How popular is the baby name Edward 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 Edward.

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Popularity of the baby name Edward


Posts that mention the name Edward

Where did the baby name Bode come from in 1998?

American skier Bode Miller (in 2008)
Bode Miller

Bode Miller is one of the greatest Alpine skiers in American history. He’s won six Olympic medals and competed in five Winter Olympics: 1998 (Nagano), 2002 (Salt Lake City), 2006 (Turin), 2010 (Vancouver), and 2014 (Sochi).

Notice how the baby name Bode debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1998 and spiked in usage every four years thereafter:

  • 2017: 170 baby boys named Bode
  • 2016: 203 baby boys named Bode
  • 2015: 264 baby boys named Bode [rank: 849th]
  • 2014: 294 baby boys named Bode [rank: 784th]
  • 2013: 115 baby boys named Bode
  • 2012: 166 baby boys named Bode
  • 2011: 190 baby boys named Bode
  • 2010: 287 baby boys named Bode [rank: 775th]
  • 2009: 94 baby boys named Bode
  • 2008: 105 baby boys named Bode
  • 2007: 143 baby boys named Bode
  • 2006: 235 baby boys named Bode [rank: 855th]
  • 2005: 82 baby boys named Bode
  • 2004: 55 baby boys named Bode
  • 2003: 60 baby boys named Bode
  • 2002: 131 baby boys named Bode
  • 2001: unlisted
  • 2000: 8 baby boys named Bode
  • 1999: 7 baby boys named Bode
  • 1998: 8 baby boys named Bode [debut]
  • 1997: unlisted

So how did Samuel Bode Miller — who was born and raised in rural Easton, New Hampshire — get that interesting middle name?

According to his 2005 autobiography, Bode’s name simply came from the English word bode. It “means to indicate by signs, but it was the sound of it that my mother liked.” He pronounces it BOH-dee instead of BOHD because, as he says, the “diminutive form stuck.”

And he’s not the only person in his family with an interesting name. His older sister is Kyla (no middle name, notably), his younger sister is Gennie Wren (in full: Genesis Wren Bungo Windrushing Turtleheart Miller), and his late younger brother was Chelone, nicknamed “Chilly” (in full: Nathaniel Kinsman Ever Chelone Skan Miller).

Wren’s naming “was a family effort” said Bode:

Jo gave her the “Genesis Wren”; I called her “Bungo” after the Bungay Jar, the local wind, because it was so breezy the day she was born. Kyla gave her Windrushing for the same reason, and “Turtleheart” was the ever-present and recurring Woody-inspired turtle meme in our lives up on Turtle Ridge. The turtle may be Woody’s totem. It wouldn’t surprise me.

(The kids called their parents, Jo and Woody, by their first names.)

And here’s how they chose a name for Chelone (pronounced chel-OWN):

My folks hiked Mount Moosilauke when my mother was good and pregnant with him and found a flower on top they liked so much that they brought it home. When they looked it up and found that it was an herbaceous perennial called chelone, also known as turtlehead, they considered it a nice omen and planted it outside the door.

Three days after he was born, my mother was headed into town with the new baby, named Thane at the time. She was going to the laundromat when she came across a turtle in the road. It was big and blocked their way, so she had to stop. As she watched the shell waddle across Easton Road, it occurred to Jo how little she like the name Thane, and how much she liked the name Chelone.

If you’re wondering about the name Skan, it’s “a Lakota term for the great spirit of the universe.” Kinsman is no doubt a reference to location: their childhood home was on the side of Kinsman Mountain. In fact, the mountain was named for early settler Nathaniel Kinsman — Chelone’s first two names.

But getting back to Bode…he has welcomed eight children so far:

  • Neesyn Dacey (daughter, b. 2008)
  • Samuel Bode (son, b. 2013)
  • Edward Nash Skan (son, b. 2015) – named in honor of Chelone
  • Emeline Grier (daughter, 2016-2018)
  • Easton Vaughn Rek (son, b. 2018) – named after Easton, NH
  • Asher (son, b. 2019) – twin
  • Aksel (son, b. 2019) – twin
  • Scarlet Olivia Khione (daughter, b. 2021) – the name of the Greek deity Khione/Chione is based on the ancient Greek word khion, meaning “snow.”

What are your thoughts on the baby name Bode? If you were going to use it, how would you pronounce it?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Miller Bode 2008 by Hans Bezard under CC BY-SA 4.0.

[Latest update: Oct. 2023]

Baby name story: Nimrod Shackleton

Years before the the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Ernest Shackleton led the Nimrod Expedition to Antarctica. The party set sail from Lyttelton, New Zealand, on January 1, 1908.

