How popular is the baby name George 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 George.
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George Washington, the first president of the United States, was born on February 22, 1732.
A few minutes before midnight on February 22, 1931 — almost 200 years later — Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Bushman of Chicago welcomed a baby boy. They named him George Washington Bushman.
But it doesn’t end there.
A few minutes after midnight, the baby’s twin sister was born. Her name? Martha Washington Bushman. (The real Martha Washington was born in June, incidentally.)
The twins’ patriotic names were chosen by their father, who was out of work at the time.
“That’s because I love America,” he said. “I love this country even when times are bad.”
In 2022, Australia — which boasts a large number of endemic animals (e.g., koala, kangaroo, wallaby, wombat, dingo) — welcomed 300,684 human babies: 146,403 girls and 154,281 boys.
What were the most popular names among Australia’s newborns last year?
Well…we don’t know for sure. Because Australia doesn’t release baby name rankings that cover the entire country.
So let’s take a look at eight sets of regional Australian rankings — representing Australia’s six states and two most populous territories — and make a guess about the country’s top names overall.
Here are the rankings, ordered by total number of births per region (highest to lowest):
New South Wales
Last year, New South Wales welcomed 95,758 (31.8%) of Australia’s babies. Here are NSW’s top baby names of 2022:
In mid-1944, Willoughby Norrie — who’d served as an officer in the British Army for more than three decades, and fought in both World Wars — was appointed Governor of South Australia. (Australia was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire at that time.)
Later the same year, he relocated his family and staff to the South Australian capital of Adelaide.
In December of 1945, Norrie and his second wife, Patricia, welcomed a baby girl.
Her name?
Annabel Mary Adelaide — third given name in honor of the city of Adelaide (which was also her birthplace, of course).
The city had been named in 1836 after Queen Adelaide, the German-born wife of King William IV.
(Norrie also had five older children: Diana, Rosemary, George, Guy, and Sarah.)
The name Kennan popped up in the U.S. baby name data for the first time 1952:
1954: 11 baby boys named Kennan
1953: 6 baby boys named Kennan
1952: 8 baby boys named Kennan [debut]
1951: unlisted
1950: unlisted
If there’s a reason — and typically there’s a reason — my guess is George F. Kennan, the Russian-speaking diplomat nominated by President Truman in February of 1952 to be the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR.
He started the job in May, but didn’t last long.
Why? Because, in mid-September, while addressing the press in Berlin, Kennan “compared life in the Moscow Embassy with his internment by the Nazis at Bad Nauheim.”
Stalin wasn’t pleased.
In early October, the USSR accused Kennan of making “slanderous attacks hostile to the Soviet Union in a rude violation of generally recognized norms of international law.” He was declared a persona non grata and refused re-admittance into the country.
George Kennan making headlines throughout the year — not to mention the similarity of his surname to the then-trendy baby names Kenneth and Kevin — is likely what influenced a handful of expectant parents to name their sons Kennan in 1952.
What are your thoughts on Kennan as a first name?
P.S. Keenan’s father had a cool name: Kossuth Kent Kennan. He was born in Milwaukee in 1851, the year Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth visited the city during a tour of the United States. (Lajos is the Hungarian form of Louis.)
P.P.S. In March of 1967, George Kennan was asked “to go to Switzerland on a secret mission to establish the bona fides of a woman who had defected from the Soviet Union and claimed to be the daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.” The next month, news broke of Svetlana’s defection to the U.S.…
Sources:
Isaacson, Walter and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.
The Papers of George Catlett Marshall: “The Man of the Age,” October 1, 1949-October 16, 1959. Ed. Mark A. Stoler and Daniel D. Holt. Vol. 7. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
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