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.

The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.


Popularity of the baby name Edward


Posts that mention the name Edward

Popular baby names in Boston, 1640-1740

Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and Baby Mary (early 1670s)

Speaking of names in Boston Graveyards…I recently discovered a cool pair of books containing old Boston birth records from 1630 (the year Boston was founded) to just beyond 1800.

The records aren’t perfect/complete, but they’re good enough to determine the top names from year to year. So here’s an overview of the top 3 baby names per gender from 1640 to 1740 in 20-year increments:

1640
(50 babies accounted for; total Boston population 1,200.)

Girl Names, 1640Boy Names, 1640
1. Elizabeth (8)
2. Hannah & Mary (4 ea.)
3. Sarah (2)		1. John (7)
2. Samuel (4)
3. Deliverance, Elisha, Jonathan & Thomas (2 ea.)

1660
(135 babies accounted for; total Boston population 3,000.)

Girl Names, 1660Boy Names, 1660
1. Elizabeth & Sarah (12 ea.)
2. Mary (11)
3. Hannah (8)		1. John (15)
2. Joseph, Thomas & William (4 ea.)
3. Edward, Richard, Samuel & Timothy (3 ea.)

1680
(174 babies accounted for; total Boston population 4,500.)

Girl Names, 1680Boy Names, 1680
1. Elizabeth (17)
2. Mary (14)
3. Sarah (12)		1. John (21)
2. William (8)
3. Thomas (7)

1700
(219 babies accounted for; total Boston population 6,700.)

Girl Names, 1700Boy Names, 1700
1. Mary (23)
2. Elizabeth (18)
3. Ann, Sarah & Susanna (8 ea.)		1. John (31)
2. Thomas (15)
3. Benjamin, Joseph, Samuel & William (9 ea.)

1720
(282 babies accounted for; total Boston population 11,000.)

Girl Names, 1720Boy Names, 1720
1. Mary (31)
2. Elizabeth (26)
3. Sarah (17)		1. John (23)
2. William (18)
3. Samuel (17)

1740
(158 babies accounted for; total Boston population 17,000.)

Girl Names, 1740Boy Names, 1740
1. Mary (12)
2. Elizabeth (10)
3. Sarah (9)		1. John (14)
2. Joseph (11)
3. Samuel, Thomas & William (9 ea.)

Isn’t it interesting how Mary overtook Elizabeth as the #1 name for girls? The switch happened in the 1680s; Mary had already pulled ahead of Elizabeth by 1690.

The rare names were even more interesting (as usual!) so that’s what I’ll be posting about for the rest of the week, starting with a big list of them tomorrow…

Sources: Boston births, baptisms, marriages and deaths, 1630-1699, Boston births from A.D. 1700 to A.D. 1800, Population in the Colonial and Continental Periods – Census.gov (pdf), Population Trends in Boston 1640-1990

Names discovered thanks to Dallas road trip

Our hotel in Kansas had a waffle-maker in the shape of Texas.
We found this waffle iron in Kansas, not Texas.

A couple of weeks ago, while my husband and I were on a short road trip to Dallas, I spotted a couple of interesting place names.

On the way there, we passed the town of Estelline (infamous for its speed traps). Estelline was established in the 1890s and named after Estelle de Shields, the daughter of an early settler.

While searching for the local pronunciation of Estelline (“ES tuh leen”), I found a pronunciation guide that concisely listed every Texas town, so of course I had to scan it for oddballs (e.g., Dime Box, Fair Play, Goodnight, Tarzan, Wink). And some of those weird town names also happen to be human names:

  • Brazoria: Beatrice Brazoria Mcleod, born in Texas in 1903.
  • Cotulla: Cotulla Ann Farr, born in Texas in 1982.
  • Flatonia: Jewell Flatonia Defoor, born in Texas in 1907.
  • Floydada: Floydada Christopher, born in Texas in 1924.
  • Hermleigh: Hermleigh Edward Presnall, born in Texas in 1917.
  • Mobeetie: Mary Mobeetie Cox, born in Texas in 1887.
  • Monthalia: Bertha Emma Monthalia Bahlmann, born in Texas circa 1899.
  • Splendora: Splendora, a one-hit wonder on the SSA’s list in 1923. (I don’t think this has anything to do with the town, though; the name Splendora is sometimes used in Italian families.)
  • Waxahachie: Waxahachie Arthur, born in Alabama in 1886. (But he was probably named after Alabama’s Waxahatchee Creek, not the Texas town.)

