How popular is the baby name Jan 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 Jan.

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Popularity of the baby name Jan


Posts that mention the name Jan

Popular baby names in Poland, 2021

Flag of Poland
Flag of Poland

According to the government of Poland, the most popular baby names in the country last year were Zuzanna and Antoni.

Here are Poland’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Zuzanna, 6,562 baby girls
  2. Zofia, 6,325
  3. Hanna, 6,065
  4. Julia, 5,954
  5. Maja, 5,585
  6. Laura, 5,569
  7. Oliwia, 4,770
  8. Alicja, 4,767
  9. Lena, 4,599
  10. Pola, 4,483

Boy Names

  1. Antoni, 7,821 baby boys
  2. Jan, 6,975
  3. Aleksander, 6,919
  4. Franciszek, 6,629
  5. Jakub, 6,427
  6. Leon, 5,296
  7. Mikolaj, 5,205 – cognate of Nicholas
  8. Szymon, 4,962
  9. Filip, 4,884
  10. Stanislaw, 4,679

Unfortunately, I had to de-stroke all the L’s with a stroke in this post (like the one in Mikolaj, and the one in Stanislaw) because they don’t render properly on my site.

It’s particularly unfortunate considering that, for this post, I thought it would be fun to find and define all the “-slaw” names on the the boys’ side of the rankings (which go all the way down to names with just two instances of usage).

So just imagine that the L‘s in the 18 “-slaw” elements below have strokes through them. (Also, pronounce them like W‘s — and the W‘s like V‘s — so that “-slaw” sounds like the English word suave.)

  • Stanislaw (ranked 10th): “to become” + “glory”
  • Przemyslaw (83rd): the name Przemysl (“trick, stratagem”) + “glory”
  • Radoslaw (92nd): “happy” + “glory”
  • Wladyslaw (108th): “power” + “glory”
  • Boleslaw: “greater” + “glory”
  • Boguslaw: “god” + “glory”
  • Czeslaw: “honor” + “glory”
  • Miroslaw: “peace” + “glory”
  • Mieczyslaw: “sword” + “glory”
  • Bronislaw: “protection” + “glory”
  • Jaroslaw: “fierce” + “glory”
  • Zdzislaw: “build” + “glory”
  • Leslaw: short for Lechoslaw, the name Lech (the legendary founder of Poland) + “glory”
  • Miloslaw: “gracious” + “glory”
  • Gniewoslaw (2 baby boys): “anger” + “glory”
  • Gromoslaw (2): “thunder” + “glory”
  • Witoslaw (2): “lord, master” + “glory”
  • Zdobyslaw (2): “to obtain,” “to win” + “glory”

Back in 2016, the top names in Poland were also Zuzanna and Antoni.

Sources: Imiona nadawane dzieciom w Polsce – Gov.pl, Behind the Name

Image: Adapted from Flag of Poland (public domain)

Popular baby names in Liechtenstein, 2020

Flag of Liechtenstein
Flag of Liechtenstein

The tiny country of Liechtenstein — located in the Alps, between Austria and Switzerland — welcomed 188 baby girls and 165 baby boys in 2020. According to Liechtenstein’s Office for Statistics (Amt für Statistik), the most popular baby names in the German-speaking microstate were Sofia and Maximilian/Oscar (tie).

Here are Liechtenstein’s top girl names and top boy names of 2020:

Girl Names

  1. Sofia/Sophia, 7 baby girls
  2. Laura, 5
  3. Hanna/Hannah, 4
  4. Amélie/Amelie, Anna, Annika, Emma, Julia, Lina, Mia, Nina, Noemi, Nora, Sophie, and Valentina, 3 each [12-way tie]
  5. Alya, Amelia, Elena, Elisa/Eliza, Ella, Emilia, Estelle, Klara, Lara, Leonie, Letizia, Luisa, Malia/Maliyah, Mara, Melissa, Mina, Naomi, Noelia, and Paula, 2 each [19-way tie]

Boy Names

  1. Maximilian and Oscar/Oskar, 4 baby boys each [tie]
  2. Laurin, Leo, Lian/Lyan, Luis/Louis, Noah/Noa, and Theo, 3 each [6-way tie]
  3. Gustav, Henri, Ivan/Iwan, Lenny, Leon, Leopold, Matteo, Max, Muhamed/Muhammed, Nico, Nino, Noel, and Thiago/Tiago, 2 each [13-way tie]

(Lian, one of the 2nd-place boy names, is a German short form of Julian or Kilian.)

Liechtenstein also released the single-use baby names of 2020, which is very cool. All the names not accounted for above are in the table below:

