How popular is the baby name John 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 John.

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Popularity of the baby name John


Posts that mention the name John

How did John Lennon’s murder affect U.S. baby names?

Musician John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono in Amsterdam (Mar. 1969)
John Lennon and Yoko Ono (in 1969)

John Lennon — a founding member of the massively popular English rock band The Beatles, and the voice behind hits like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (1963), “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964), “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967), “Come Together” (1969), and, as a solo artist, “Imagine” (1971) — was shot and killed by a fan outside his New York City apartment building on December 8, 1980.

What followed was a worldwide outpouring of grief.

In lieu of holding a memorial service, Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, asked fans to remember him with a silent vigil on December 14 (the following Sunday).

Millions around the globe participated.

By far the biggest crowd gathered at Central Park in New York. More than 100,000 people … braved stinging cold to listen to recorded music and pray in silence at 2 p.m. EST.

[…]

Simultaneously, somber crowds in Philadelphia, Memphis, Tenn., Raleigh, N.C., Atlanta, Hartford, Conn., Concord, N.H., Cincinnati, Columbia, S.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and numerous other communities across the nation fell silent for 10 minutes.

The following year, the baby names Lennon and Yoko both saw an uptick in usage:

Babies named LennonGirls named Yoko
198322 boys14
198222 boys14
198148 boys + 6 girls*24†
198015 boys11
19799 boys.
*Gender-specific debut, †Peak usage

So what do “Lennon” and “Yoko” mean?

John Lennon’s Irish surname can be traced back to either the Irish word lon, meaning “blackbird,” or the Irish word leann, meaning “cloak, mantle.”

And Yoko Ono’s Japanese forename is written using a pair of kanji characters meaning “ocean” and “child” — though the name can be written with other characters as well.

These days, the name Yoko remains rare among U.S. babies (though not as rare as Ringo).

The name Lennon, on the other hand, has become quite popular. It now ranks well inside the top 1,000 for both baby boys and baby girls. (Female usage surpassed male usage in 2014.)

P.S. Did you know that Yoko Ono, who was born into an affluent family, went to school with future Japanese emperor Akihito?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from John Lennon and Yoko Ono photo by Eric Koch via Nationaal Archief under CC0.

Which boy names are the most Canadian?

Maligne Lake, Canada

Yesterday we came up with some girl names that were either particularly Canadian or particularly American. So today let’s do the same thing for boy names.

Again, here are the two different methods:

First, we’ll look at the most popular names that appeared in only one set of data (either Canada or the U.S.) in 2022.

Second, we’ll look at the names that appeared in both sets of data, focusing on how proportionally popular each name was in each place. For the boy names below, I calculated the proportions by dividing each name’s U.S. usage by the total number of boys born in the U.S. last year (1,863,582) and each name’s Canadian usage by the total number of boys born Canada last year (180,763).

Top Canada-only boy names

The 2022 Canadian data included 261 boy names that were not in the U.S. data. Below are the 10 most popular Canada-only boy names.

Number of boys (Can.)Rank (Can.)
1. Edouard49249th
2. Arnaud35285th
3. Florent73394th
4. Laurier60460th
5. Loik57485th
6. Ludovick45588th
7. Renaud42627th
8. Gregoire30831st
9. Charles-Edouard27 (tie)902nd (tie)
10. Gurniwaz27 (tie)902nd (tie)

Nine out of ten are French names used primarily in Quebec:

  • Edouard: 482 of 492 born in Quebec
  • Arnaud: 349 of 352
  • Florent: 71 of 73
  • Laurier: 60 of 60 (all)
  • Loik: 47 of 57
  • Ludovick: 45 of 45 (all)
  • Renaud: 40 of 42
  • Gregoire: 30 of 30 (all)
  • Charles-Edouard: 25 of 27

The Sikh name Gurniwaz, however, was not used in Quebec at all.

Boy names particularly popular in Canada

Now let’s look at the more than 2,950 boy names that appeared in both sets of data. Of the boy names used more frequently in Canada than in the U.S., the 10 below had the largest pro-Canada differentials. (I added the rankings for both countries as well.)

Differential (Pro-Can.)Rank (Can.)Rank (U.S.)
1. Leo0.3578%4th22nd
2. Adam0.3460%16th97th
3. Felix0.3408%23rd192nd
4. Theo0.3217%17th99th
5. Thomas0.3197%8th45th
6. Arthur0.3030%22nd140th
7. Nathan0.2830%13th57th
8. Muhammad0.2675%35th297th
9. Louis0.2576%34th246th
10. Emile0.2473%60th2,076th

Top U.S.-only boy names

The 2022 U.S. data included 11,297 boy names that were not in the Canadian data. Below are the 10 most popular U.S.-only boy names.

