How popular is the baby name Kelly 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 Kelly.

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Popularity of the baby name Kelly


Posts that mention the name Kelly

Baby names associated with green: Ivy, Forest, Olive, Jade

green trees

Looking for baby names that are associated with green — including baby names that mean “green”?

If so, you’ve come to the right place! I’ve collected dozens of options for you in this post.

Before we get to the names, though, let’s take a quick look at what the color green represents…

Symbolism of green

What does the color green signify?

In Western cultures in particular, green can be symbolic of:

  • Nature
  • Growth
  • Wealth
  • Luck
  • Envy
  • Freshness
  • Quality

The overriding association with nature is due to the abundance of green plant life on Earth. Plants contain a green pigment called chlorophyll that allows them to absorb energy from light.

The color can also be associated with safety and permission, thanks to green traffic lights (which signal when it’s safe to proceed).

green ferns

Baby names associated with green

All of the names below are associated with the color green. The names range from common to uncommon, and their associations range from strong to slight.

Those that have been popular enough to appear in the U.S. baby name data are linked to their corresponding popularity graphs.

Alder
Alder trees have green foliage. The word alder is derived from the Old English word for the tree, alor. Here’s the popularity graph for Alder.

Aran
Aran is a Thai masculine name meaning “forest.” Here’s the popularity graph for Aran.

Aranya
Aranya is a Hindi gender-neutral name based on the Sanskrit word aranya, meaning “forest.” Here’s the popularity graph for Aranya.

Ash
Ash trees have green foliage. The word ash is derived from the Old English word for the tree, æsc. Here’s the popularity graph for Ash.

Aspen
Aspen trees have green foliage. The word aspen is derived from the Old English word for the tree, æspe. Here’s the popularity graph for Aspen.

Aurora
Aurora is part of both “aurora borealis” and “aurora australis” — the names of the polar lights, which are predominantly green. The polar lights are caused by solar wind (that is, charged particles emitted by sun) striking the Earth’s magnetic field. The word aurora means “dawn” in Latin. Here’s the popularity graph for Aurora.

Balsam
Balsam fir trees have dark green foliage. The name of the tree can be traced back to the Hebrew word basam, meaning “spice, perfume.” Here’s the popularity graph for Balsam.

Beryl
Beryl is a mineral that can be green. The name of the stone ultimately comes from the Ancient Greek word beryllos. (Green beryl is a paler green than emerald.) Here’s the popularity graph for Beryl.

Birch
Birch trees have green foliage. The word birch is derived from the Old English word for the tree, beorc. Here’s the popularity graph for Birch.

Björk
Björk is the Icelandic word for “birch.”

Blerim
Blerim is an Albanian masculine name based on the word blerim, meaning “greenness, verdure.” Here’s the popularity graph for Blerim.

Blerta
Blerta is an Albanian feminine name based on the word blertë, meaning “green.” Here’s the popularity graph for Blerta.

Burkni
Burkni is an Icelandic masculine name meaning “fern.”

Cactus
Cactus plants are typically green. The name of the plant is derived from the Ancient Greek word kaktos. Here’s the popularity graph for Cactus.

Cedar
Cedar trees have dark green foliage. The name of the tree ultimately comes from the Ancient Greek word kedros. Here’s the popularity graph for Cedar.

Celadon
Celadon is a pale grayish-green color. The name of the shade was inspired by a character named Céladon — a shepherd who wore pale green clothing — in the popular 17th-century French novel L’Astrée by Honoré d’Urfé.

Chloe
Chloe (or Chloë) is derived from the Ancient Greek word khloe, which referred to “the first green shoot of plants in spring.” Here’s the popularity graph for Chloe.

Chlora
Chlora is a variant of Chloris. Here’s the popularity graph for Chlora.

Chloris
Chloris, based on the Ancient Greek word khloros, meaning “pale green” or “greenish-yellow,” was the name of several figures in Greek mythology. Here’s the popularity graph for Chloris.

Clover
Clover leaves are green. The word clover is derived from the Old English word for the plant, claefre. Here’s the popularity graph for Clover.

