How popular is the baby name Day 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 Day.

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Popularity of the Baby Name Day


Posts that Mention the Name Day

Baby born on D-Day, named Deeday

D-Day

A baby boy born in England on June 6, 1944, was named Deeday Rodney White — primarily because his father, Bert, kept hearing the term “D-Day” on the radio:

All his father reported hearing on the wireless the morning he was born was about the D-Day landings.

“He said to me all he could hear was ‘D-Day, D-Day, D-Day being drummed into my head’.”

Mr. White said initially the registrar refused to accept the name, saying the operation was top secret.

His father returned the next day with a copy of the Daily Mirror reporting the news of the D-Day landings on the French coast.

The name doesn’t have a hyphen on his birth certificate, but Mr. White prefers to write it “Dee-Day.”

And, even though he “hated” the name as a child, he became proud of it as an adult — so much so that he passed it down to his own son.

(Other D-Day babies include Dee Day, Invasia, and D-Day.)

Source: “D-Day: The baby named after the Normandy landings.” BBC News 5 Jun. 2019.

Where did the baby name Armistice come from in 1918?

Headline "Armistice Is Signed" on the front page of the Carson City Daily Appeal (Nov. 11, 1918)

The word Armistice, which refers to cessation of combat, popped up in the U.S. baby name data in 1918:

  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: 5 baby boys named Armistice
  • 1918: 5 baby girls named Armistice [debut]
  • 1917: unlisted
  • 1916: unlisted

The influence, of course, was the Armistice declared on November 11, 1918, that signaled the end of World War I. From that point forward, November 11 became known as Armistice Day*.

Newspaper headlines across the nation highlighted the word. Here’s another example:

Headline "Armistice Is Signed" on the front page of the Evening Missourian (Nov. 11, 1918)

And another:

Headline "Armistice Signed - War Over" on the front page of the Brattleboro Daily Reformer (Nov. 11, 1918)

A few of the babies named Armistice even got “Day” as a middle name. And at least one of these “Armistice Day” babies, born in Connecticut in 1927, managed to make it into the papers:

Bridgeport, it has developed, is to have an Armistice Day the year round. Born on Nov. 11 last, the infant daughter of a local family is believed to be the first child in the country named in honor of the world holiday. Her official name is “Armistice Day Guiseppina [sic] Olympia Bredice.” Her father is an employee of a local sewing machine factory.

What do you think of Armistice as a first name?

*It was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

Source: “Baby named “Armistice Day”.” Reading Eagle 23 Nov. 1927: 4.
Images: LOC

P.S. More WWI baby names: Foch, Marne, Allenby, Joffre, Pershing, Tasker, and Liberty.

Babies named Thanksgiving

turkey

We’ve talked about people named Easter, Fourth (of July), Halloween, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year…what about Thanksgiving?

I mean, we’ve already met Dr. Happy Thanksgiving, but are there more?

Yes, at least a few dozen more. As you’d expect, nearly all were born in late November. Here are three examples:

The two most recent Thanksgivings I found were both born in the 1990s.

Image by Mohan Nannapaneni from Pixabay

Mexican state bans baby names like Rambo, Robocop

banned baby names in sonora, mexico

On February 10, the Civil Registration Act went into effect in the Mexican state of Sonora (which is right across the border from Arizona).

Article 46 of the act allows local authorities to reject baby names they deem derogatory, discriminatory, defamatory, libelous and meaningless, among other things.

The state also banned 61 specific baby names, and will likely ban more names in the future. All of the banned names came directly from Sonora’s birth registries (meaning that each has been used at least once already).

After doing some digging, I finally found the full list of banned names on a Mexican news site. Here it is:

  1. Aceituno
  2. Aguinaldo
  3. All Power
  4. Aniv de la Rev (short for “anniversary of the revolution”)
  5. Batman
  6. Beneficia (meaning “benefits”)
  7. Burger King
  8. Cacerolo
  9. Calzón (meaning “panties”)
  10. Caraciola
  11. Caralampio
  12. Cesárea
  13. Cheyenne
  14. Christmas Day
  15. Circuncisión (meaning “circumcision”)
  16. Culebro
  17. Delgadina (meaning “the skinny girl.” It’s from the Mexican folk song “La Delgadina.”)
  18. Diódoro
  19. Email
  20. Escroto (meaning “scrotum”)
  21. Espinaca (meaning “spinach”)
  22. Facebook
  23. Fulanita (meaning “so-and-so” or “what’s-her-name”)
  24. Gordonia
  25. Gorgonio
  26. Harry Potter
  27. Hermione
  28. Hitler
  29. Hurraca
  30. Iluminada
  31. Indio
  32. James Bond
  33. Lady Di
  34. Marciana (meaning “martian”)
  35. Masiosare (meaning “if one should dare,” roughly. It’s from the phrase mas si osare, which is part of the Mexican National Anthem.)
  36. Micheline
  37. Panuncio
  38. Patrocinio (meaning “patronage” or “sponsorship”)
  39. Petronilo
  40. Piritipio
  41. Pocahontas
  42. Pomponio
  43. Privado (meaning “private”)
  44. Procopio
  45. Rambo
  46. Robocop
  47. Rocky
  48. Rolling Stone
  49. Sobeida
  50. Sol de Sonora
  51. Sonora Querida
  52. Telésforo
  53. Terminator
  54. Tránsito (meaning “transit”)
  55. Tremebundo (meaning “terrifying” or “terrible”)
  56. Twitter
  57. Usnavy
  58. Verulo
  59. Virgen (meaning “virgin”)
  60. Yahoo
  61. Zoila Rosa

Some thoughts:

  • Facebook is the legal first name of at least 2 human beings at this point. Amazing.
  • Robocop, I must admit, has been on my “baby names I am dying to find in the wild” list for many years. At last, proof that it exists! Exciting stuff. (Haven’t yet come across any babies named Chucknorris, however. Fingers still crossed on that one.)
  • Hermione? I can see why Sonora would object to “Harry Potter” and “James Bond,” but Hermione by itself (as opposed to “Hermione Granger”) makes no sense. Hermione is a legitimate (and lovely) name that existed long before the Potter books.

What are your thoughts? And, which name on the list above shocked you the most?

Sources: