How popular is the baby name Douglas 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 Douglas.

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Popularity of the baby name Douglas


Posts that mention the name Douglas

What gave the baby name Jacque a boost in 1950?

Jacque Mercer (1931-1982), Miss America 1949
Jacque Mercer

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Jacque (pronounced like Jackie) saw its highest-ever usage in 1950:

  • 1952: 135 baby girls named Jacque [rank: 766th]
  • 1951: 172 baby girls named Jacque [rank: 668th]
  • 1950: 236 baby girls named Jacque [rank: 539th]
  • 1949: 139 baby girls named Jacque [rank: 719th]
  • 1948: 94 baby girls named Jacque [rank: 897th]

Why?

Because of beauty queen Jacque Mercer, who was crowned Miss America 1949 in Atlantic City that September.

She’d also won the talent portion of the competition with “a dramatic reading from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.”

Jacque Mercer (1931-1982), Miss America 1949
Jacque Mercer

She told reporters that her future plans were “marriage first, career second,” and she meant it — she was back in the headlines a few months later, after impulsively marrying her boyfriend Douglas in late December. (They divorced in 1952.)

Jacque, born Jacquelyn Joy Mercer, grew up on a ranch in Arizona. “Her mother had married at fifteen and had named her daughter Jacque after a doll she had had.”

What are your thoughts on the name Jacque?

Sources:

Images:

Popular baby names in Ireland, 2023

Flag of Ireland
Flag of Ireland

Last year, the Republic of Ireland — which covers five-sixths of the island of Ireland — welcomed roughly 55,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Grace and Jack.

Here are Ireland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2023:

Girl Names

  1. Grace, 339 baby girls
  2. Fiadh (pronounced FEE-a), 300
  3. Emily, 297
  4. Sophie, 283
  5. Lily, 270
  6. Ellie, 252
  7. Mia, 242
  8. Amelia, 241 (tie)
  9. Éabha (pronounced EY-va), 241 (tie)
  10. Ella, 231
  11. Isla, 227
  12. Hannah, 226
  13. Sophia, 218
  14. Lucy, 214
  15. Ava, 207
  16. Sadie, 200
  17. Olivia, 199
  18. Freya, 188
  19. Emma, 183
  20. Chloe, 181
  21. Robyn, 180
  22. Molly, 176
  23. Anna, 166 (tie)
  24. Croía (pronounced KREE-a), 166 (tie)
  25. Evie, 165
  26. Caoimhe (pronounced KEE-va or KWEE-va), 158
  27. Saoirse (pronounced SEER-sha or SAYR-sha), 157 (tie)
  28. Cara, 157 (tie)
  29. Sofia, 156
  30. Millie, 150
  31. Aoife (pronounced EE-fa), 148
  32. Isabelle, 132
  33. Bonnie, 130
  34. Maya, 128 (tie)
  35. Ada, 128 (tie)
  36. Róisín (pronounced ROH-sheen), 127
  37. Ruby, 126
  38. Kate, 123 (tie)
  39. Alice, 123 (tie)
  40. Holly, 120 (3-way tie)
  41. Erin, 120 (3-way tie)
  42. Sadhbh (pronounced siev; rhymes with “5”), 120 (3-way tie)
  43. Leah, 119
  44. Isabella, 118 (3-way tie)
  45. Ailbhe (pronounced AL-va), 118 (3-way tie)
  46. Méabh (pronounced mayv), 118 (3-way tie)
  47. Zoe, 115
  48. Annie, 112
  49. Ivy, 111
  50. Willow, 110

Boy Names

  1. Jack, 561 baby boys
  2. Noah, 473
  3. James, 369
  4. Rían (pronounced REE-an), 339
  5. Oisín (pronounced UH-sheen or OH-sheen), 330
  6. Fionn (pronounced fyun or fyoon), 306
  7. Tadhg (pronounced tieg, like the first part of “tiger”), 301
  8. Liam, 289
  9. Cillian (pronounced KIL-ee-an), 275
  10. Daniel, 256
  11. Finn, 251
  12. Conor, 244 (tie)
  13. Charlie, 244 (tie)
  14. Seán (pronounced shawn), 240
  15. Michael, 239
  16. Leo, 237
  17. Theo, 233
  18. Thomas, 227
  19. Patrick, 221
  20. Luke, 215
  21. Tommy, 214
  22. Oliver, 211
  23. Adam, 201
  24. Harry, 198
  25. Luca, 197
  26. Darragh, 195
  27. Alex, 175
  28. Bobby, 157
  29. Cian (pronounced KEE-an or keen), 156
  30. Oscar, 154
  31. John, 152 (tie)
  32. Max, 152 (tie)
  33. Ryan, 151
  34. Páidí (pronounced PAW-dee), 150
  35. Jamie, 149
  36. Ben, 147
  37. Kai, 141 (tie)
  38. Ollie, 141 (tie)
  39. Tom, 135
  40. Matthew, 134
  41. Dylan, 132
  42. Callum, 131
  43. Sonny, 130
  44. Sam, 129
  45. Ethan, 127 (tie)
  46. Alfie, 127 (tie)
  47. David, 122
  48. Alexander, 118
  49. Mason, 116
  50. Caelan, 114

New to the girls’ top 100 were Lucia, Cadhla (pronounced KIE-la) and Síofra (pronounced SHEE-fra).