On the way back, we took a different route (through Oklahoma and Kansas). Near the Kansas/Colorado border, we passed a sign for the border town of Kanorado — a portmanteau created from the state names. I couldn’t find any humans with the name Kanorado, but I did track down people named for other border towns with portmanteau names:

  • Arkoma (Arkansas + Oklahoma), Oklahoma: Helena Arkoma Yost, born in Arkansas in 1908.
  • Calneva (California + Nevada), California: Calneva Wakeman, born in California in 1914.
  • Illmo (Illinois + Missouri), Missouri: Illmo Speer, born in Missouri circa 1907.
  • Kenova (Kentucky + Ohio + West Virginia), West Virginia: Virginia Kenova Woods, born in West Virginia in 1898.
  • Tennga (Tennessee + Georgia), Georgia: Tennga Conner, born in Georgia in 1914.
  • Texhoma (Texas + Oklahoma), Texas/Oklahoma: John Texhoma Weatherly, born in Texhoma in 1906.
  • Texarkana (Texas + Arkansas + Louisiana), Arkansas/Texas: Texarkana Donathan, born in Arkansas in 1885. (I found dozens of people with this name, actually. Nicknames included Teck, Texie & Kanna.)
  • Uvada (Utah + Nevada), Nevada: Ida Uvada Payne, born in Utah in 1919. (Found dozens of Uvadas as well.)

Speaking of Ida Uvada, I’m surprised that I found no one named after the Nevada town of Idavada (Idaho + Nevada). I did find a handful of people named “Ida Vada,” though.

Sources: Estelline – Texas State Historical Association, Texas Almanac Pronunciation Guide (pdf), Border Towns in the U.S. with Portmanteau Names

P.S. I’ve also found names on trips to/through Arizona, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Missouri.

Popular baby names in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1867

19th-century Providence, Rhode Island
19th-century Providence

The registrar of Providence, Rhode Island, published a series of documents listing all “of the names of persons deceased, born and married in the city of Providence” during years 1866, 1867 and 1868. The series may have been longer, but these are the only documents I could find online.

I’ve finally finished creating a set of rankings using one of the documents — 1867. But before we get to the rankings, here are some stats:

  • 1,547 babies were born in Providence in 1867, going by the number of babies listed in the document itself. According to the document’s introduction, though, the number is 1,625. Not sure what to make of this discrepancy.
  • 1,431 of these babies (713 girls and 718 boys) had names that were registered with the government at the time of publication. The other 116 babies got blank spaces. Either their names hadn’t been registered yet, or they hadn’t been named yet, or perhaps they died young and never received a name.
  • 254 unique names (141 girl names and 113 boy names) were shared among these 1,431 babies.

And now, on to the names…

Top 5

A quick look at the top 5 girl names and boy names in Providence in 1867:

Top baby girl namesTop baby boy names
1. Mary
2. Catherine
3. Ellen
4. Margaret
5. Sarah		1. John
2. William
3. James
4. Charles
5. George

All Girl Names

Notice how the #1 name, Mary, was bestowed three times as often as the #2 name, Catherine.

  1. Mary, 138 baby girls
  2. Catherine, 46
  3. Ellen, 37
  4. Margaret, 34
  5. Sarah, 31
  6. Annie, 19
  7. Elizabeth, 16
  8. Alice, 15
  9. Florence, 14
  10. Ann, Emma & Ida, 12 each (3-way tie)
  11. Minnie, 11
  12. Harriet & Julia, 9 each (2-way tie)
  13. Anna, Caroline, Carrie, Jennie, Joanna & Louisa, 8 each (6-way tie)
  14. Cora & Eliza, 7 each (2-way tie)
  15. Agnes, Clara, Edith, Rosanna & Theresa, 6 each (5-way tie)
  16. Bertha, Grace, Hannah, Hattie, Jane, Lillian, Maria, Martha, Nellie & Susan, 5 each (10-way tie)
  17. Eleanor, Fannie, Gertrude, Helen, Isabella, Lucy & Rosa, 4 each (7-way tie)
  18. Anne, Bridget, Ella, Emily, Esther, Eva, Lizzie, Mabel, Matilda & Ruth, 3 each (10-way tie)
  19. Ada, Amelia, Charlotte, Dora, Eleanora, Elvira, Henrietta, Jessie, Josephine, Kate, Louise, Lydia, Maggie & Rosella, 2 each (14-way tie)
  20. Abby, Addie, Adelaide, Adelia, Almina, Almira, Amanda, Amey, Amy, Anastasia, Angelie, Annis, Antoinette, Augusta, Aurelia, Bethiah, Cecelia, Celia, Clarissa, Clementina, Corielynn, Cornelia, Drusilla, Effie, Emeline, Estella, Ethelin, Fanny, Florentina, Frances, Gelie, Genevieve, Georgiana, Georgianna, Helena, Honora, Irene, Isabel, Issie, Juliann, Julietta, Katie, Laura, Leah, Leonora, Lillie, Lillis, Lily, Lottie, Luella, Margaretta, Margery, Margret, Marietta, Maude, May, Millie, Myra, Nelly, Phebe, Robie, Rosalthe, Rose, Selina, Sophia, Susanna, Susannah, Vienna, Viola, Vira, Virginia & Winifred, 1 each (72-way tie)

All Boy Names

  1. John, 87 baby boys
  2. William, 75
  3. James, 64
  4. Charles, 50
  5. George, 45
  6. Thomas, 40
  7. Joseph, 30
  8. Walter, 21
  9. Edward, 16
  10. Francis & Michael, 14 each (2-way tie)
  11. Patrick, 13
  12. Arthur & Robert, 12 each (2-way tie)
  13. Frank, Frederick & Henry, 11 each (3-way tie)
  14. Albert, 9
  15. Daniel & Peter, 8 each (2-way tie)
  16. David, Eugene, Howard & Samuel, 6 each (4-way tie)
  17. Alexander, Louis & Stephen, 5 each (3-way tie)
  18. Harry, Herbert, Hugh & Martin, 4 each (4-way tie)
  19. Carl, Edgar, Everett, Jeremiah & Willie, 3 each (5-way tie)
  20. Abraham, Alfred, Clarence, Cornelius, Dennis, Ernest, Ezra, Franklin, Freddie, Jacob, Jesse, Lewis, Luke, Nicholas, Philip, Sylvester, Theodore, Timothy, 2 each (18-way tie)
  21. Abner, Adam, Adolph, Amos, Andrew, Appleton, Archibald, Ashel, August, Benjamin, Benno, Bernard, Bertram, Burt, Byron, Clifford, Davis, Dexter, Dunlap, Edmund, Edwin, Elmer,* Embert, Forrest, Freddy, Gustav, Herman, Isaac, Jeffrey, Jerome, Josiah, Lucian, Malcolm, Matthew, Maurice, Milton, Nathan, Nehemiah, Nelson, Oren, Oscar, Otto, Owen, Paul, Ralph, Reginald, Richard, Sanford, Seth, Shirley, Sullivan, Terence, Theobald, Victor, Wanton, Warren, Weston, Wheelan, Wilford, 1 each (59-way tie)

*Elmer, who had the middle initial “E.,” was likely named after early Civil War casualty Elmer E. Ellsworth.

Twins & Triplets

Twenty-one sets of twins and two sets of triplets were born in Providence in 1867. (All of these names were accounted for above — I just thought it’d be fun to check out the sibsets.)

Girl-girl twinsGirl-boy twinsBoy-boy twinsTriplets
Annie & Fannie
Annie & Mary
Ann & Ellen
Jennie & Minnie
Margaret & Martha
(blank) & (blank)		Ann & Maurice
Grace & George
Harriet & Albert
Ida & Ashel
Mary & James		Abraham & George
Charles & George
Charles & John
Daniel & David
Dunlap & Frank
Eugene & Timothy
George & John
George & William
James & John
John & Martin		Carl, (blank) & (blank)
James, Alexander & Sarah

I’ll post Providence’s 1866 and 1868 rankings as soon I get them done. Until then, here are two older posts featuring uniquely named Rhode Islanders: Aldaberontophoscophornia (b. 1812) and Idawalley (b. 1842).

Sources:

Popular boy names: Biblical vs. Non-Biblical

How has the ratio of Biblical names to non-Biblical names changed over time (if at all) among the most popular baby names in the U.S.?

This question popped into my head recently, so I thought I’d take a look at the data. We’ll do boy names today and girl names tomorrow.

First, let’s set some parameters. For these posts, “Biblical” names are personal names (belonging to either humans or archangels) mentioned in the Bible, plus all derivatives of these names, plus any other name with a specifically Biblical origin (e.g., Jordan, Sharon, Genesis). The “most popular” names are the top 20, and “over time” is the span of a century.

For boy names, the ratio of Biblical names to non-Biblical names has basically flipped over the last 100 years. Here’s a visual — Biblical names are in the yellow cells, non-Biblical names are in the green cells, and a borderline name (which I counted as non-Biblical) is in the orange cell:

Popular boy names: Biblical vs. non-Biblical.
Popular boy names over time: Biblical (yellow) vs. non-Biblical. Click to enlarge.
  • Biblical names: Adam, Alexander, Andrew, Austin (via Augustus), Benjamin, Daniel, David, Elijah, Ethan, Jack (via John), Jackson (via John), Jacob, James, Jason, John, Jonathan, Joseph, Joshua, Justin (via Justus), Lucas, Mark, Matthew, Michael, Nathan, Nicholas, Noah, Paul, Stephen, Steven, Thomas, Timothy, Zachary
  • Non-Biblical names: Aiden, Albert, Anthony, Arthur, Billy, Brandon, Brian, Charles, Christopher, Dennis, Donald, Dylan, Edward, Eric, Frank, Gary, George, Harold, Harry, Henry, Jayden, Jeffrey, Kenneth, Kevin, Larry, Liam, Logan, Louis, Mason, Raymond, Richard, Robert, Ronald, Ryan, Scott, Tyler, Walter, William
  • Borderline name: Jerry (can be based on the Biblical name Jeremy/Jeremiah or on the non-Biblical names Jerome, Gerald, Gerard)

It felt strange putting an overtly Christian name like Christopher in the non-Biblical category, but it doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible, so…that’s where it goes.

Here are the year-by-year tallies:

YearTop 20 names
given to…		# Biblical# Non-Biblical
191440% of baby boys5 (25%)15 (75%)
192443% of baby boys6 (30%)14 (70%)
193443% of baby boys7 (35%)13 (65%)
194447% of baby boys7 (35%)13 (65%)
195446% of baby boys11 (55%)9 (45%)
196442% of baby boys11 (55%)9 (45%)
197438% of baby boys11 (55%)9 (45%)
198436% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)
199427% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)
200419% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)
201414% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)

But there’s a huge difference between sample sizes of 40% and 14%, so let’s also take a look at the 2014 top 100, which covers 42% of male births.

By my count, last year’s top 100 boy names were half Biblical, half non-Biblical:

Biblical names (49)Non-Biblical names (51)
Noah, Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Alexander, James, Daniel, Elijah, Benjamin, Matthew, Jackson (via John), David, Lucas, Joseph, Andrew, Samuel, Gabriel, Joshua, John, Luke, Isaac, Caleb, Nathan, Jack (via John), Jonathan, Levi, Jaxon (via John), Julian (via Julius), Isaiah, Eli, Aaron, Thomas, Jordan, Jeremiah, Nicholas, Evan, Josiah, Austin (via Augustus), Jace (via Jason), Jason, Jose, Ian, Adam, Zachary, Jaxson (via John), Asher, Nathaniel, Justin (via Justus), JuanLiam, Mason, William, Logan, Aiden, Jayden, Anthony, Carter, Dylan, Christopher, Oliver, Henry, Sebastian, Owen, Ryan, Wyatt, Hunter, Christian, Landon, Charles, Connor, Cameron, Adrian, Gavin, Robert, Brayden, Grayson, Colton, Angel, Dominic, Kevin, Brandon, Tyler, Parker, Ayden, Chase, Hudson, Nolan, Easton, Blake, Cooper, Lincoln, Xavier, Bentley, Kayden, Carson, Brody, Ryder, Leo, Luis, Camden

(Christian, Angel, Xavier, Dominic…all technically non-Biblical, despite having strong ties to Christianity.)

50%-50% isn’t quite as extreme as 70%-30%, but it’s still noticeably more Biblical than 1914’s 25%-75%.

Do any of these results surprise you?