How popular is the baby name Cybele 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 Cybele.

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Popularity of the baby name Cybele


Posts that mention the name Cybele

Popular and unique baby names in Zurich, 2021

Flag of Switzerland
Flag of Switzerland

According to the government of Zurich, the most popular baby names last year in the German-speaking Swiss city were Olivia and Noah.

Here are Zurich’s top girl names and top boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 28 baby girls
  2. Emma, 25
  3. Anna, 24 (tie)
  4. Ella, 24 (tie)
  5. Mia, 22 (3-way tie)
  6. Sofia, 22 (3-way tie)
  7. Sophia, 22 (3-way tie)
  8. Elena, 20
  9. Charlotte, 19
  10. Lina, 18
  11. Sophie, 17
  12. Yara, 16
  13. Nora, 15
  14. Clara, 14 (3-way tie)
  15. Lea, 14 (3-way tie)
  16. Zoe, 14 (3-way tie)

Boy Names

  1. Noah, 27 baby boys
  2. Leo, 24
  3. Louis, 22
  4. Theo, 20
  5. Levi, 18 (3-way tie)
  6. Luca, 18 (3-way tie)
  7. Mateo, 18 (3-way tie)
  8. Luis, 17 (tie)
  9. Maximilian, 17 (tie)
  10. Felix, 16 (4-way tie)
  11. Finn, 16 (4-way tie)
  12. Leonardo, 16 (4-way tie)
  13. Liam, 16 (4-way tie)
  14. Daniel, 15 (4-way tie)
  15. Elias, 15 (4-way tie)
  16. Jan, 15 (4-way tie)
  17. Vincent, 15 (4-way tie)

Though I’ve posted rankings for Switzerland before, I’ve never looked at the rankings for Zurich specifically, so I don’t have any past sets of rankings to compare this set to.

But — because Zurich’s rankings included everything from the top names down to the single-use names — I can give you a sampling of the baby names that were bestowed just once last year in Switzerland’s largest city:

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Aola, Belangie, Cybèle, Diola, Elfida, Flurina, Gresa, Heja, Illiyeen, Jenaja, Kumru, Leviah, Milaine, Nissy, Odine, Proxima, Quimey, Reisel, Shiffra, Tabia, Ursina, Vennila, Wilma, Yelira, ZoélieAstérion, Bodo, Corvin, Doruk, Ezriel, Falko, Giordano, Henning, Ilyas, Jaromir, Koshin, Leart, Mazlum, Nahuel, Orfeo, Pavle, Qiheng, Rikuto, Solan, Tanju, Umor, Viggo, Wybe, Yonah, Zaam

Sources: Vornamen-Verzeichnis 2021 – Stadt Zürich, The most popular baby names in Zurich in 2021, Zurich – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Switzerland (public domain)

Where did the baby name Cybele come from in 1963?

The character Cybele from the movie "Sundays and Cybele" (1963).
Cybèle from “Sundays and Cybèle“

The ancient name Cybele first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in relatively modern times — the 1960s.

  • 1965: 14 baby girls named Cybele
  • 1964: 16 baby girls named Cybele
  • 1963: 15 baby girls named Cybele [debut]
  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: unlisted

The variant spelling Cybelle debuted the same year.

Where did they come from?

A 1962 French film called Les dimanches de Ville d’Avray (The Sundays of Ville d’Avray), which was later re-titled for English audiences: Sundays and Cybèle. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in April of 1963.

The movie followed an emotionally damaged war veteran named Pierre (played by Hardy Krüger) as he starts an innocent friendship with a neglected schoolgirl named Cybèle (played by 11-year-old Patricia Gozzi). Their relationship “ultimately ignites the suspicion and anger of his friends and neighbors in suburban Paris,” with tragic results.

Cybele was pronounced sih-BELL by the American media at the time. The name ultimately comes from the name of the Greco-Roman mother goddess, Cybele.

What are your thoughts on this name?

Sources: Sundays and Cybele – Wikipedia, Sundays and Cybèle (1962) – The Criterion Collection

Baby name needed: What do you think of Phineas?

A reader named Virginia is expecting a baby in September. For a boy, she’d selected the name Phineas. She liked “that it was unusual without being bizarre,” and that it started with ph. But now she’s not so sure about the name:

All was fine and dandy until I read an article about violence in the Bible. It vaguely mentioned Phineas as a name from the Bible used as a talisman by white supremacists. What!?!

That was a shock to me too. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Phineas Priesthood is “a violent credo of vengeance that has gained some popularity among white supremacists and other extremists in recent years.” I’d never heard of the Phineas Priesthood before–not even when Julia Roberts named her son Phinnaeus a few years ago.

Virginia doesn’t want to give up her favorite name, but she also “can’t live with such an association,” so she was hoping for some name suggestions. Other names she’s considering include Joel and Samuel (for boys) and Sigrid, Phoebe, Elisabeth, and Anne (for girls). All are family names.

First, a few thoughts:

  • I doubt many people are aware that white supremacists use Phineas as a code word. It’s an odious association, but maybe it’s also obscure enough that it’s not worth worrying about…?
  • I really like Sigrid and Phoebe–they’re both significant and unusual. Especially Sigrid. (Phoebe is being used more and more every year, so it might not be unusual for long.)

And now, name suggestions. Here are some unusual-but-not-bizarre boy names that I think Virginia might like:

Amos
Barnabas
Baxter
Ephraim
Ezra		Felix
Horatio
Humphrey
Lazarus
Matthias		Maximilian
Moses
Peregrine
Ralph
Raphael		Rufus
Silas
Simeon
Ulysses
Zephaniah

And some girl names:

Clotilde
Cybele
Daphne
Dagny
Delphine		Drusilla
Esther
Fabiola
Georgia
Josephine		Lucretia
Ophelia
Penelope
Phyllis
Ruth		Salome
Seraphina
Talulla
Tryphena
Verena

What other names would you suggest to Virginia? (And, what’s your take on the Phineas dilemma?)

Update: The baby has arrived! Click here to learn the baby’s name.