Unique girl names (98)Unique boy names (113)
Adea, Adriana, Ahlam, Aitana, Alejna, Alenia, Alina, Ally, Alya-Su, Amina, Amy, Anastasia, Anely, Annalena, Anna-Rosa, Anouk, Aria, Ariana, Aslihan, Aurora, Bissan, Carolina, Cecilia, Chiara, Clea, Cora, Darija, Elenia, Elina, Elizabeta, Elizan, Elna, Eltea, Emanuela, Esîlya, Fabia, Farah, Fatima, Fjella, Georgie-Gisele, Gioia, Giulia, Helena, Ida, Ilenia, Iris, Irma, Ivy, Jamie, Joleen, Joya, Juna, Kaia, Katharina, Keysi, Ksenija, Lena, Leonor, Lilian, Liyana, Loredana, Lorena, Luana, Luena, Maeva, Malak, Maria, Maria-Luisa, Marie, Melina, Merle, Mia-Sophie, Miira, Mila, Mira, Naila, Natalia, Nayeli, Nelia, Nika, Riva, Rivanna, Romy, Ronja, Salima, Samira, Sandrina, Senada, Soley, Tajra, Teresa, Tina, Valérie, Viviana, Xoawa, Yara, Yesim, ZeynepAaron, Adrián, Aidan, Ajan, Alessandro, Alonso, Alp, Anas, Aril, Armon, Arthur, Aurel, Aurelio, Benedikt, Benjamin, Benno, Bruno, Christian, Christoph, Clark, Curdin, Cyano, Damiano, Danilo, Dante, Davide, Dominik, Eduardo, Elija, Elvis, Emanuel, Emil, Emilian, Emilio, Enes, Erian, Erion, Fabian, Federico, Finn, Gabriele, Giuliano, Hamza, Hazar, Hendrick, Jamie, Jan, Jari, Jeremias, Jérôme, Johannes, Jonah, Jonas, Jorel, Julian, Kentse, Kiano, Konstantin, Lauri, Leart, Levin, Liam, Liandro, Linus, Lio, Lionel, Lorent, Luan, Macgyver, Mahir, Majiid, Marco, Marius, Martim, Massimo, Mats, Maurice, Michael, Michele, Mike, Mikyas, Milan, Nael, Nando, Nawin, Neo, Nick, Nicolas, Niklas, Oliver, Omer, Paul, Philomeno, Pierangelo, Raffi, Ragnar, Redford, Rico, Ruben, Samuel, Sebastian, Tenzin, Tino, Tobias, Umut, Valentino, Valerio, Victor, Vito, Yakup, Yanis, Yuusuf, Zeno

Finally, since this is the first time I’m posting rankings for Liechtenstein, let’s throw in the country’s top baby names for the two previous years:

  • In 2019: Emma (9) and a four-way tie between Fabio, Leon, Matteo and Paul (4 each).
  • In 2018: Valentina (7) and a three-way tie between Ben, Leon, and Samuel (4 each).

Sources: Vornamenstatistik – Amt für Statistik (AS), Liechtenstein – Wikipedia, Behind the Name

Image: Adapted from Flag of Liechtenstein (public domain)

The creepy-crawly signature of Jan van Kessel

Painted signature of artist Joan Van Kessel, 1657
“Joan Van Kessel” (1657)

Let’s end the year with something different!

At least twice, 17th-century Flemish artist Jan Van Kessel painted his name out of caterpillars and snakes. (And he made sure to include plenty of spiders, for good measure.)

In the earlier painting, created in 1657, he spelled his first name “Joan.”

In the later painting, created in 1666, he spelled his first named “Jan.” (Just to make things complicated, the signature was featured as a painting-within-a-painting dated “1664.”)

Painted signature of artist Joan Van Kessel, 1666
“Jan Van Kessel” (1666)

Have you ever drawn/painted your name out creepy-crawly creatures? Or any creatures at all? If so, and it’s online somewhere, comment with a link!

Sources: Jan van Kessel the Elder – Wikipedia, Jan van Kessel’s Signature of Caterpillars and Snakes (1657)

Where did the baby names Jolyon and Nyree come from in 1970?

Actress Nyree Dawn Porter as character Irene Heron in the TV miniseries "The Forsyte Saga" (1967).
Nyree Dawn Porter in “The Forsyte Saga“

The baby names Jolyon and Nyree both debuted in the U.S. baby name data 1970:

Boys named JolyonGirls named Nyree
19735157†
1972526
1971.7
19709*10*
1969..
1968..
*Debut, †Peak usage

They both came from the same source: The Forsyte Saga, a 26-part, Emmy-nominated BBC miniseries that followed several generations of the nouveau riche Forsyte family of London from the 1870s to the 1930s.

It first aired on U.S. public television from October of 1969 to March of 1970. (It originally aired in the UK during the first half of 1967.)

The Forsyte Saga was based on a book series of the same name written during the early 1900s by Nobel Prize-winning English author John Galsworthy.

At the start of the TV miniseries, the Forsyte family was nominally headed by Jolyon Forsyte (played by Joseph O’Conor), who had a son also named Jolyon (played by Kenneth More). The father was called “Old Jolyon” and the son was called “Young Jolyon.” Their shared first name was pronounced joe-leon.

Later on in the series, Young Jolyon had a son named Jolyon, nicknamed “Jolly.” Later still, with a different woman, he had another son named Jolyon, this one nicknamed “Jon.”

The name Jolyon is usually said to be a medieval form of Julian, but it could also come from a byname that meant “jolly Jan.”

Another character in the series was Irene Heron (played by Nyree Dawn Porter). She was introduced in the second episode, and she married into the Forsyte family during the time that elapsed between the third and fourth episodes.

That initial marriage didn’t last, though, and Irene ultimately ended up with Young Jolyon, becoming the mother of Jon.

New Zealand-born British actress Nyree Dawn Porter was named Ngaire at birth. For her stage name, she used the Anglicized spelling of her Maori first name.

The name Ngaire (pronounced NY-ree) is based on the Maori word ngaere, which may refer to a swamp or wetland.

(The usage of Nyree swelled in the mid-1970s. This could be due to the British show The Protectors (1972-1974), which co-starred Porter and also aired on U.S. television. The name of Nyree’s character, Contessa, more than doubled in usage from 1972 to 1973.)

Sources: The Forsyte Saga – IMDb, Nyree Dawn Porter – Wikipedia, Namehunt: Jolyon | Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources, ngaere – Maori Dictionary, SSA