How popular is the baby name Arabella 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 Arabella.
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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 names
Top 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
Mary, 149 baby girls
Catherine, 39
Sarah, 38
Ellen, 31
Margaret, 28
Elizabeth, 25
Alice, 24
Anna, 20
Ann, 16
Emma, 14
Eliza, 13
Clara & Martha, 11 each (tie)
Hannah & Lucy, 10 each (tie)
Bridget, Grace, Jennie, Julia & Maria, 9 each (5-way tie)
Annie, Florence, Jane, Minnie & Susan, 8 each (5-way tie)
Agnes, Caroline, Cora, Ella & Harriet, 7 each (5-way tie)
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the most popular baby names in England and Wales last year — for the fifth year in a row — were Olivia and Oliver.
Here are the top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2020:
Girl Names
Olivia, 3,640 baby girls
Amelia, 3,319
Isla, 2,749
Ava, 2,679
Mia, 2,303
Ivy, 2,166
Lily, 2,150
Isabella, 2,052
Rosie, 2,035
Sophia, 2,028
Boy Names
Oliver, 4,225 baby boys
George, 4,100
Arthur, 4,052
Noah, 4,042
Muhammad, 3,710
Leo, 3,314
Oscar, 3,268
Harry, 3,209
Archie, 2,944
Jack, 2,900
In the girls’ top 10, Ivy and Rosie replaced Grace and Freya.
In the boys’ top 10, Archie replaced Charlie. (No doubt Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to name their first child Archie in 2019 gave the name a boost, but Archie was on the rise in England and Wales long before it became a royal baby name.)
The fastest-rising names within the top 100 were…
Arabella, Mabel, Lyra, and Maeve (for girls)
Roman, Milo, Otis, and Myles (for boys)
(The popular British TV series Sex Education features main characters named Otis and Maeve.)
Here are the top 10 lists for England and Wales separately:
Liliwen comes from lili wen, one of the Welsh words for snowdrop (a small, white flower that blooms during the winter). The hyphenated variant Lili-wen was also given to three baby girls last year, bringing the grand total to six.
Also given to six baby girls last year? The name Eirlys, from eirlys, another Welsh word for snowdrop. :)
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 7, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 7-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “sevens” 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 Victoria correspond to the numbers 22, 9, 3, 20, 15, 18, 9, and 1. The sum of these numbers is 97. The digits of 97 added together equal 16, and the digits of 16 added together equal 7 — the numerological value of Victoria.
Baby names with a value of 7
Below you’ll find the most popular 7-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.
7 via 16
The letters in the following baby names add up to 16, which reduces to seven (1+6=7).
Girl names (7 via 16)
Boy names (7 via 16)
Ana, Jada, Alba, Adaia, Fia
Cal, Chad, Jae, Dak, Efe
7 via 25
The letters in the following baby names add up to 25, which reduces to seven (2+5=7).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number seven. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 7 being described as “truth-seeking,” “introspective,” “intellectual,” “reserved,” and “unusual.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 7:
Girl-crazy teenager Dobie Gillis was a character created by writer Max Shulman in the 1940s. He was first brought to life in the movie The Affairs of Dobie Gillis in 1953, but the most memorable portrayal of Dobie was by Dwayne Hickman in the four-season TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which premiered in September of 1959.
Dobie Gillis is notable for being “the first prime-time series to consistently privilege teenage characters, activities, and spaces over those associated with family shows.”
It was also known for the unusual character names. Dobie (pronounced doh-bee, rhymes with Toby) had friends with names like:
Maynard (a beatnik played by Bob Denver, who later portrayed Gilligan)
Zelda (a brainiac played by Sheila James Kuehl, sister of Jeri Lou)
Thalia Menninger (a rich girl played by Tuesday Weld)
These “uncommon first names [were] evidently meant to seem vaguely silly in their failure to conform with ’50s norms.”
The show ended up influencing the usage of several baby names. First of all, it was behind the debut of the name Dobie in 1960:
1964: 9 baby boys named Dobie
1963: unlisted
1962: 6 baby boys named Dobie
1961: 8 baby boys named Dobie
1960: 9 baby boys named Dobie [debut]
1959: unlisted
1958: unlisted
The name Thalia also saw a spike in usage in 1960, which makes sense because all but two of the episodes featuring Thalia Menninger were first-season (1959-1960) episodes. Dobie pronounced Thalia’s name thale-ya.
1964: 46 baby girls named Thalia
1963: 42 baby girls named Thalia
1962: 42 baby girls named Thalia
1961: 46 baby girls named Thalia
1960: 90 baby girls named Thalia
1959: 30 baby girls named Thalia
1958: 24 baby girls named Thalia
Finally, the name Zelda saw elevated usage in the early ’60s:
1964: 133 baby girls named Zelda
1963: 171 baby girls named Zelda
1962: 178 baby girls named Zelda
1961: 168 baby girls named Zelda
1960: 136 baby girls named Zelda
1959: 142 baby girls named Zelda
1958: 131 baby girls named Zelda
Fun fact: Zelda — who pursued Dobie as ardently as Dobie pursued all other females — once convinced a girl named Phyllis to break it off with Dobie by warning her that her married name would be “Phyllis Gillis.”
Many of the secondary and single-episode characters had unusual names as well. Here are some examples:
Aphrodite Arabella Aristede Blossom Bruno Bubbles Chatsworth
Do you like any of the above Dobie Gillis names? How about the name “Dobie” itself?
Sources:
Kearney, Mary C. “Teenagers and Television in the United States.” Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television, ed. by Horace Newcomb, 2nd ed., New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 2276-2281.
Sterritt, David. Mad to be Saved: The Beats, the ’50s, and Film. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998.
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