How popular is the baby name Ernest 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 Ernest.
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The Dionne quintuplets — the first set of quints known to survive infancy — were born in Ontario, Canada, on May 28, 1934. But identical sisters Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie weren’t the only children in the Dionne family. Over the course of 20 years, parents Oliva-Edouard and Elzire Dionne had a total of 14 children — 6 before the quints, 3 after.
The image above, of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, was captured in early 1838 by Louis Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype.
It may be the earliest surviving photograph of a person. Two people, actually. Both are in the lower left.
Here’s a close-up:
The standing man is getting his shoe shined, and the other man (partially obscured) is doing the shoe-shining.
Of all the people on the sidewalk that day, these were the only two to stay still long enough (about 10 minutes) to be captured in the image.
Now for the fun part!
What would you name these two Frenchmen?
Let’s pretend you’re writing a book set in Paris in the 1830s, and these are two of your characters. What names would you give them?
Here’s a long list of traditional French male names, to get you started:
Abel Absolon Achille Adam Adolphe Adrien Aimé Alain Alban Albert Alexandre Alfred Alphonse Amaury Amroise Amédée Anatole André Anselme Antoine Antonin Apollinaire Ariel Aristide Armand Arnaud Arsène Arthur Aubert Aubin Auguste Augustin Aurèle Aurélien Baptiste Barnabé Barthélémy Basile Bastien Benjamin Benoit Bernard Bertrand Blaise Boniface Bruno Calixte Camille Céleste Célestin Césaire César Charles Christian Christophe
Clair Claude Clément Clovis Constant Constantin Corentin Corin Corneille Cosme Cyril Damien Daniel David Denis Déodat Désiré Didier Dieudonné Dimitri Diodore Dominique Donat Donatien Edgar Edgard Edmé Edmond Édouard Élie Eloi Émeric Émile Émilien Emmanuel Enzo Éric Ermenegilde Ernest Ethan Étienne Eugène Eustache Évariste Évrard Fabien Fabrice Félicien Félix Ferdinand Fernand Fiacre Firmin Florence Florent
Florentin Florian Francis François Frédéric Gabriel Gaël Gaëtan Gaspard Gaston Gaubert Geoffroy Georges Gérard Géraud Germain Gervais Ghislain Gilbert Gilles Gratien Grégoire Guatier Guillaume Gustave Guy Hector Henri Herbert Hercule Hervé Hilaire Hippolyte Honoré Horace Hubert Hugues Humbert Hyacinthe Ignace Irénée Isidore Jacques Jason Jean Jérémie Jérôme Joachim Jocelyn Joël Jonathan Joseph Josse Josué Jourdain
Jules Julien Juste Justin Laurent Laurentin Lazare Léandre Léo Léon Léonard Léonce Léonide Léopold Lionel Loïc Lothaire Louis Loup Luc Lucas Lucien Lucrèce Ludovic Maël Marc Marcel Marcellin Marin Marius Martin Mathieu Mathis Matthias Maurice Maxence Maxime Maximilien Michaël Michel Modeste Narcisse Nathan Nathanaël Nazaire Nicéphore Nicodème Nicolas Noé Noël Norbert Odilon Olivier Onésime Pascal
Patrice Paul Philippe Pierre Placide Pons Prosper Quentin Rainier Raoul Raphaël Raymond Régis Rémy René Reynaud Richard Robert Roch Rodolphe Rodrigue Roger Roland Romain Rosaire Ruben Salomon Samuel Sébastien Séraphin Serge Sévère Séverin Simon Sylvain Sylvestre Télesphore Théodore Théophile Thibault Thierry Thomas Timothée Toussaint Urbain Valentin Valère Valéry Vespasien Victor Vincent Vivien Xavier Yves Zacharie
For some real-life inspiration, here are lists of famous 19th century and 20th century French people, courtesy of Wikipedia. Notice that many of the Frenchman have double-barreled, triple-barreled, even quadruple-barreled given names. (Daguerre himself was named Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre.)
Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, welcomed their only child in October of 1923. The baby boy was named John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway.
The name Nicanor was inspired by Spanish torero (bullfighter) Nicanor Villalta. It can be traced back to the ancient Greek word nike, meaning “victory.”
The interesting thing? While we all know that Hemingway was a bullfighting fan, at the time his son was born, he had only recently become a fan.
When Hemingway saw his first bullfight in Pamplona in 1923, he brought his wife Hadley along because he hoped the event would have a positive influence on the unborn son she then carried. The sport certainly affected the budding writer. It became one of the reigning passions of his life.
P.S. Hemingway’s friends called him “Hem.”
Sources:
Hawkins, Ruth A. Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow: The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage. Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 2012.
The unusual name Shaft debuted in the U.S. baby name data in the early 1970s:
1973: 16 baby boys named Shaft
1972: 31 baby boys named Shaft
1971: 22 baby boys named Shaft [debut]
1970: unlisted
1969: unlisted
Why?
Because of the highly profitable film Shaft, which was released in July of 1971.
Shaft introduced theatergoers to black, New York City-based private detective John Shaft (played by Richard Roundtree). Here’s how a New York Times reviewer summed up both the character and the plot:
[John Shaft] lives in a book-lined, stereo-equipped Village du plex, keeps his extra gun (the one with the pearl handle) in the fridge, has a succession of black women and white women in bed, and, between-times, settles a potentially nasty gang-and-race war between Harlem’s black syndicate king and some white (Mafia) hoods, with the help of a small group of black revolutionaries.
The movie was based on the 1970 novel of the same name by (white) journalist Ernest Tidyman.
The film’s memorable theme song, which could be heard during the opening credits, was written and performed by Isaac Hayes.
They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother– (Shut your mouth!) But I’m talkin’ ’bout Shaft (Then we can dig it)
Released as a single in September, “Theme from Shaft” reached #1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in November and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in April of the following year.
The first Shaft film was followed by a pair of sequels — Shaft’s Big Score! (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973) — both of which also starred Roundtree.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Shaft?
P.S. I’ve found other baby names that were influenced by ’70s blaxploitation films, but none are as shocking as Shaft. They include Coffy, Foxy and Sheba — all of which saw higher usage thanks to the Pam Grier movies Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Sheba, Baby (1975).
P.P.S. One of the female backup singers on “Theme from Shaft” was Telma Hopkins of Tony Orlando and Dawn…
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