How popular is the baby name Jefferson 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 Jefferson.
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Tuesday’s post about the Victorian-style Tylney Hall Hotel reminded me of a list of Victorian-era names that I’ve had bookmarked forever.
The list was created by amateur genealogist G. M. Atwater as a resource for writers. It contains names and name combinations that were commonly seen in the U.S. from the 1840s to the 1890s. Below is the full list (with a few minor changes).
| Victorian Era Female Names | Victorian Era Male Names |
|---|---|
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Which female name and male name do you like best?
U.S. Army officer Elmer E. Ellsworth is virtually unknown nowadays, but he was very well known during the 1860s.
Why?
Because he was killed in May of 1861 while trying to confiscate a Confederate flag. This made him the very first Union officer to die in the Civil War.
Here’s how the New York Times concluded Ellsworth’s obituary:
He has been assassinated! His murder was fearfully and speedily revenged. He has lived a brief but an eventful, a public and an honorable life. His memory will be revered, his name respected, and long after the rebellion shall have become a matter of history, his death will be regarded as a martyrdom, and his name will be enrolled upon the list of our country’s patriots.
Ellsworth’s death was the first conspicuous casualty of the War, and it inspired thousands of men to enlist.
It also inspired thousands (yes, literally thousands) of Union-supporting families to name their newborns “Elmer Ellsworth.”
(This is one of those names that makes me wish the SSA data went back further than 1880. I would have loved to see the spike in Elmers in 1861-1862.)
Some of Elmer’s more famous namesakes include…
And less-famous namesakes include…
Others got the names out of order (e.g., Ellsworth Elmer Lesher), and those already in Ellsworth families simply got some version of “Elmer E.” (e.g., Elmer Everett Ellsworth).
The massive number of Elmer Ellsworths born in the early 1860s was even referenced in this anecdote by newspaperman Fred C. Kelly eighty years later:
[A] friend of mine, named Osborn, doesn’t profess to be gifted in second sight, but he once mystified a stranger by telling him that he — the stranger — was born in April, May, or June, 1861; moreover, that he was born in a Union state, and that his father was an enthusiastic Northern sympathizer during the Civil War. He knew all this just by noting that the man’s first two initials were “E.E.” The whole thing was a matter of simple deduction. The man appeared to be the age of one born during the Civil War. Osborn happened to know that one of the great Northern heroes of the Civil War was one Elmer Ellsworth, the first man killed on the Union side. Thousands of babies born during the two or three months following Ellsworth’s death were named “Elmer Ellsworth.” Knowing these facts, the “E.E.” in the man’s name meant much.
Do you have anyone in your family tree named Elmer Ellsworth?
Sources:
P.S. Did you know that today, April 12th, is the anniversary of the start of the Civil War? It’s also is the anniversary of the first manned space flight. These events occurred exactly 100 years apart, weirdly.
In March of 2009, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were captured by North Korean soldiers. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a prison camp.
When former president Bill Clinton flew to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-il in August, the journalists were finally pardoned and released.
Yesterday, Laura Ling and her husband welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Li Jefferson. The baby’s first name was inspired by Ling’s sister, Lisa. Her middle name, Jefferson, pays tribute to Clinton, whose middle name is also Jefferson.
Sources: Laura Ling Names Baby Girl After Bill Clinton, Laura Ling Names New Baby for Her Sister and Bill Clinton
Over at the New York Times photojournalism blog Lens, Patrick Witty has just finished a series of blog posts about New York-area males with presidential names. In one of his posts, he says:
Some of the presidential doppelgängers I met over the past nine months were named to honor the great men who have occupied the Oval Office; others inherited the name from their fathers. Regardless, living with such a name can be a burden.
He was able to track down 11 men and one baby with the names Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Ulysses Grant, Abraham Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Interesting stuff. (The photos are cool as well.)
P.S. Ever wonder how many presidents were named after family members?