Number of boys (U.S.)Rank (U.S.)
1. Jesus2,247165th
2. Iker830385th
3. Jaziel779412th
4. Baker709433rd
5. Major701441st
6. Marcos614491st
7. Roberto607498th
8. Jamari577512th
9. Tadeo567519th
10. Jamir555534th

Many of these are used primarily by Spanish speakers.

Boy names particularly popular in the U.S.

Now, back to the names that both countries had in common. Of the boy names used more frequently in the U.S. than in Canada, the 10 below had the largest pro-U.S. differentials.

Differential (Pro-U.S.)Rank (U.S.)Rank (Can.)
1. Elijah0.3147%5th37th
2. Mateo0.2833%11th50th
3. Santiago0.2620%48th285th
4. Sebastian0.2584%13th62nd
5. Angel0.2474%62nd603rd
6. Julian0.2467%35th125th
7. John0.2219%26th80th
8. Josiah0.2152%51st199th
9. Michael0.2143%16th52nd
10. Christopher0.1936%56th179th

What are your thoughts on the names above?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Sunrise at Maligne lake 2 by Sergey Pesterev under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Baby born around time of eclipse, named Annular

Annular solar eclipse

In the spring of 1836, a baby boy was born to John and Deborah Taylor in the English city of Salford.

When he was christened at Manchester Cathedral on June 2, he was named John Annular Taylor.

Why the middle name “Annular”?

My guess is that he was born on, or just after, May 15 — the day England witnessed an annular solar eclipse:

Annular solar eclipse over England on May 15, 1836

An eclipse is called annular (meaning “ring-shaped”) if it occurs while the moon is at its farthest distance from Earth (and therefore appears smaller, from our perspective). The result? A ring-of-fire effect when the moon passes before the sun.

The next annular eclipse (visible from the U.S.) will be happening in a few days, on October 14 — don’t forget to check it out!

P.S. If you’re having a solar eclipse baby and “Annular” just isn’t your style, check out this list of baby names inspired by solar eclipses.

Sources:

Images: Adapted from Solar annular eclipse of January 15, 2010 in Jinan, China by A013231 under CC BY-SA 3.0 / Eclipse map courtesy of Fred Espenak, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Where did the baby name Nellora come from in 1919?

Nellora Powell (1895-1919)

The name Nellora appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first and only time in 1919. Notably, all of those baby girls were born in Kansas, which was the 24th-most-populated U.S. state at that time (roughly).

  • 1921: unlisted
  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: 5 baby girls named Nellora
    • All 5 born in Kansas
  • 1918: unlisted
  • 1917: unlisted

Where did the name come from?

The influence was the accidental suicide (!) of a popular Wichita society girl named Nellora Powell.

She was the energetic, outdoorsy, and “public spirited” daughter of John L. Powell, who was both the mayor of Wichita and the also president of the Wichita Wholesale Grocery Company.

On November 4, 1919 — having recently returned from a trip to Honolulu, and just weeks away from her 24th birthday — Nellora spent the day volunteering for the Red Cross.

When she got home that evening, she had a headache. The pain was bad enough that she couldn’t finish dinner, so she excused herself and headed to her bedroom to lie down. Along the way, she stopped to take some medicine.

Miss Powell had gone upstairs to an unlighted bath room and, believing that she knew just where the medicine she desired was located in the medicine closet, she reached for the bottle and swallowed some of its contents without turning on a light. She quickly discovered that she had taken carbolic acid.

She hurried back to the dining room, where her parents were still seated at the table, and said something along the lines of: “I have taken the wrong medicine; call the doctor!”

Her family started administering first aid, but by the time the doctor arrived fifteen minutes later, she’d lapsed into unconsciousness. Not long after that (at 7:40 p.m.) she was declared dead.

Her sudden death from poisoning was front-page news in Wichita the next day, and her name stayed in the Kansas papers for days to come.

Nellora’s name — which reminds me a lot of various names in the “Eleanor” family (e.g., Nell, Nora, Lenore, Lenora) — had come from her mother’s side of the family. It was the name of her maternal grandmother (b. New York, 1826) and also one of her aunts (b. Illinois, 1867).

What are your thoughts on the baby name Nellora? Would you use it?

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