How popular is the baby name Haley 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 Haley.
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The most popular baby names in Manitoba were announced recently.
According to the Manitoba Vital Statistics Agency, Manitoba’s top names are Liam for boys and Emily for girls.
Here are Manitoba’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2012:
Baby Girl Names
Baby Boy Names
1. Emily 2. Emma 3. Olivia 4. Sophia 5. Ava 6. Lily 7. Chloe 8. Avery 9. Abigail 10. Haley
1. Liam 2. Mason 3. Carter 4. Noah 5. Logan 6. Lucas 7. William 8. Benjamin 9. Jacob 10. Hunter
From 2011 to 2012, the girls’ top ten lost Sophie and Isabella, but gained Avery and Abigail. (It also seems to have lost Hailey and gained Haley, but this might be due to a typo in my source article.)
The boy’s top ten lost Ethan and Jayden, but gained William and Hunter. (Ethan was #2 last year, notably.)
In late 1976, Alex Haley’s best-selling novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family was published.
The book — which tells a sweeping, multi-generational tale that lasts from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800 — begins with the story of Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka teenager who was captured in Africa, transported via slave ship to North America, and sold to a Virginia plantation owner.
In January of 1977, an 8-episode miniseries based on the novel aired on television for 8 consecutive nights (on ABC).
The televised version of Roots was wildly popular, earning 9 Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, a Peabody, and some of the highest Nielsen ratings of all time.
It also had an unprecedented influence on baby names, inspiring thousands African-American parents to name their babies after Roots characters and actors. Below are some examples.
Kizzy, Levar, Kunta & Kinte
According to the U.S. baby name data, the top debut names of 1977 were Kizzy and Levar.
Kizzy came from the character Kizzy, daughter of Kunta Kinte, who was featured during the middle episodes of the series.
1979: 269 baby girls named Kizzy [rank: 648th]
1978: 456 baby girls named Kizzy [rank: 439th]
1977: 1,115 baby girls named Kizzy [rank: 223rd] [debut]
1976: unlisted
1975: unlisted
So far, Kizzy’s 1977 debut is the highest baby name debut ever.
During the scene in which the newborn Kizzy is named, Kunta Kinte says, “Girl, your name is Kizzy. […] Your name means ‘stay put,’ but it don’t mean ‘stay a slave.’ It will never mean that!”
Here’s how one Florida couple, who welcomed a baby girl in early 1977, decided to name their daughter Kizzy:
“I identified with Kunta Kinte, and I thought the name Kizzy was a way I could express that,” said Willie Parker of Carol City, a Miami suburb.
His wife, Carrie, initially wanted to name their new daughter Nicole. But Parker said he was especially moved by the scene from the television series in which Kinte names his child and then raises her to the stars and tells her to behold the only thing greater than herself. So, he persuaded his wife to name their child Kizzy.
Levar came from actor LeVar Burton, who played the young version of protagonist Kunta Kinte in the first two episodes of the miniseries.
1979: 175 baby boys named Levar [rank: 645th]
1978: 254 baby boys named Levar [rank: 512th]
1977: 523 baby boys named Levar [rank: 343rd] [debut]
1976: unlisted
1975: unlisted
The names Lavar, Levarr, Lavarr and Lavare also got a boost in 1977. (The last three were debuts.)
Kunta not only debuted in 1977, but it popped into the top 1,000 for the first and only time that year as well.
1979: 16 baby boys named Kunta
1978: 52 baby boys named named Kunta
1977: 215 baby boys named Kunta [rank: 572nd] [debut]
1976: unlisted
1975: unlisted
Kinte also reached the top 1,000 for the first and only time in 1977, after debuting the year before.
1979: 6 baby boys named Kinte
1978: 38 baby boys named Kinte
1977: 104 baby boys named Kinte [rank: 839th]
1976: 5 baby boys named Kinte [debut]
1975: unlisted
The New York Times reported in March of 1977 that a young couple from Harlem, John and Nefhertiti Reid, had welcomed a baby boy on February 18 and named him Kunta Kinte Reid. He was “one of 20 newborn black boys and girls in New York City last month who were given the names Kunta Kinte or Kizzy.”
Officials in the health departments of several cities reported that 15 babies last month had been named Kunta Kinte or Kizzy in Los Angeles, 10 in Detroit and eight in Atlanta. In Cleveland, male and female twins were named after the two characters.
