How popular is the baby name Gregory 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 Gregory.
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The rare name Agassi has appeared just once in the U.S. baby name data:
1994: unlisted
1993: unlisted
1992: 6 baby boys named Agassi [debut]
1991: unlisted
1990: unlisted
The source?
Flashy American tennis player Andre Agassi, who was hard to miss with his color-coordinated outfits and signature mullet. (Agassi is pronounced AG-uh-see; the first syllable rhymes with “flag.”)
His professional career lasted more than two decades, but 1992 was the year he finally won his first Grand Slam title. Specifically, it was a win at Wimbledon — an emotional one at that, following seven failed attempts and then a three-year boycott of the event (because Agassi disliked Wimbledon’s traditionalism and all-white dress code).
Agassi went on to win seven more Grand Slam titles (four of them in 1999, for a Career Grand Slam).
So where does the surname Agassi come from?
Agassi’s father, Emanoul Aghasi, was born and raised in Iran, but his family was Armenian. The family surname was originally Aghassian, but the distinctively Armenian suffix -ian had been dropped several generations earlier to avoid persecution. The root of the surname is the Turkish word agha, meaning “lord, master, gentleman.”
Upon immigrating to the U.S. in the early 1950s, Emanoul Aghasi changed his name to Mike Agassi. (He chose “Mike” because it “sounded American” and was easy to spell.) He spent a decade in Chicago, where he married and started a family, then relocated to Las Vegas in the early 1960s. In 1970, he welcomed his youngest child, a son:
My father named me Andre Kirk Agassi, after his bosses at the casino. I ask my mother why my father named me after his bosses. Were they friends? Did he admire them? Did he owe them money? She doesn’t know. And it’s not the kind of question you can ask my father directly. You can’t ask my father anything directly.
I’m not sure who “Andre” was, but “Kirk” was American businessman Kerkor “Kirk” Kerkorian, who was also of Armenian descent, coincidentally. (“Kerkor” is an Armenian version of Grigor, which is a form of Gregory.)
Getting back to the name Agassi, though…what do you think of “Agassi” as a first name? (Do you like it more or less than the name Andre?)
Sources:
Agassi, Andre. Open: An Autobiography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
On November 16, 1959, the home of Vincent and Josephine Jennings of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was consumed by fire.
Vincent, Josephine and their five daughters escaped without injury, but the family’s three sons — James (age 8), Nicholas (7), and Gregory (5) — did not survive.
On March 28, 1960, Mrs. Jennings gave birth to her ninth and last baby — a boy.
He was named James Nicholas Gregory Jennings.
(The Jennings’ daughters were named Mary, Connie, Dorothy, Patty, and Rosie.)
Sources:
“New Baby Named for Three Lost in Fire.” Warren Times-Mirror 29 Mar. 1960: 8.
Like the name Tirrell, the curious name Gamble appears regularly these days in the boys’ data, but it first popped up as a girl name — just once — in 1961:
1963: unlisted
1962: unlisted
1961: 5 baby girls named Gamble [debut]
1960: unlisted
1959: unlisted
Where did it come from?
Another runaway heiress! This one was New York debutante/heiress Gamble Benedict, the granddaughter of Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935), co-owner of the Remington Typewriter Company.
During the last days of 1959, 18-year-old Gamble ran away from home to be with her 35-year-old Romanian-born boyfriend, Andrei Porumbeanu (who already had a wife, Helma, and daughter, Gigi).
Gamble and Andrei first fled to Paris, where they stayed for most of January. (Gamble turned 19 mid-month.) At the end of the month, Gamble was apprehended by Paris police and “flown home to her stern dowager grandmother.”
The pair ran off again in April, after Andrei had obtained a Mexican divorce. This time they went south. They married in North Carolina on the 6th, then took a plane to Florida for a honeymoon.
The story was in the news for months on end during the first half of the year. (Several years later, in 1964, Time magazine summed it up as an “endlessly publicized…runaway marriage.”)
So what became of the couple? They ended up having two sons (George and Gregory) and spent most of their time in Switzerland…before Gamble initiated divorce proceedings in mid-1963.
Though I never found an explanation for Gamble’s unique first name, my guess is that it’s a surname that can be found somewhere in her family tree.