Codrin
Codrin is a Romanian masculine name based on the word codru, meaning “forest.”

Cyan
Cyan is the bluish-green color halfway between green and blue on the visible spectrum. The name of the shade comes from the Ancient Greek word kyanos, meaning “dark blue.” Here’s the popularity graph for Cyan.

Cypress
Cypress trees have dark green foliage. The word cypress is derived from the Ancient Greek word for the tree, kyparissos. (In Greek mythology, a grieving boy named Kyparissos was transformed into a cypress tree.) Here’s the popularity graph for Cypress.

Douglas
Douglas is part of Douglas Fir — the name of a species of tree with dark green foliage. The tree was named in honor of Scottish botanist David Douglas. Here’s the popularity graph for Douglas.

Emerald
The word emerald refers to a vivid green variety of the mineral beryl. By extension, the word also refers to the green color of these crystals. The name of the stone can be traced back to the Ancient Greek word smaragdos, which referred to any green gemstone (including emerald, beryl, malachite, and jasper). Here’s the popularity graph for Emerald.

Emeraude
Emeraude is the French word for “emerald.” Here’s the popularity graph for Emeraude.

Esmeralda
Esmeralda is the Spanish word for “emerald.” Here’s the popularity graph for Esmeralda.

Evergreen
Evergreen trees retain their green foliage year-round. Here’s the popularity graph for Evergreen.

Fern
Fern fronds are green. The word fern is derived from the Old English word for the plant, fearn. Here’s the popularity graph for Fern.

Forest and Forrest
The word forest refers to a dense growth of trees and underbrush that covers a large area of land. It’s based on the Medieval Latin word foresta (or forestis). The more popular spelling of the name, Forrest, comes from the English surname. The surname Forrest originally referred to a person who lived near or worked in a royal forest (that is, a forest owned by the sovereign and used as a hunting ground). Here are the popularity graphs for Forest and Forrest.

Giada
Giada is the Italian word for “jade.” Here’s the popularity graph for Giada.

Green
Green, of course, refers to the color green. :) Here’s the popularity graph for Green.

Greenlee
Greenlee comes from a habitational surname that can be traced back to the Old English words grene, meaning “green,” and leah, meaning “clearing, meadow.” Here’s the popularity graph for Greenlee.

Gretna
Gretna is part of Gretna Green — the name of the Scottish village that became famous in the late 18th century as an elopement destination for young English couples. The village name originally referred to the “green by Gretna,” with the word Gretna meaning “gravelly hill” (from the Old English elements greot, “grit,” and hoh, “heel” — denoting a hill shaped like the heel of a foot). Here’s the popularity graph for Gretna.

Haljand
Haljand is an Estonian masculine name based on the word haljas, meaning “green, verdant.”

Holly
Holly trees have green foliage. The word holly is derived from the Old English word for the tree, holen. Here’s the popularity graph for Holly.

Hunter
Hunter is a dark yellowish-green color. It was the shade of green worn by hunters during the 19th century. Here’s the popularity graph for Hunter.

Ivik
Ivik is a Greenlandic masculine name meaning “(blade of) grass.”

Ivy
The word ivy refers to any of several species of climbing or ground-creeping evergreen plants in the genus Hedera. By extension, it also refers to the deep green color of ivy’s foliage. Here’s the popularity graph for Ivy.

Jade
The word jade refers to two similar-looking minerals, nephrite and jadeite, that are commonly used as gemstones. By extension, it also refers to the green color of these minerals. Their common name can be traced back to the 16th-century Spanish term piedra de ijada, meaning “loin stone” (because the stone was thought to help cure loin and kidney ailments). Here’s the popularity graph for Jade.

Jandi
Jandi is a Korean feminine name meaning “grass.” Here’s the popularity graph for Jandi.

Kelly
Kelly is a bright green color. The Irish surname Kelly can be traced back to the Old Irish personal name Cellach. Here’s the popularity graph for Kelly.

Khidr and Khadir
Khidr, also spelled Khadir, is an Arabic masculine name meaning “green.” Here’s the popularity graph for Khadir.

