How popular is the baby name Julius 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 Julius.

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Popularity of the baby name Julius


Posts that mention the name Julius

What gave the baby name Huey a boost?

Politician Huey P. Long (1893-1935)
Huey P. Long

Yesterday’s name, Broderick, was popularized by a movie based on the life of populist politician Huey P. Long, nicknamed “The Kingfish,” who served as Governor of Louisiana (1928-1932), U.S. Senator (1932-1935), and was gearing up for a presidential run in 1935. At that time…

Long’s Senate office was flooded with thousands of letters daily, prompting him to hire 32 typists, who worked around the clock to respond to the fan mail. As the nation’s third most photographed man (after FDR and celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh), Long was recognized from coast to coast simply as “Huey.”

He never ran for president, though, because he was assassinated in September of 1935.

So how did Long’s his political rise (and sudden death) affect the usage of the baby name Huey?

In April of 1929, newspapers reported that, since the gubernatorial election the previous May, “Governor Long has presented a [silver] cup to every baby in the state which is made his namesake. He says there are now are 90 “Huey P’s” and he believes the total will run well over 200 before his term of office expires.”

According to the SSA’s baby name data, the national usage of Huey spiked twice: the year Long was elected governor, and the year he was killed. Notice how much of the usage happened in Huey’s home state of Louisiana:

Boys named Huey (U.S.)Boys named Huey (Louisiana)
1937214 [rank: 378th]95 [rank: 50th]
1936353 [rank: 288th]153 [rank: 30th]
1935494 [rank: 237th]202 [rank: 14th]
1934187 [rank: 403rd]86 [rank: 48th]
1933154 [rank: 447th]66 [rank: 67th]
1932144 [rank: 480th]76 [rank: 61st]
1931162 [rank: 443rd]98 [rank: 39th]
1930174 [rank: 447th]119 [rank: 37th]
1929194 [rank: 424th]146 [rank: 26th]
1928215 [rank: 411th]159 [rank: 22nd]
1927114 [rank: 579th]62 [rank: 75th]
192662 [rank: 840th]22 [rank: 179th]

Huey P. Long was named after his father. He had nine siblings: brothers Julius, George and Earl (who also served as governor of Louisiana) and sisters Charlotte, Clara, Helen, Lucille, and Olive. Speedy Long was a cousin.

Sources:

Image: Huey P. Long (LOC)

Where did the baby name Yul come from in 1957?

Russian-American actor Yul Brynner (1920-1985)
Yul Brynner

The birth name of Russian-born actor Yul Brynner has been transcribed various ways: Yuli, Yuly, Yuliy. He was named after his Swiss-German grandfather Julius (pronounced yoo-lee-us). He started going by “Yul” after immigrating to the U.S. as young man in 1940:

[H]e initially spelled his named “Youl Bryner,” but a New York theatrical agent told him that “Youl” sounded too much like “you-all” and “Bryner” as though he was soaked in brine and pickled. To clarify the pronunciation, the actor respelled his name as Yul Brynner, pronounced “Yool Brinner.”

He didn’t see much acting success during the ’40s. (He had more luck working as a TV director during this time.) But everything changed in the early ’50s after he landed the lead role in the hit Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I” (1951-1954). The Broadway production earned multiple Tony Awards in early 1952, including one for Brynner.

Mainstream audiences were introduced to Yul in 1956, the year he starred in three big films: The King and I (released in June), The Ten Commandments (October), and Anastasia (December).

In 1957, Yul not only won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in (the film version of) The King and I, but his distinctive first name appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first time:

  • 1961: 29 baby boys named Yul
  • 1960: 32 baby boys named Yul [peak usage]
  • 1959: 24 baby boys named Yul
  • 1958: 24 baby boys named Yul
  • 1957: 31 baby boys named Yul [debut]
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted

Yul was the second most popular debut name for baby boys that year, just barely losing to Maverick.

