaqub, Zachary, Zack, Zuhayr

Finally, here are Gibraltar’s 2021 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

P.S. Did you know that John Lennon and Yoko Ono got married in Gibraltar in March of 1969?

Sources:

Image by Steve Walker from Pixabay

Why didn’t Cloris Leachman change her name?

Actress Cloris Leachman (1926-2021)
Cloris Leachman

While other mid-20th-century actors and actresses were swapping out their birth names for catchy stage names (like Rory Calhoun, Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Piper Laurie, Tab Hunter, and Rock Hudson), Cloris Leachman decided to go against the grain and stick with her legal name (which she’d inherited from her mother).

But she did consider changing her name for a time…thanks largely to Tallulah Bankhead.

In 1949, Cloris was in her early 20s and appearing on stage in Come Back, Little Sheba. Bankhead came to see the production, and, afterwards, when the two women met for the first time, Tallulah implored Cloris to change her name.

On a different occasion, Bankhead brought the topic up again:

“Cloris Leachman,” she crowed, “too long. Too many syllables. Too unknown. Clorox Bleachman would be better. You can’t even fit it on the marquee in front of a theater.”

During that second interaction, Cloris came up with the potential stage name “April Claiborne” by combining her birth month with her youngest sister’s first name. (“Claiborne” was their paternal grandmother’s maiden name.)

She still wasn’t sure about making the change, though.

When I went to the Actors Studio the next day, I talked about Madame Bankhead’s rant. They all agreed with her. “You have to change your name! You have to!,” they cried. It was a unanimous opinion. So right there we got out the New York phone book. It opened it up to the Ls, closed my eyes, and the name under my finger was Leavitt. It was miraculous. That translated to “Leave it!” This is no accident, I thought. The god of monikers is talking, and he says leave it. Okay, I’ll leave it.

When I got to Hollywood, the subject came up again. People said I should not only change my name, I should have my nose shortened. I emphatically didn’t want to do either, and that’s why I’m still Cloris Leachman with a big nose.

Cloris Leachman’s name may not have been as trendy-sounding as “Lana Turner” or “Piper Laurie,” but it certainly wasn’t an impediment to her career, which lasted more than seven decades. She appeared in nearly 100 films (like The Last Picture Show), dozens of TV movies (such as A Girl Named Sooner), and well over 100 TV shows (including Johnny Staccato, Rawhide, Outlaws, Shirley Temple’s Storybook, The Loretta Young Show, Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Route 66, Wagon Train, Stoney Burke, 77 Sunset Strip, A Man Called Shenandoah, The Big Valley, Mannix, The Virginian, and Lancer).

Her first name, a variant spelling of the ancient Greek name Chloris (meaning “greenish-yellow, pale green”), is closely related to the name Chloe (meaning “green shoot”).

What are your thoughts on the name Cloris?

Sources:

Baby born into June family, named April May

calendar

In March of 1995, Richard and Lorine June of Florida welcomed their third child — another baby girl.

Their first daughter was named Nicole, and their second was named Brooke. For the third, they went with “April May” to create the full legal name “April May June.”

The idea first occurred to them when Nicole was born. [Lorine] recounted that her husband said, “Wouldn’t that be funny?”

“And I said, “No, we better not do that,'” she recalled.

A couple of babies later, though, they changed their minds. “It gets harder to think of names as you go on,” Lorine admitted.

Richard’s father Ralph believed it was inevitable. “With a name like June, it was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said.

Source: Clendening, Roger. “Her parents love their little calendar girl.” Tampa Bay Times 17 Apr. 1995.

Name quotes #78: Brene, Neal, Cardi

double quotation mark

An unedited tweet from Cardi B, whose sister’s name is Hennessy:

Fun fact :Always wanted a daughter and I always used to say imma name her HennyLynn. It’s a cute mix of my sisters name but then I started calling my sister HennyLynn then it became one of the nicknames I gave my sister so it woulda been weird naming my daughter that .

From an article about a Georgia man whose name, Neal, came from a POW bracelet:

His father, the late John Carpenter, was an aircraft mechanic in the Navy and was deployed overseas at the time. He arrived home in time for his son’s birth. When it became necessary to scramble and find a boy’s name, John Carpenter looked down at the POW/MIA bracelet he was wearing.

The engraved name was Neal Clinton Ward Jr. He had been listed as Missing in Action since June 13, 1969. An airman, his plane had been shot down over Laos in the jungles of Southeast Asia, nine days before his 24th birthday.

The Carpenters named their son Neal Ward Carpenter.

(Neal’s mom had been convinced the baby would be a girl. Neal said: “I was going to be April Michelle, and that’s all there was to it.”)

Research professor and author Brené Brown on her unique name:

Growing up, every time we drove from San Antonio to Houston, going to Stuckey’s — all these places where you buy monogrammed shirts and glasses — I was so put out because there was never a “Brené.” So I think I made up in my head that it was French. And then I hitchhiked across Europe after high school and I got to France and I was like, “Je suis Brené!” And they were like, “What kind of name is that?” They’d never heard of it. My parents just made it up. I had a whole narrative in high school — “When I bust out of this suburban Spring, Texas, high school I’m going to go back to France where my people are!” But, no, it’s not French — it’s south side San Antonio.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.