How popular is the baby name Carolina 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 Carolina.

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Popularity of the baby name Carolina


Posts that mention the name Carolina

The 20 children of Johann Sebastian Bach

German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
Johann Sebastian Bach

German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) had a total of 20 children.

He had seven with his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (who was his 2nd cousin). Four of these children survived to adulthood.

  1. Catharina Dorothea (1708-1774)
  2. Wilhelm Friedemann (1710-1784)
  3. Maria Sophia [twin] (1713)
  4. Johann Christoph [twin] (1713)
  5. Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788)
  6. Johann Gottfried Bernhard (1715-1739)
  7. Leopold Augustus (1718-1719)

The other 13 he had with his second wife, Anna Magdalena Wilcke. Six survived to adulthood.

  1. Christiana Sophia Henrietta (1723-1726)
  2. Gottfried Heinrich (1724-1763)
  3. Christian Gottlieb (1725-1728)
  4. Elisabeth Juliana Friderica (1726-1781)
  5. Ernestus Andreas (1727)
  6. Regina Johanna (1728-1733)
  7. Christiana Benedicta Louisa (1730)
  8. Christiana Dorothea (1731-1732)
  9. Johann Christoph Friedrich (1732-1795)
  10. Johann August Abraham (1733)
  11. Johann Christian (1735-1782)
  12. Johanna Carolina (1737-1781)
  13. Regina Susanna (1742-1800)

Do you like any of these names? If so, which ones?

Sources:

  • David, Hans T., Arthur Mendel and Christoph Wolff. The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.
  • Schulenberg, David. Bach. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Creative Brazilian baby names: Nausea, Welfare, Barrigudinha

The LA Times published an interesting article on Brazilian baby names several years ago (in 1999). Here are some highlights:

Brazilian parents who like creative spellings tend to gravitate toward the letters K, W and Y because — at the time the article was written — these letters were not technically part of Brazilian Portuguese.

[In 2009, Brazil enacted spelling reforms that officially added K, W and Y to the alphabet. I’m not sure if this has made them any less desirable for baby names.]

Examples of creative spellings: Tayane (Diana), Kerolyne (Carolina).

Sometimes, parents choose names inspired by Jogo do Bicho (“the animal game” or “the animal lottery”). This is “a kind of urban numbers game based on superstitions that imbue animals and dates with good luck.”

Example of an animal lottery name: Antonio Treze de Junio de Mil Novecentos e Dezesette (June 13, 1917).

There are distinct class differences when it comes to naming:

  • In Rio’s favelas (slums), “Edson, Robson, Anderson and Washington are favorite first names […] partly because of the percussive “on” sound and partly because American-sounding names are seen as cool and classy.”
  • Many lower-middle-class parents go for more elaborate names. The Rio registrar explaining these class differences said that, “[b]y seeking status, some cross the line into silliness.” He gave examples like Siddartha, Michael Jackson, Concetta Trombetta Diletta and Marafona (synonym for prostitute).
  • Many wealthy and upwardly mobile parents stick to simple, classic names.

“Brazilian law forbids names that could expose children to ridicule,” but the law is rarely enforced. For instance, the following names made it through…

  • Antonio Morrendo das Dores (Dying of Pain)
  • Barrigudinha (Little-Bellied Girl)
  • Ben Hur
  • Colapso Cardiaco (Cardiac Collapse)
  • D’Artagnan
  • Flavio Cavalcanti Rei da Televisao (King of Television)
  • Nausea
  • Nostradamus
  • Onurb (the reversed spelling of his surname, Bruno)
  • Onurd (brother of Onurb)
  • Saddam Hussein
  • Skylab
  • Tchaikovsky Johannsen Adler Pryce Jackman Faier Ludwin Zolman Hunter Lins (goes by “Tchai”)
  • Waterloo
  • Welfare (He said he was named after his father. “My grandfather’s name was Moacir, which in the Tupi Guarani indigenous language means Bad Omen. So he named my father Welfare, because it meant well-being, which was the opposite. And there was a famous English soccer player in Sao Paulo named Harry Welfare.”)
  • Xerox

Do you know anyone from Brazil with an interesting name or name story?

Sources:

Baby name story: Caroline

Remember Invicta, the baby name inspired by a childhood memory of steamrollers and “the smell of thick, black tar”?

Well, I’ve found another baby name that can be traced back to a vivid childhood memory. This memory belongs to writer Mary Schneider:

Her name came to me when I was seven months pregnant and still trying to think of something suitable to call her. At the time, I was walking down a flight of stairs when I became aware of the sunlight streaming through a side window.

Suddenly, I was transported back in time. I was sixteen years old and enjoying the long summer break from school. I’d just cleared all my household chores for the day and was getting ready to visit a friend when I heard the front door slamming – it was my mother coming in from the garden.

I came out of my room and went to the top of the stairs, just in time to see her vigorously unfurling a rug on the floor behind the front door.

As she hurried away, I watched the dust motes rising upwards, made visible by the shafts of sunlight that streamed through the little window at the side of the door. As the motes reached their apex and slowly began to float downwards through the thick air, I stopped mid-step on the staircase, mesmerized.

Just then, the sound of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” came drifting out of the living room to mingle with the dust motes. Illuminated all the more by a sudden increase in sunlight, the motes took on even more of a magical effect as they continued their downward dance.

A few minutes later, the show was over, and I was left on the staircase with Neil Diamond.

That song stuck with me long after the summer sun had disappeared from the Scottish sky. And now I have my own sweet Caroline.

If you come across any other great name stories like this one, please let me know!

Source: Schneider, Mary. “What’s in a name?” Star [Malaysia]. 11 Sep. 2006.

Multiple middle names in the British upper class

Many babies born into the British upper class are bestowed with a string of given names.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Centuries ago, multiple middles were unheard of. They began creeping in only when “two names had ceased to be a distinction.” The trend started at the very top:

The court again set the example, and in 1738, George III was baptized by the names George William Frederic. But for many years this fashion was regarded as too absurd for Englishmen to follow.

This explains why, when John Dawnay, 4th Viscount Downe, gave his firstborn two middles in 1764 he was ridiculed by fellow society member George “Gilly” Williams:

Downe’s child is to be christened this evening. The sponsors I know not, but his three names made me laugh not a little, John Christopher Burton. I wish to God, when he arrives at the years of puberty, he may marry Mary Josephina Antonietta Bentley.

Oliver Goldsmith mocked the fad as well with the character Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs in his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).

But, as we all know, the fad stuck. Despite the detractors.

A number of British WWI officers, for instance, had two middle names. Examples include Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee (b. 1859) and Berkeley George Andrew Moynihan (b. 1865).

And Prince William, married just the other day, has three middle names: Arthur, Philip and Louis. So does his brother, Prince Harry: Charles, Albert and David.

Do you know anyone with more than one middle name? (No problem if the person isn’t British and/or a member of the upper class.)

Sources:

  • Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell. Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature. London: Chatto & Windus, 1897.
  • Jesse, John Heneage. George Selwyn and His Contemporaries. Vol. 1. London: John C. Nimmo, 1901.