How popular is the baby name Gilbert 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 Gilbert.

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Popularity of the baby name Gilbert


Posts that mention the name Gilbert

First names from King Henry III’s fine rolls (1200s)

Henry III of England
Henry III of England

I’ve got some 13th-century English names for you today!

They come from the fine rolls of Henry III of England (1216–1272).

“Fine rolls” were basically financial records. They kept track of money offered to the king in return for concessions and favors. King Henry III wasn’t the first to keep them, but they “expand[ed] considerably in size and content during Henry’s reign.”

For a time, the Henry III Fine Rolls Project — the aim of which was to “democratize the contents” of Henry III’s fine rolls “by making them freely available in English translation to everyone via a website” — hosted a sortable database of all the given names in the rolls. While that database was available, I used it to create lists of the most-mentioned male and female names. (All the names are still online, but they’re no longer sortable.)

The rankings below — which cover a wide range of birth years, and a small segment of society — aren’t the same as the single-year, society-wide baby name rankings we’re accustomed to. But they do give us a general idea of which names were the most popular during the 1200s.

Of the 8,423 male names in the fine rolls, these were the most popular:

  1. William (1,217 mentions)
  2. John (669)
  3. Richard (495)
  4. Robert (434)
  5. Henry (376)
  6. Ralph (365)
  7. Thomas (351)
  8. Walter (346)
  9. Roger (337)
  10. Hugh (297)
  11. Geoffrey (261)
  12. Simon (218)
  13. Adam (200)
  14. Nicholas, Peter (180 each)
  15. Gilbert (157)
  16. Alan (110)
  17. Phillip (109)
  18. Reginald (88)
  19. Stephen (83)
  20. Elias (66)
  21. Alexander (65)
  22. Osbert (52)
  23. Eustace (44)
  24. Andrew, Matthew (42 each)
  25. Ranulf (40)

Other names on the men’s list: Hamo, Fulk, Payn, Waleran, Drogo, Engeram, Amfrid, Ratikin, Walkelin, Bonefey, Fulcher, Hasculf, Herlewin, Joldwin, Lefsi, Marmaduke, Orm, Albizium, Cocky, Deulobene, Gwenwynwyn, Markewart.

Of the 1,314 female names in the fine rolls, these were the most popular:

  1. Alice (140 mentions)
  2. Matilda (138)
  3. Agnes (76)
  4. Margaret (69)
  5. Joan (62)
  6. Isabella (60)
  7. Emma (37)
  8. Beatrice (34)
  9. Mabel (33)
  10. Cecilia (32)
  11. Christiana (30)
  12. Hawise (29)
  13. Juliana (27)
  14. Sibyl (25)
  15. Rose (21)
  16. Sarra (16)
  17. Helewise (15)
  18. Avice, Eleanor, Eva, Lucy (14 each)
  19. Leticia (13)
  20. Felicia (12)
  21. Isolda, Margery, Petronilla (11 each)
  22. Ascelina, Edith (10 each)
  23. Phillippa (9)
  24. Amice, Elena, Katherine, Mary, Sabina (8 each)
  25. Basilia, Muriel (7 each)

Other names on the women’s list: Albrea, Amabilia, Eustachia, Idonea, Egidia, Millicent, Amphelisa, Avegaya, Barbata, Comitessa, Frethesenta, Wulveva, Alveva, Dervorguilla, Deulecresse, Elizabeth (just 1!), Flandrina, Oriolda.

A researcher working on the project reported that, of all the men mentioned in the rolls, 14.4% were named William and 7.9% were named John. She also noted that, just like today, the female names showed a greater amount of diversity:

Compared with 57.8 per cent of the men, only 51.8 per cent of the women had one of the top ten names. And 9.44 per cent of the women had names that occurred only once, whereas 3.38 per cent of the men had names that occurred only once.

See any names you like?

Sources: The Henry III Fine Rolls by David Carpenter, The Henry III Fine Rolls Project, ‘William’ most popular medieval name – King’s College London
Image: Henry III (13th-century illustration)

[Latest update: June 2023]

Popular baby names in Jamaica, 2008

Flag of Jamaica
Flag of Jamaica

According to the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) of Jamaica, these were the island’s most popular baby names in 2008:

Girl names

  1. Brihanna
  2. Rhianna
  3. Ashley
  4. Gabrielle
  5. Abigail

Boy names

  1. Daniel
  2. Joshua
  3. Jordan
  4. Ricardo
  5. Anthony

Why am I posting rankings from 2008? Well, this is the most recent set of rankings I could track down at the Jamaican Government’s website.

