How popular is the baby name Arne 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 Arne.
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“Everly” is hot…”Beverly” is not. It’s a one-letter difference between fashionable and fusty.
If you’re sensitive to style, you’ll prefer Everly. It fits with today’s trends far better than Beverly does.
But if you’re someone who isn’t concerned about style, or prefers to go against style, then you may not automatically go for Everly. In fact, you may be more attracted to Beverly because it’s the choice that most modern parents would avoid.
If you’ve ever thought about intentionally giving your baby a dated name (like Debbie, Grover, Marcia, or Vernon) for the sake of uniqueness within his/her peer group — if you have no problem sacrificing style for distinctiveness — then this list is for you.
Years ago, the concept of “contrarian” baby names came up in the comments of a post about Lois. Ever since then, creating a collection of uncool/contrarian baby names has been on my to-do list.
Finally, last month, I experimented with various formulas for pulling unstylish baby names out of the SSA dataset. Keeping the great-grandparent rule in mind, I aimed for names that would have been fashionable among the grandparents of today’s babies. The names below are the best results I got.
Interestingly, thirteen of the names above — Bobbie, Cary, Dale, Jackie, Jimmie, Jody, Kerry, Kim, Lynn, Robin, Sandy, Tracey, Tracy — managed to make both lists.
Now some questions for you…
Do you like any of these names? Would you be willing to use any of them on a modern-day baby? Why or why not?
Last week, Becca commented with some interesting Jeopardy! contestant names (e.g., Hobie, Dorcas) and mentioned J! Archive, which lists tens of thousands of Jeopardy! contestants going back to 1984, when the show premiered.
I skimmed through all the contestants from 1984 to 2015 (as we don’t have baby name data for 2016 yet) and spotted hundreds of unusual names. And it looks like at least two of them got a boost thanks to the show.
Alancia
The name Alancia was a one-hit wonder that popped up in the U.S. baby name data in 2000:
2002: unlisted
2001: unlisted
2000: 9 baby girls named Alancia [debut]
1999: unlisted
1998: unlisted
One-time player Alancia Wynn, a family practice physician from Virginia, was on Jeopardy! in October of 1999.
Brannon
The name Brannon saw an increase in usage in 1998:
2000: 116 baby boys named Brannon
1999: 118 baby boys named Brannon
1998: 158 baby boys named Brannon [peak]
1997: 113 baby boys named Brannon
1996: 114 baby boys named Brannon
One-time player Brannon Denning, a graduate student from Connecticut, was on Jeopardy! in September of 1998. (Looks like Brannon Denning is now a law professor at Samford University.)
Alaric & Ezgi …?
These two names may have gotten a slight boost as well, though it’s hard to tell.
Alaric, in 2005. One-time player Alaric Smith was on the show in October of 2005.
Ezgi, in 2015. One-time player Ezgi Ustundag was on the show in October of 2015.
Ezgi is a female name that means “melody” in Turkish.
Anjali (false positive)
“Kids Week” contestant Anjali Tripathi was on the show in September of 1999. The same year, the baby name Anjali more than doubled in usage:
2001: 222 baby girls named Anjali
2000: 230 baby girls named Anjali
1999: 202 baby girls named Anjali
1998: 93 baby girls named Anjali
1997: 80 baby girls named Anjali
But this was a suspiciously steep rise. And it was accompanied by the debut of an alternate spelling (Anjalie). And usage didn’t drop back to normal levels the next year, as one would expect. These facts pointed me to something more high-profile than a Jeopardy! contestant.
Turns out the very successful Hindi coming-of-age romantic comedy Kuch Kuch Hota Hai had been released in 1998. The movie featured not one but two main characters named Anjali.
More names!
Here are the rest of the names that caught my eye, sorted by year:
Next Sunday in Rio de Janeiro, 30-year-old identical (and alliterative) triplets Leila, Liina, and Lily Luik of Estonia are expected to run the women’s marathon. This will make the “Trio in Rio,” as they call themselves, the first set of triplets to compete in an Olympics.
In comparison, about 200 sets of twins have competed in the Olympics over the years. Here are some of the Olympic twins with similarly alliterative names:
Åke & Arne (Sweden) – not technically alliterative; see JJ’s comment
Catarina & Christina (Sweden)
Darius & Donatas (Lithuania)
Darrin & Dan (USA)
Dennis & Duane (USA)
Dionísio & Domingos (Portugal)
Jean-Jacques & Jean-Marc (France)
Jodie & Julie (Canada)
Jules & Julian (Belgium)
Katalin & Krisztina (Hungary)
Katrine & Kristine (Norway)
Lívia & Lucia (Slovakia)
Madeline & Margaret (Puerto Rico)
Marianne & Mildred (Netherlands)
Sandy & Sonia (Zimbabwe)
Malcolm “Mal” & Melville “Mel” (Jamaica)
Mark & Michael (Canada)
Maureen & Melanie (Netherlands)
McJoe & McWilliams (Puerto Rico)
Mikuláš & Miloslav (Slovakia)
Pascal & Patrick (France)
Paula & Peta (Bermuda)
Paulo Miguel & Pedro Miguel (Portugal)
Pavol & Peter (Slovakia)
Randolph & Robert (USA)
Rhoda & Rhona (Canada)
Ricardo & Rodrigo (Chile)
Sharon & Shirley (Canada)
Stanley & Sydney (Great Britain)
Tami & Toni (USA)
Terry & Tom (USA)
Valeriy & Volodymyr (Ukraine)
Valj & Vita (Ukraine)
Veronika & Viktoriya (Belarus)
Vida & Vidette (South Africa)
Zlatko & Zoran (Yugoslavia)
You can see a full list of Olympic twins in the OlympStats post Twins at the Olympics.
Have you been tuning in to the Olympics? If so, have you spotted any interesting names so far?
Looking for a set of baby names with something in common? If so, here are some 4-letter anagram names for you to check out!
Anagrams are words that contain the same set of letters, but not in the same sequence. For instance, the words “race,” “care,” and “acre” are all anagrams of one another.
Anagram names can be a neat option for siblings — particularly multiples (like twins and triplets). They’re also a clever way to connect a baby name to the name of an older relative (e.g., grandpa Gary, grandson Gray).
Below are hundreds of four-letter names (collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names) that happen to be anagrams of other names.
Four-letter anagram names
Adir, Adri, Ardi, Dair, Dari, Diar, Dira, Dria, Riad, Rida
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