Since then, the trajectories of the two names have been very different. Trendy Maverick is now given to thousands of baby boys per year, whereas unusual Yul is given to fewer than a dozen per year. Which name do you prefer, Yul or Maverick?

Sources:

Popular boy names: Biblical vs. Non-Biblical

How has the ratio of Biblical names to non-Biblical names changed over time (if at all) among the most popular baby names in the U.S.?

This question popped into my head recently, so I thought I’d take a look at the data. We’ll do boy names today and girl names tomorrow.

First, let’s set some parameters. For these posts, “Biblical” names are personal names (belonging to either humans or archangels) mentioned in the Bible, plus all derivatives of these names, plus any other name with a specifically Biblical origin (e.g., Jordan, Sharon, Genesis). The “most popular” names are the top 20, and “over time” is the span of a century.

For boy names, the ratio of Biblical names to non-Biblical names has basically flipped over the last 100 years. Here’s a visual — Biblical names are in the yellow cells, non-Biblical names are in the green cells, and a borderline name (which I counted as non-Biblical) is in the orange cell:

Popular boy names: Biblical vs. non-Biblical.
Popular boy names over time: Biblical (yellow) vs. non-Biblical. Click to enlarge.
  • Biblical names: Adam, Alexander, Andrew, Austin (via Augustus), Benjamin, Daniel, David, Elijah, Ethan, Jack (via John), Jackson (via John), Jacob, James, Jason, John, Jonathan, Joseph, Joshua, Justin (via Justus), Lucas, Mark, Matthew, Michael, Nathan, Nicholas, Noah, Paul, Stephen, Steven, Thomas, Timothy, Zachary
  • Non-Biblical names: Aiden, Albert, Anthony, Arthur, Billy, Brandon, Brian, Charles, Christopher, Dennis, Donald, Dylan, Edward, Eric, Frank, Gary, George, Harold, Harry, Henry, Jayden, Jeffrey, Kenneth, Kevin, Larry, Liam, Logan, Louis, Mason, Raymond, Richard, Robert, Ronald, Ryan, Scott, Tyler, Walter, William
  • Borderline name: Jerry (can be based on the Biblical name Jeremy/Jeremiah or on the non-Biblical names Jerome, Gerald, Gerard)

It felt strange putting an overtly Christian name like Christopher in the non-Biblical category, but it doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible, so…that’s where it goes.

Here are the year-by-year tallies:

YearTop 20 names
given to…		# Biblical# Non-Biblical
191440% of baby boys5 (25%)15 (75%)
192443% of baby boys6 (30%)14 (70%)
193443% of baby boys7 (35%)13 (65%)
194447% of baby boys7 (35%)13 (65%)
195446% of baby boys11 (55%)9 (45%)
196442% of baby boys11 (55%)9 (45%)
197438% of baby boys11 (55%)9 (45%)
198436% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)
199427% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)
200419% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)
201414% of baby boys14 (70%)6 (30%)

But there’s a huge difference between sample sizes of 40% and 14%, so let’s also take a look at the 2014 top 100, which covers 42% of male births.

By my count, last year’s top 100 boy names were half Biblical, half non-Biblical:

Biblical names (49)Non-Biblical names (51)
Noah, Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Alexander, James, Daniel, Elijah, Benjamin, Matthew, Jackson (via John), David, Lucas, Joseph, Andrew, Samuel, Gabriel, Joshua, John, Luke, Isaac, Caleb, Nathan, Jack (via John), Jonathan, Levi, Jaxon (via John), Julian (via Julius), Isaiah, Eli, Aaron, Thomas, Jordan, Jeremiah, Nicholas, Evan, Josiah, Austin (via Augustus), Jace (via Jason), Jason, Jose, Ian, Adam, Zachary, Jaxson (via John), Asher, Nathaniel, Justin (via Justus), JuanLiam, Mason, William, Logan, Aiden, Jayden, Anthony, Carter, Dylan, Christopher, Oliver, Henry, Sebastian, Owen, Ryan, Wyatt, Hunter, Christian, Landon, Charles, Connor, Cameron, Adrian, Gavin, Robert, Brayden, Grayson, Colton, Angel, Dominic, Kevin, Brandon, Tyler, Parker, Ayden, Chase, Hudson, Nolan, Easton, Blake, Cooper, Lincoln, Xavier, Bentley, Kayden, Carson, Brody, Ryder, Leo, Luis, Camden

(Christian, Angel, Xavier, Dominic…all technically non-Biblical, despite having strong ties to Christianity.)