What are your thoughts on the name “Gamble” for a baby (male or female)? Would you use it?
A while back, I stumbled upon a register of people associated with Oxford University from the mid-16th century to the early 17th century.
Interestingly, the editor of the register decided to include a section dedicated to first names and surnames. That section included a long list of male forenames and their frequency of occurrence from 1560 to 1621.
The editor claimed that, for several reasons, these rankings were “probably…more representative of English names than any list yet published” for that span of time. One reason was that the names represented men from “different grades of English society” — including peers, scholars, tradesmen, and servants.
So, are you ready for the list?
Here’s the top 100:
John, 3,826 individuals
Thomas, 2,777
William, 2,546
Richard, 1,691
Robert, 1,222
Edward, 957
Henry, 908
George, 647
Francis, 447
James, 424
Nicholas, 326
Edmund, 298
Anthony, 262
Hugh, 257
Christopher, 243
Samuel, 227
Walter, 207
Roger, 195
Ralph, 182
Peter (and Peirs/Pers), 175
Humphrey, 168
Charles, 139
Philip, 137
David, 129
Matthew, 116
Nathaniel, 112
Michael, 103
Alexander, 98 (tie)
Arthur, 98 (tie)
Laurence, 90
Giles, 88
Stephen, 86
Simon, 83
Daniel, 79
Joseph, 78 (tie)
Lewis, 78 (tie)
Andrew, 69
Roland, 65
Griffith (and Griffin), 60
Evan, 55
Abraham, 54 (tie)
Leonard, 54 (tie)
Owen, 53
Gilbert, 52
Morris (and Maurice), 51
Bartholomew, 46 (3-way tie)
Oliver, 46 (3-way tie)
Timothy, 46 (3-way tie)
Morgan, 45
Martin, 44 (tie)
Rice, 44 (tie)
Gabriel, 41
Benjamin, 40
Jeffrey/Geoffrey, 38
Ambrose, 36
Adam, 35
Toby (and Tobias), 34
Jerome, 33
Ellis, 30
Paul, 29
Bernard, 28 (3-way tie)
Gregory, 28 (3-way tie)
Isaac, 28 (3-way tie)
Jasper (and Gaspar), 26 (3-way tie)
Josiah (and Josias), 26 (3-way tie)
Randall (and Randolph), 26 (3-way tie)
Miles, 24
Lancelot, 23
Austin (and Augustine), 22 (tie)
Jarvis (and Gervase), 22 (tie)
Brian, 21
Matthias, 20 (tie)
Reginald (and Reynold), 20 (tie)
Jeremy, 19
Theophilus, 19
Joshua 18 (3-way tie)
Marmaduke, 18 (3-way tie)
Valentine, 18 (3-way tie)
Fulke, 17 (tie)
Sampson (and Samson), 17 (tie)
Clement, 16 (4-way tie)
Ferdinando, 16 (4-way tie)
Herbert, 16 (4-way tie)
Zachary, 16 (4-way tie)
Cuthbert, 15 (3-way tie)
Emanuel, 15 (3-way tie)
Vincent, 15 (3-way tie)
Adrian, 14 (3-way tie)
Elias, 14 (3-way tie)
Jonah (and Jonas), 14 (3-way tie)
Tristram, 13
Allan, 12 (6-way tie)
Ames, 12 (6-way tie)
Barnaby (and Barnabas), 12 (6-way tie)
Gerard (and Garret), 12 (6-way tie)
Lionel, 12 (6-way tie)
Mark, 12 (6-way tie)
Abel, 11 (3-way tie)
Erasmus, 11 (3-way tie)
Roderic, 11 (3-way tie)
Did the relative popularity of any of these names surprise you?
The editor did note that “the more common names occur more frequently than they ought to…from the tendency to confuse less common names with them.”
For example, a person called ‘Edmund,’ if he is frequently mentioned in the Register, is almost certain to be somewhere quoted as ‘Edward,’ ‘Gregory’ as ‘George,’ ‘Randall’ or ‘Raphael’ as ‘Ralph,’ ‘Gilbert’ as ‘William,’ and so on.
Now here are some of the less-common names, grouped by number of appearances in the register:
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