Lakhdar
Lakhdar is an Arabic masculine name based on al-akhdar, meaning “the green.”

Laurel
Laurel trees have green foliage. The word laurel is derived from the Latin word for the tree, laurus. Here’s the popularity graph for Laurel.

Leaf
Leaf green is the bright yellowish-green color typical of plant leaves (due to the presence of chlorophyll). Here’s the popularity graph for Leaf.

Levert
Levert comes from the French surname LeVert, which is based on the Old French word vert, meaning “green.” Here’s the popularity graph for Levert.

Lin
Lin (second tone) is a Chinese name that can mean “valuable jade,” depending upon the character being used to write the name. Here’s the popularity graph for Lin.

Linden
Linden trees have green foliage. The word linden is derived from the Old English word for the tree, lind. Here’s the popularity graph for Linden.

Malachite
Malachite (pronounced MAL-uh-kiet) is a mineral that is green. The name of the mineral ultimately derives from the Ancient Greek word malache, meaning “mallow” — a reference to the resemblance between the color of malachite and the leaves of the mallow plant. Here’s the popularity graph for Malachite.

Matsu
Matsu is a Japanese feminine name that can mean “pine tree,” depending upon the kanji being used to write the name.

Matsue
Matsue is a Japanese name that can include the element Matsu. Here’s the popularity graph for Matsue.

Matsuko
Matsuko is another Japanese name that can include the element Matsu. Here’s the popularity graph for Matsuko.

Midori
Midori is a Japanese gender-neutral name that can mean “green, verdure,” depending upon the kanji being used to write the name. Here’s the popularity graph for Midori.

Mint
Mint leaves are green. Aromatic mint plants are part of the genus Mentha, the name of which derives from the Ancient Greek word minthe.

Minttu
Minttu is the Finnish word for “mint.”

Moss
Moss are small, flowerless plants that grow in dense green mats. The Old English word for “moss” was mos. Here’s the popularity graph for Moss.

Mynta
Mynta is the Swedish word for “mint.”

Mynte
Mynte is the Danish word for “mint.”

Myrtle
Myrtle trees have green foliage. The word myrtle is derived from the Ancient Greek word for the tree, myrtos. Here’s the popularity graph for Myrtle.

Oak
Oak trees have green foliage. The word oak is derived from the Old English word for the tree, ac. Here’s the popularity graph for Oak.

Oihan
Oihan is a Basque masculine name meaning “forest.”

Oihana
Oihana is the feminine form of Oihan.

Olive
The word olive refers to the fruit of the olive tree (Olea europaea). By extension, it also refers to the dark yellowish-green color of unripened olive fruit. (Ripened olives are black.) Here’s the popularity graph for Olive.

Olivine
Olivine is a mineral that is usually yellowish-green. The name of the mineral can be traced back to the Latin word oliva, meaning “olive.” Here’s the popularity graph for Olivine.

Oren
Oren is a Hebrew masculine name meaning “pine tree.” Here’s the popularity graph for Oren.

Orna
Orna is the feminine form of Oren. Here’s the popularity graph for Orna.

Qorsuk
Qorsuk is a Greenlandic masculine name meaning “green, yellowish-green.”

Pallav
Pallav is a Hindi masculine name based on the Sanskrit word pallava, meaning “shoot, sprout, young leaf.”

Pallavi
Pallavi is the feminine form of Pallav. Here’s the popularity graph for Pallavi.

Panna
Panna is a Hindi feminine name that can mean “emerald” or “leaf.”

Peridot
Peridot, a variety of the mineral olivine, is yellowish-green.

Phyllis
Phyllis, the Ancient Greek word for “foliage” (based on phyllon, meaning “leaf”) was the name of several figures in Greek mythology. Here’s the popularity graph for Phyllis.

Pilutaq
Pilutaq is a Greenlandic gender-neutral name meaning “leaf.”

Pine
Pine needles are green. The word pine is derived from the Latin word for the tree, pinus.

Sage
Sage leaves are grayish-green. The name of the sage plant (genus Salvia) can be traced back (via Old French sauge) to the Latin word salvus, meaning “healthy.” Here’s the popularity graph for Sage.

Sirkka
Sirkka is a Finnish feminine name that can be derived from the word heinäsirkka, meaning “grasshopper” (many of which are green), or from the word sirkkalehti, meaning “cotyledon” (the embryonic leaf of seed-bearing plants). Here’s the popularity graph for Sirkka.

Sylvain and Sylvaine
Sylvain (masculine) and Sylvaine (feminine) are the modern French forms of Silvanus. Here’s the popularity graph for Sylvain.

Silvana and Silvano
Silvana (feminine) and Silvano (masculine) are the modern Italian forms of Silvanus. Here are the popularity graphs for Silvana and Silvano.

Silvanus
Silvanus, based on the Latin word silva, meaning “wood, forest,” was the name of the Roman god of forests. Here’s the popularity graph for Silvanus.

Silvester
Silvester is derived from the Latin word silvestris, meaning “forested” or “of the forest.” Here’s the popularity graph for Silvester.

Silvestro
Silvestro is the Italian form of Silvester. Here’s the popularity graph for Silvestro.

Silvia and Silvio
Silvia (feminine) and Silvio (masculine) are the modern Italian and Spanish forms of Silvius. Here are the popularity graphs for Silvia and Silvio.

Silvius
Silvius was a Roman masculine name based on the Latin word silva, meaning “wood, forest.”

Sylvester
Sylvester is a variant of Silvester. Here’s the popularity graph for Sylvester.

Sylvia
Sylvia is a variant of Silvia. Here’s the popularity graph for Sylvia.

Talar
Talar (also spelled Dalar) is an Armenian feminine name based on the word talar or dalar, meaning “green, verdant.” Here’s the popularity graph for Talar.

Teal
Teal is a dark bluish-green color. The shade was named after the Eurasain teal (Anas crecca), a type of duck with a teal-colored stripe on its head. Here’s the popularity graph for Teal.

Thao
Thao is a Vietnamese gender-neutral name meaning “herbs, grass.” Here’s the popularity graph for Thao.

Turquoise
Turquoise (pronounced TUR-koyz) is a mineral that is sometimes bluish-green. The name of the stone can be traced back to the Old French term pierre tourques, meaning “Turkish stone.” Though it was mined in Persia, the stone was introduced to Europe in the 13th century by Turkish traders. Here’s the popularity graph for Turquoise.

Uumaaq
Uumaaq is a Greenlandic masculine name meaning “fresh, green (plant).”

Vipin
Vipin is a Hindi masculine name based on the Sanskrit word vipina, meaning “forest.”

Viridian
Viridian is a bluish-green color. The name of the pigment comes from the Latin word viridis, meaning “green.” Here’s the popularity graph for Viridian.

Viridiana
Viridiana is the feminine form of Viridian. Here’s the popularity graph for Viridiana.

Willow
Willow trees have green foliage. The word willow is derived from the Old English word for the tree, welig. Here’s the popularity graph for Willow.

Zumra
Zumra is a Turkish feminine name based on the word zümrüt, meaning “emerald.” Here’s the popularity graph for Zumra.

Can you think of any other names that have a connection to the color green?

P.S. Want to see more color-related baby names? Here are lists of red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple names.

Sources:

Images:

[Latest update: Dec. 2023]

Popular baby names in Northern Ireland (UK), 2021

Flag of the United Kingdom
Flag of the United Kingdom

According to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), the most popular baby names in Northern Ireland last year were Grace and Jack.

Here are the country’s top 50 girl names and top 50+ boy names of 2021:

Girl names

  1. Grace, 182 baby girls
  2. Emily, 150
  3. Fiadh, 149
  4. Olivia, 148
  5. Isla, 138
  6. Sophie, 128
  7. Aoife, 122
  8. Ella, 111
  9. Anna, 106
  10. Sophia, 102
  11. Amelia, 101
  12. Lucy, 100
  13. Charlotte, 98
  14. Lily, 94
  15. Evie, 92 (tie)
  16. Freya, 92 (tie)
  17. Ava, 90
  18. Annie, 87
  19. Mia, 82
  20. Ellie, 80
  21. Erin, 76 (3-way tie)
  22. Molly, 76 (3-way tie)
  23. Rosie, 76 (3-way tie)
  24. Willow, 69
  25. Eabha, 67
  26. Ruby, 64
  27. Poppy, 62
  28. Meabh, 61 (tie)
  29. Niamh, 61 (tie)
  30. Eva, 60
  31. Maisie, 59
  32. Katie, 58
  33. Cora, 56
  34. Hannah, 55 (tie)
  35. Ivy, 55 (tie)
  36. Cara, 54 (tie)
  37. Clodagh, 54 (tie)
  38. Georgia, 52 (4-way tie)
  39. Harper, 52 (4-way tie)
  40. Jessica, 52 (4-way tie)
  41. Zara, 52 (4-way tie)
  42. Chloe, 51 (tie)
  43. Rose, 51 (tie)
  44. Aria, 50
  45. Alice, 49 (3-way tie)
  46. Daisy, 49 (3-way tie)
  47. Mollie, 49 (3-way tie)
  48. Heidi, 48
  49. Saoirse, 45 (tie)
  50. Sienna, 45 (tie)

Boy names

  1. Jack, 193 baby boys
  2. Noah, 191
  3. James, 173
  4. Charlie, 155
  5. Oliver, 131
  6. Theo, 119
  7. Leo, 117
  8. Cillian, 116
  9. Finn, 115
  10. Harry, 114
  11. Oisin, 109 (tie)
  12. Thomas, 109 (tie)
  13. Daniel, 103
  14. Tommy, 101
  15. Freddie, 97
  16. Jacob, 92
  17. Jude, 86
  18. Arthur, 84
  19. Daithi, 83
  20. Darragh, 78 (3-way tie)
  21. Ethan, 78 (3-way tie)
  22. Ronan, 78 (3-way tie)
  23. Jonah, 77
  24. Alfie, 76 (tie)
  25. Archie, 76 (tie)
  26. Caleb, 75
  27. Shea, 73
  28. Conor, 71
  29. Alexander, 69
  30. Patrick, 68
  31. George, 66 (3-way tie)
  32. Isaac, 66 (3-way tie)
  33. Mason, 66 (3-way tie)
  34. Matthew, 65 (tie)
  35. Reuben, 65 (tie)
  36. Conan, 64 (3-way tie)
  37. Fionn, 64 (3-way tie)
  38. Luke, 64 (3-way tie)
  39. Ollie, 63
  40. Jake, 61 (tie)
  41. Joseph, 61 (tie)
  42. Logan, 60 (3-way tie)
  43. Odhran, 60 (3-way tie)
  44. Oscar, 60 (3-way tie)
  45. Liam, 58 (3-way tie)
  46. Lucas, 58 (3-way tie)
  47. Max, 58 (3-way tie)
  48. John, 57
  49. Rory, 56
  50. Joshua, 55 (tie)
  51. Theodore, 55 (tie)

In the girls’ top 10, Aoife and Anna replaced Amelia, Lucy and Freya. (Two replace three because there was a tie for 10th place the previous year.)

In the boys’ top 10, Leo replaced Thomas.

And on the other side of the spectrum…here are some of the names that were given to just 3 babies each in Northern Ireland last year:

Rare girl namesRare boy names
Anais, Betsy, Cliona, Darlah, Eadaoin, Fearne, Gigi, Helena, Indi, Jane, Kelly, Leila, Mallaidh, Nell, Orfhlaith, Rae, Saffron, Tabitha, Vivienne, WinnieAyaan, Brendan, Cabhan, Donncha, Egan, Fearghal, Gareth, Herbie, Jaylen, Koen, Lenny, Millar, Naoise, Paddy, Quinn, Ross, Seanan, Travis, Vinnie, Zachariah

Finally, here are the 2020 rankings for Northern Ireland, if you’d like to compare.

Source: Baby Names – NISRA

Image: Adapted from Flag of the United Kingdom (public domain)

Name quotes #104: Shanaya, Bluzette, Homer

double quotation mark

Time for the latest batch of name quotes!

From Sanjana Ramachandran’s recent essay “The Namesakes“:

Shanaya Patel’s story, in more ways than one, encapsulated an India opening up to the world. In March 2000, Shanaya’s parents were at a café in Vadodara, Gujarat, when some Shania Twain tunes came on: she was also the artist who had been playing when her father saw her mother for the first time, “during their whole arranged-marriage-thing.” Finally, after eight months of “baby” and “munna,” Shanaya’s parents had found a name for her.

But “to make it different,” Shanaya’s parents changed the spelling of her name slightly. “Before me, all my cousins were named from this or that religious book,” she said. “When my parents didn’t want to go down that road, the elders were all ‘How can you do this!’—but my parents fought for it. There was a small controversy in the family.”

(Her essay also inspired me to write this post about the name Sanjana!)

About the “naming” of a Native American man who was discovered in California in 1911, from a 1996 UC Berkeley news release:

Under pressure from reporters who wanted to know the stranger’s name, [anthropologist] Alfred Kroeber called him “Ishi,” which means “man” in Yana. Ishi never uttered his real name.

“A California Indian almost never speaks his own name,” wrote Kroeber’s wife, “using it but rarely with those who already know it, and he would never tell it in reply to a direct question.”

About street names in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, from the book Names of New York (2021) by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro:

Clymer, Ellery, Hart; Harrison, Hooper, Heyward, Hewes; Ross, Rush, Rutledge, Penn — they’re all names belonging to one or another of those fifty-six men who scrawled their letters at the Declaration [of Independence]’s base. So are Taylor and Thornton, Wythe and Whipple.

[…]

[Keap Street’s] name does not match that of one of the Declaration’s signers, but it tries to: “Keap” is apparently a misrendering of the surname of the last man to leave his mark on it: Thomas McKean of Pennsylvania, whose name’s illegibility was perhaps due to his having rather less space to scrawl it by the time the document reached him than John Hancock did.

From a 2008 CNN article about unusual names:

“At times, for the sake of avoiding an uncomfortable conversation or throwing someone off guard, I answer to the names of ‘Mary’ or ‘Kelly’,” says Bluzette Martin of West Allis, Wisconsin. At restaurants, “the thought of putting an employee through the pain of guessing how to spell and pronounce ‘Bluzette’ just isn’t worth it to me.”

Martin was named after “Bluzette,” an up-tempo jazz waltz written by Jean “Toots” Thielemans. Despite her daily problems with this name, it certainly has its perks, like when she met Thielemans in 1987 at a club in Los Angeles. “When I met [him], he thanked my mother,” she says.

(Here’s “Bluesette” (vid) by Thielemans, who was Belgian.)

From a 1942 item in Time magazine about ‘Roberto’ being used as a fascist greeting:

Last week the authorities ordered 18 Italian-Americans excluded from the San Francisco military area as dangerous to security — the first such action against white citizens. The wonder was that it was not done earlier: everybody heard about the goings on in the North Beach Italian colony. Fascists there used to say RoBerTo as a greeting — Ro for Rome, Ber for Berlin, To for Tokyo. Italy sent teachers, books and medals for the Italian schools. Mussolini won a popularity contest hands down over Franklin Roosevelt.

From an AP news story about the origin of Armand Hammer’s name:

Industrialist Armand Hammer often said he was named after Armand Duval, the hero in Alexandre Dumas’ play “Camille.”

But he conceded later that his father, a socialist, also had in mind the arm-and-hammer symbol of the Socialist Labor Party.

For years, people erroneously thought Hammer was connected to the company that makes Arm & Hammer baking soda.

From an essay about Island Cemetery (on Block Island, in Rhode Island) by Martha Ball:

The cemetery, our own City on a Hill, has always been a place of enchantment, holding stones lacking uniformity even within the same lot, bearing names alien to our time; Philamon Galusha, Icivilli, Darius. It is enhanced by an awareness of the sheer physical accomplishment it embodies, a steep slope terraced long before we had today’s array of earth moving equipment.

[Neither Darius Rucker nor I would agree that the name Darius is “alien to our time.” Looking over the other names at Island Cemetery, I saw all the expected Biblical entries (Peleg, Obed, Barzilla; Zilpah, Huldah, Hepzebah), plenty of fanciful feminines (Lucretia, Cordelia, Sophronia), and a few references to current events: a Martin VanBuren born in 1839, a Cassius Clay born in 1854, an Elsworth (middle name) born in 1861, an Ambrose Everett born in 1862, and a Ulysses born in 1868.]

From an article about early Soviet film director Dziga Vertov at Russia Beyond:

Vertov’s real name was David Kaufman, which unambiguously points to his Jewish origin. But the desire of the talented youth from Bialystok (at the time part of the Russian Empire, today Poland) to change his surname upon arrival in Moscow was unlikely to have been due to anti-Semitism — in the 1920s it was not as developed as in the 1950s. Vertov, like many avant-garde artists, probably just chose a new name to herald “a new life.”

In Ukrainian dziga means whirligig, spinning top, while vertov comes from the verb vertet (to spin). The two form something like “the spinning whirligig,” a name that was entirely fitting for the man who bore it.

From an article in The Economist about the unusual names of Tabasco, Mexico:

[The unusual names] impressed Amado Nervo, a Mexican poet. In every family “there is a Homer, a Cornelia, a Brutus, a Shalmanasar and a Hera,” he wrote in “The Elysian Fields of Tabasco”, which was published in 1896. Rather than scour the calendar for saints’ names, he wrote, parents of newborns “search for them in ‘The Iliad’, ‘The Aeneid’, the Bible and in the history books”. Andrés Iduarte, a Tabascan essayist of the 20th century, concurred. Tabasco is a place “of Greek names and African soul”, he wrote, endorsing the cliche that the state has similarities with Africa.

From a 2013 article about Christmas Day babies in Liverpool:

Weighing in at 6lb 14oz Kirra Smith was born at 5.09am to the delight of […] mum Claire, 42, and dad Richard, 46, from Neston.

[…]

Kirra’s unusual name was inspired by Kirra Beach on Australia’s Gold Coast where Richard likes to surf when visiting Claire’s ex-pat mum Triana, 65, who flew over to be at the birth.

From a 2018 article about the South Korean novel Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982 (2016) in The Korean Herald:

Written by author Cho Nam-ju, the book follows the life of its protagonist, named Kim Ji-young, a South Korean woman born in 1982. Her name, Ji-young, was one of the most common baby names for girls in the country back in the 1980s.

Like her name, her life is far from extraordinary. Like most Korean women born in the ‘80s, she attends university, gets a job, gets married and becomes a stay-at-home mother.

From the about page of blogger ShezCrafti (a.k.a. Jaime):

I was named after Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman. True story. My mom was a huge fan and evidently watched a lot of it while pregnant with me. But these days it’s cooler to tell people I spell it like Jaime Lannister.

(The “ShezCrafti” handle comes from the Beastie Boys song “She’s Crafty.”)

Where did the baby name Keely come from in 1957?

Keely Smith's album "I Wish You Love" (1959).
Keely Smith album

At a time when Kelly was bounding up the baby name charts, we see the debut (and quick rise) of the very similar Keely:

  • 1959: 119 baby girls named Keely
  • 1958: 84 baby girls named Keely
  • 1957: 7 baby girls named Keely [debut]
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted

Keely debuted the year Virginia-born jazz vocalist Keely Smith had her first big solo hit, “I Wish You Love.” The next year, she and her duet partner/husband Louis Prima scored another hit with the song “That Old Black Magic.” In fact, the song won ‘Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus’ at the very first Grammy Awards, in May of 1959.

Keely Smith, born Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, had spent much of the ’50s performing in Vegas with Prima. He had originally wanted to call her Dottie Mae Smith (Smith being her stepfather’s name) but, as she later said: “I was no Dottie Mae.” They settled on using her Irish surname as her first name instead. (The surname means “descendant of Caollaidhe,” with “Caollaidhe” being a male personal name derived from caol, meaning “slender.”)

Which name do you prefer, Keely or Kelly?

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