50%-50% isn’t quite as extreme as 70%-30%, but it’s still noticeably more Biblical than 1914’s 25%-75%.

Do any of these results surprise you?

Kilcher family names: Atz, Farenorth, Jewel, Q’orianka

Atz Kilcher in the reality TV series "Alaska: The Last Frontier" (2011-2022)
Atz Kilcher in “Alaska: The Last Frontier“

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I’m visiting my father right now and he’s got his TV on all the time, so I haven’t been able to help it lately. :)

The other day I was walking past the TV and heard “Alaska” — a place I’ve long wanted to visit. So I stopped to see what was on. Soon I was hearing names like Atz, Atz Lee, and Otto.

Who were these people? Where did they get such interesting names?

Turns out it was a reality show called Alaska: The Last Frontier, and the cast members were part of the locally famous Kilcher family.

Atz and Otto are the sons of homesteaders Yule Farenorth Kilcher (b. 1913) and Ruth Kilcher (b. 1920). Yule and Ruth left Switzerland for Alaska in the early 1940s. Yule went on to serve in the Alaska State Senate during the 1960s.

Yule wasn’t born “Yule Farenorth.” He was originally Julius Jakob (pronounced YOO-lee-us YAH-kob), but he changed his first and middle names after immigrating.

Yule and Ruth had a total of eight children — two boys and six girls. Here are the names:

  1. Mairiis (b. 1942)
  2. Wurtila Dora (b. 1943)
  3. Linda Fay (b. 1945)
  4. Attila “Atz” Kuno (b. 1947)
  5. Sunrise Diana Irene (b. 1949)
  6. Edwin Otto (b. 1952)
  7. Stella Vera Septima (b. 1955)
  8. Catkin Melody (b. 1958)

Many of the above also gave their own children distinctive names, such as Cornelius, Davin, Ecaterina, Gawan, Olga and Saskia.

One of Otto’s children, Eivin Kilcher, also stars on Alaska: The Last Frontier — and is behind the debut of Eivin in the U.S. baby name data in 2012:

  • 2014: 48 baby boys named Eivin
  • 2013: 22 baby boys named Eivin
  • 2012: 5 baby boys named Eivin [debut]
  • 2011: unlisted
  • 2010: unlisted

And one of Atz’s children is pop singer Jewel Kilcher (a.k.a. Jewel), whose popularity in the mid-1990s helped push the baby name Jewel back into the U.S. top 1,000 in 1997:

  • 1999: 453 baby girls named Jewel [ranked 557th]
  • 1998: 490 baby girls named Jewel [ranked 516th]
  • 1997: 330 baby girls named Jewel [ranked 665th]
  • 1996: 168 baby girls named Jewel [ranked 1,098th]
  • 1995: 154 baby girls named Jewel [ranked 1,141st]

Moving forward another generation, one of Wurtila’s grandchildren is actress Q’orianka Kilcher, whose appearance in the movie The New World (2005) made Qorianka a one-hit wonder in the baby name data in 2006.

(Q’orianka told the press that her name means “golden eagle” in Quechua, and it does seem to be based on the Quechua words for “gold,” quri, and “eagle,” anca, but I’m not sure whether it’s a legit Quechua name or a modern invention.)

Do any of you guys watch Alaska: The Last Frontier regularly? Have I missed any other good Kilcher names?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Alaska: The Last Frontier

[Latest update: Apr. 2025]