But the site does contain a few interesting facts. For instance, I didn’t know that adding “Ann” to girl names was once trendy in Jamaica:

In studying the naming patterns of Jamaicans, information from the RGD’s database reveal that more families between the period 1950’s to the mid 90’s gave their children traditional Anglo-Saxon names. It should be noted however that most of these female names included the name Ann.

For instance in the United States and the UK where Lisa, Nicole, Kimberly and Carrie are names which dominated the late 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, the Jamaican twist to these names are Nicole-Ann, Kerry Ann and Lisa Ann.

The site also mentions that…

  • At least 48 babies were named Charlie in the three months following Hurricane Charlie, which hit Jamaica in August of 1951.
  • 10 babies were named Gilbert in the nine months following Hurricane Gilbert, which hit Jamaica in September of 1988. (This includes two babies born on the day of the hurricane.)
  • At least 20 babies were named Usain following “the historic performance of Usain Bolt at the Olympics and the recently concluded World Games.”
  • Babies started being named Obama following “the historic election of the first African American President in the United States.”

Source: Naming Your Child the Jamaican Way – RGD – Government of Jamaica

Image: Adapted from Flag of Jamaica (public domain)

Baby named for UFC fighter

American mixed martial artist Urijah Faber
Urijah Faber

My husband spotted this toward the end of a New York Times article about the UFC going mainstream.

Some lines at the expo were enormous. People waited for a chance to enter the octagon and pose with a championship belt slung over their shoulder. Others wanted autographs from fighters. Urijah Faber, the California Kid, was a huge draw. Well tanned, with long blond hair, he looks as if he ought to be jogging toward the ocean with a surf board under his arm.

“You are so cool and laid-back, man, but you’re also a real warrior,” Sam Akaweih, 29, a physical education teacher, said to the fighter.

Gilbert Gonzalez, 27, an emergency medical technician, told Faber he had named his 2-year-old son after him. “Urijah and I have this spiritual connection,” the fan later explained. “I watch him on TV and when I yell, ‘Knee him, knee him, knee that guy!’ he hears me. He knees the guy.”

Little 2-year-old Urijah wasn’t the only baby named with the UFC fighter Urijah Faber in mind. Check out how the popularity of the baby name Urijah exploded in 2008-2009:

  • 2012: 354 baby boys and 15 baby girls named Urijah
  • 2011: 359 baby boys and 5 baby girls named Urijah
  • 2010: 390 baby boys and 13 baby girls named Urijah
  • 2009: 403 baby boys and 17 baby girls named Urijah
  • 2008: 235 baby boys and 12 baby girls named Urijah
  • 2007: 28 baby boys named Urijah
  • 2006: 5 baby boys named Urijah

What are your thoughts on the baby name Urijah?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Urijah Faber 24 July 2009 by Kelly Bailey under CC BY 2.0.

Top cat names in the Late Middle Ages: Gib and Tib

In England during the Late Middle Ages, the most common names for cats were Gib (pronounced with a hard g) and Tib.

Typically, Gib was used for male cats and Tib for female cats.

Gib is a diminutive of the name Gilbert. Tib is either a play on Gib or a short form of Tibert, as in Tibert the Cat, a feline character found in Reynard the Fox stories.

Geoffrey Chaucer mentions a cat named Gibbe in his The Romaunt of the Rose, written in the late 1300s.

The play Gammer Gurton’s Needle, written during the 1550s, features a (female) cat named Gib:

My nee’le, alas! Ich lost it, Hodge, what time Ich me up-hasted
To save the milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted.

The name Gib was so ubiquitous that male cats were called Gib-cats. We might still be using that term today if not for “The Life and Adventures of a Cat” (1760), a popular tale that featured a cat named Tom. Tom inspired the term Tom-cat, which eventually replaced Gib-cat.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Cats August 2010-2 by Alvesgaspar under CC BY-SA 3.0.