A few months later, a New Zealand newspaper reported that a local baby had been given an expedition-inspired name:

What would the infants say if they felt the full weight of the names that are put upon them? Since Lieut. Shackleton left for the Antarctic with the Nimrod a baby — presumably a boy — at Lyttelton has been christened “Nimrod Shackleton.” Shall we hear of a dainty wee girl being dubbed Mollymawk, and will these islands be by-and-bye picturesque with Albatross Jones, King Edward VII Land Smith, Penguin Peterson, Antarctica Adams?

I can’t find any record of the baby, but I can tell you that a “mollymawk” is a type of albatross whose name comes from the Dutch word mallemok (from mal, “foolish,” and mok, “gull”).

Sources:

Name-spotting: Melancthon

Sign inside Garden of the Gods park
Sign inside Garden of the Gods

We visited the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs recently. Inside the park, we spotted a “What’s In a Name?” sign that described how the park got its name back in the late 1850s:

As they looked over this area of cathedral-like rock spires, one man, Malancthon Beach, commented that the spot would be a great place for a beer garden someday. His friend, a poetic young man named Rufous Cable, replied that it was a place “fit for the Gods.”

It’s a cool story. To me, though, the first name “Malancthon” is way more interesting than the origin of the park name. :) Where did it come from?

Well, first, a couple of spelling corrections — Beach’s name was Melancthon, and Cable’s name was Rufus. They were two of the founders of Colorado City (which was later absorbed into Colorado Springs).

My best guess is that “Melancthon” is a tribute to 16th-century German theologian Philipp Melanchthon, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. His surname at birth was Schwartzerd (“black earth” in German), but as a young man he Latinized his name to the classical equivalent Melanchthon (“black earth” in Greek).

CCC Company 1848, Camp SP-13-C, Morrison, Colorado

We also saw some names at Red Rocks, which is both a park and a famous amphitheater.

The amphitheater was constructed from 1936 to 1941 by men in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work relief program that existed during the Great Depression. One display included a photo of 124 of the men in the local CCC. Here are their first names, sorted by frequency:

  • 5: Joe, Raymond
  • 4: Charles
  • 3: Arthur, Clarence, Edward
  • 2: Bill, Byron, Carl, David, Earnest, Edwin, Everett, Jack, James, Leo, Maurice, William
  • 1: Aaron, Albert, Aldine, Alfonso, Allen, Alva, Amos, Ancelmo, Arleigh, Aubrey, Audrey, Barnett, Blaine, Calvin, Celestino, Charley, Claud, Claude, Clayton, Cleston, Dale, Damas, Dan, Darold, Dick, Don, Donald, Ed, Elden, Elias, Elipio, Emerson, Emilio, Eric, Ernest, Eston, Fares, Frank, Fred, Glenn, Grant, Gust, Guy, Horace, Hubert, Irvin, Jake, Jasper, Jesse, Jim, John, Jose, Kenneth, Lawrence, Leland, Leonard, Lester, Louis, Lyman, Manual, Marvin, Max, Merce, Noah, Norman, Orval, Pasqual, Paul, Pete, Richard, Rowland, Rudolfo, Russel, Russell, Sandeford, Trenton, Willard

…What interesting names have you spotted while out and about recently?

Source: Melancthon Sayre Beach – Find a Grave

[Latest update: Jan. 2025]

Baby name story: Lloyd

MS Berlin
MS Berlin

In late 1964, a baby boy was born to Maria and Gottfried Spizenberger while they were aboard the ocean liner Berlin en route from Bremerhaven and New York.

The MS Berlin was owned by the North German shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd, so the Spizenbergers named their new baby Lloyd, after the shipping company.

In fact, the surname Lloyd is used frequently in the names of shipping companies. Examples include Balkan Lloyd, Österreichischer Lloyd, Hapag-Lloyd (a descendant of Norddeutscher Lloyd), Lloyd Sabaudo, Asiatic Lloyd, and Atlantic Lloyd.

Why? It all goes back to coffee…kinda.

A man named Edward Lloyd founded a coffee house in London in the 1680s. Lloyd’s Coffee House was a meeting spot for London merchants and ship-owners, and soon became known as a place where ship-owners could obtain marine insurance. Many years later, this evolved into the famous insurance market Lloyd’s of London.

But going back to the marine insurance thing: “[F]or the past century or more, the name [Lloyd]…has been freely borrowed by maritime companies around the world in the belief that it added cachet.” And this is why the surname Lloyd — which is based on the Welsh word for “gray” — pops up so often in the names of shipping companies worldwide.

What are your thoughts on name Lloyd? Do you prefer it as a name for a baby, a coffee house, or a shipping company?

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