These names, already seeing enough usage nationally to appear in the U.S. baby name data, were influenced by Roots as well. Two got a boost, but the third did not…
Though it did not return to the data when Roots aired, “[o]ne family in Detroit named their child Vereen, apparently for actor Ben Vereen, who in the television show portrayed Kizzy’s son, Chicken George.”
In 1705, English astronomer Edmond Halley theorized that three historical comets that had appeared in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually the same comet returning over and over again. He calculated that the comet would return yet again in 1758.
And he was correct! The comet reappeared in 1758, just as Halley had predicted. So comet was named Halley in his honor in 1759.
Since then, Halley’s Comet has flown through the inner Milky Way three more times: in 1835, 1910 and 1986.
The U.S. Social Security Administration has been collecting baby name data since 1880, so let’s check out how the two most recent appearances have affected the usage of the baby name Halley…
Halley’s Comet in 1910
Halley appeared on the U.S. baby name data for the very first time, both for boys and for girls, in 1910. In fact, it was the top debut name for boys that year.
Boys named Halley
Girls named Halley
1912
6
.
1911
5
.
1910
12*
11*
1909
.
.
1908
.
.
*Debut
The similar names Hallie and Haley also saw increased usage in 1910.
But the SSA data didn’t start reflecting real numbers until the ’30s. So I checked the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), which indicates that the total number of babies named Halley in 1910 was actually much higher:
1912: 15 people named Halley born
1911: 8 people named Halley born
1910: 119 people named Halley born
1909: 14 people named Halley born
1908: 3 people named Halley born
Some of the Halleys named specifically for the comet include:
Halley Comett Johnston, boy, born on April 13, 1910, to Jessie Johnston and Addie Webb of North Carolina.
Halley Reed Palmer, boy, born on May 10, 1910, to Mr. and Mrs. John Palmer of Milton, Oregon.
Halley Couch, boy, born on May 21, 1910, in Stockbridge, Wisconsin. (The night of his birth, “his father and older brother watched Halley’s Comet fly over their home. They were so impressed with the sight that they named the baby Halley.”)
I also found 1910 babies named Halie Comet Wood (boy), Estyr Halley Abrams (girl), Comet Halley Briggs (boy), and Aerial Comet Roath (boy).
Speaking of Comet…the SSDI data reveals that at least 10 people were named Comet in 1910, and that one of these 10 happened to have the surname Halley. Also born in 1910: a Comette, a Cometniss, a Cometa, and two Comettas.
Halley’s Comet in 1986
The name Halley was given another big boost by the comet in 1986:
Boys named Halley
Girls named Halley
1988
.
71
1987
.
69
1986
22†
333†
1985
10
146
1984
.
25
†Peak usage
The name saw peak usage for both baby boys and baby girls that year. In fact, the surge in usage among girls bumped Halley well into the girls’ top 1,000 (with a rank of ranking of 580th!) for the first (and, so far, only) time. American parents of the ’80s clearly thought of Halley as more of a female name than a male name.
The only Halley-baby I noticed in the newspapers in 1986 was from Canada: Halley Marie Mullen, a baby girl born to Susan and Brendan Mullen of Ottawa on January 4.
It’s hard to know how much the comet’s return affected the usage of other spellings of the name (like Hailey and Hayley) because the entire name-group was starting to become trendy around that time. That said, the graphs for Hallie and Hali show that these particular variants saw a discernible increase usage in 1986, while, very interestingly, the graph for Haley reveals a dip in usage that year.
Halley’s Comet in 2061
Halley’s Comet is due back in mid-2061. Do you think we’ll see a spike in the number of babies named Halley that year? Why or why not?
P.S. Though many people pronounce Halley to rhyme with the word “daily,” the surname is traditionally pronounced to rhyme with the word “valley.”
Looking for a set of baby names with something in common? If so, here are some 5-letter anagram names for you to check out!
Anagrams are words that contain the same set of letters, but not in the same sequence. For instance, the words “alter,” “alert,” and “later” are all anagrams of one another.
Anagram names can be a neat option for siblings — particularly multiples (like twins and triplets). They’re also a clever way to connect a baby name to the name of an older relative (e.g., grandpa Klaus, grandson Lukas).
Below are hundreds of five-letter names (collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names) that happen to be anagrams of other names.
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