New to the boys’ top 100 were Caelan, Jude, Paddy, Éanna (pronounced EY-na) and Dáithí (pronounced DAH-hee).

The fastest-rising names in the top 100 in terms of numbers of babies were:

  • Éala (increased by 41 baby girls), Ailbhe (+40), Méabh (+36), Zara (+33), Croía (+26)
  • Caelan (increased by 58 baby boys), Páidí (+41), Arlo (+35), Tommy (+30), Mark (+28)

And the fastest-rising names in terms of rank were:

  • Síofra (rose 57 spots on the girls’ list), Lucia (+43), Éala (+38), Lottie (+36), Zara (+31)
  • Caelan (rose 58 spots on the boys’ list), Mark (+46), Ruairí (+41), Eoin (+37), Arlo (+31)
Map of the four provinces of Ireland
Ireland’s four provinces

Home to more than five million people, the Republic of Ireland is divided into four provinces. (One of these provinces, Ulster, lies largely within Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.) The top baby names within each of the four provinces last year were…

Top Girl NameTop Boy Name
Leinster
(56% of the population)		GraceJack
Munster
(27% of pop.)		GraceJack
Connacht
(11% of pop.)		FiadhJack
Ulster [ROI portion]
(6% of pop.)		LilyJack

And what about the baby names at the other end of the spectrum?

Here’s a selection of the names that were given to just 3 babies each in Ireland last year:

Rare Girl NamesRare Boy Names
Adara, Brídín, Cushla, Dottie, Eilidh, Féile, Gillian, Hezlin, Iona, Jolene, Kalina, Lorna, Maliha, Natasha, Ocean, Philomena, Ríonach, Saffie, Tuiren, Vedika, Yasmine, ZadieAlby, Bram, Conal, Douglas, Elvis, Finnian, Gerald, Igor, Jonnie, Keenan, Lughaidh, Maitiú, Nathanael, Orin, Patryk, Rylan, Séadhna, Téidí, Ultán, Viktor, Wren, Yohan, Zachariah

Finally, here are Ireland’s 2022 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

Sources: Irish Babies’ Names – CSO (Irish Babies’ Names 2023), Births, Deaths and Marriages – CSO, Provinces of Ireland – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Ireland (public domain)
Map: Adapted from Provinces of Ireland location map by Ssolbergj under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Babies named for Frederick Douglass

American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
Frederick Douglass

Black abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was a former slave who became a renowned orator and author.

Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in 1818, he spent the first twenty years of his life enslaved in Maryland. He managed to teach himself to read and write during this time.

“In 1838, he fled north and changed his name to Frederick Douglass” in order to elude slave-hunters. (His new surname was chosen by a friend who’d been reading The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott.)

Douglass began giving speeches about his life as a slave, and in 1845 published his first (and most famous) autobiography: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. According to one source, “Frederick Douglass was the most prominent black man in the United States” by the time of the Civil War.

Going by what I was able to find in the records, dozens of baby boys were named after Frederick Douglass during his lifetime. Some examples…

One of his later namesakes was Douglas Wilder (b. 1931), the first African-American to be elected governor of a U.S. state (Virginia).

Sources: Frederick Douglass – Wikipedia, Frederick Douglass – White House Historical Association, Frederick Douglass – American Battlefield Trust, FamilySearch.org, Find a Grave

Image: Frederick Douglass (c. 1879)

Washington quintuplets: Adelyn, Eliana, Linnea, Harper, Fisher

kinderfest

In June of 2023, Stephanie and Graham Freels of Washington state welcomed quintuplets — four girls and one boy.

The babies were born at just 27 weeks gestation in Phoenix, Arizona (where their parents were living temporarily for specialized medical care).

After spending 11 weeks in the NICU, the “Freels Five” were discharged and the family flew home. Regarding the plane ride, Graham said: “They slept the entire time. It couldn’t have gone better.”

The quints’ names, in order, are:

  • Adelyn Katherine
  • Eliana Rose
  • Linnea Claire
  • Fisher Douglas
  • Harper Lynn

What are your thoughts on this set of names? Which first-middle combo do you like best?

Sources:

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus