How popular is the baby name Kunnei 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 Kunnei.

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Popularity of the baby name Kunnei


Posts that mention the name Kunnei

Yakut names: Künnei, Tuiaara, Dokhsun

Lake Ozhogino in Sakha, Russia

I recently stumbled upon a fascinating essay about names by a Russian academic who’s part of an eastern Siberian ethnic group called the Yakut (also known as the Sakha).

Her Yakut name is Künnei Takaahai; the Russified form is Kyunney Takasaeva. Here’s the etymology of her first name:

My name Künnei originates from Kün (“sun” and “day”), and Ei (Ai), which in Turkic languages means “moon” and “month.” Thus, my name can be interpreted as Sun and Moon, or the day of the month, or even as the Sun and Peace (Eie).

She notes that the element kün is common in Yakut personal names, and also in the names of those who speak other Turkic languages (such as Kazakh).

Künnei has two older sisters:

  • Sargy (b. 1966), whose name means “happiness, luck, success” in Yakut, and
  • Tuiaara (b. 1969), whose name means “to sing, to float” in Yakut.

During the Soviet era, Yakut names were not included on the government’s list of approved personal names, so the majority of Yakut children were registered under Russian names (though they continued to use Yakut names at home).

Kunnei and her sisters were atypical in that their Yakut names were their legal names:

Every time after one of us was born, my father visited the Yakut village council and had to insist that the Yakut names should be officially recorded.

That said, their names were Russified (e.g., “Sargylana”) by the registrar.

Speaking of Künnei’s father, he was born in 1942 and named Revolii Timofeevich Takasaev. His first name, Revolii, was inspired the October Revolution of 1917.

This reflects how strong both the belief in the Revolution and also the popularity of Soviet names were in Yakutia. One can only imagine the significance that the revolution (and revolution propaganda) had for the Yakut people. This must have applied in particular to my grandfather, since before leaving to fight in World War II (from which he never returned), he gave such name to his unborn child. He told my grandmother, “If it’s a son, call him Revo, and if it’s a girl — Liutsiia.” That is to say: revoliutsiia (revolution), a name referring to the tradition of revolutionary Soviet names.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, indigenous Yakut names started making a comeback. Nowadays, Künnei reports, they are “very popular” among the Yakuts.

(Though she didn’t offer any examples of currently popular Yakut names, she did mention two other Yakut names in her essay: Kutaskyyn and Dokhsun, both male.)

Sources:

Image: At midnight near Lake Ozhogino by Victor Gabyshev under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Baby names inspired by the solar eclipse: Helios, Mahina, Blake

Total solar eclipse (August 2017)
Total solar eclipse

On August 21, the United States will see its first coast-to-coast solar eclipse since 1918. If you’re planning to have (or conceive!) a baby around the time of the eclipse, you might be interested in a name that marks the event (but that perhaps isn’t as obvious as Eclipse itself).

So what are your options?

Names with “celestial” associations

A solar eclipse involves the alignment of three celestial bodies — the sun (a star), the moon, and the Earth — in the sky. You could use a name that is associated in some way with one of these elements, such as…

“Sun” names

  • Haru (Japanese)
  • Helios (ancient Greek)
  • Hina (Japanese)
  • Inti (Quechua)
  • Nou (Hmong)
  • Ra (ancient Egyptian)
  • Ravi (Sanskrit)
  • Shams (Arabic)
  • Sol (Spanish & Portuguese, ultimately from Latin)
  • Solaris (Latin)
  • Soleil (French)
  • Sunniva (Old English)
  • Sunny (English)
  • Surya (Sanskrit)

“Star” names

  • Aster (ancient Greek)
  • Astra (based on the ancient Greek word)
  • Citlalli (Nahuatl)
  • Estelle (French)
  • Estrella (Spanish)
  • Hoshi (Japanese)
  • Najm & Najma (Arabic)
  • Seren (Welsh)
  • Star (English)
  • Starla (based on the English word)
  • Stjarna (Icelandic)
  • Stella (Latin)
  • Tähti (Finnish)
  • Tara (Sanskrit)

“Moon” names

  • Aylin (Turkish)
  • Badr (Arabic)
  • Chandra (Sanskrit)
  • Dal (Korean)
  • Dawa (Tibetan)
  • Ilargi (Basque)
  • Luna (Latin)
  • Lusine (Armenian)
  • Mahina (Hawaiian & Tongan)
  • Máni (Icelandic)
  • Metztli (Nahuatl)
  • Moon (English)
  • Qamar (Arabic)
  • Selene (ancient Greek)

“Earth” names

  • Avani (Sanskrit)
  • Bhumi (Sanskrit)
  • Eartha (based on the English word)
  • Gaia (ancient Greek)
  • Ki (Sumerian)
  • Tierra (Spanish)
  • Tlalli (Nahuatl)

“Sky” names

  • Akash (Sanskrit)
  • Alya (Arabic)
  • Anu (Sumerian)
  • Caelus (Latin)
  • Céleste (French)
  • Ciel (French)
  • Cielo (Spanish)
  • Lani (Hawaiian)
  • Ortzi (Basque)
  • Sky (English)
  • Skyla (based on the English word)
  • Sora (Japanese)

You could even look for a name that contains more than one of these elements. I’ve come across a handful of names that happen to contain both an element meaning “sun” and an element meaning “moon,” for instance. Examples include Ravichandra (Sanskrit), Künnei (Yakut), Aygün (Turkish), and Günay (also Turkish).

Names with “dark” associations

The main event, from an Earthling’s perspective, is the darkening of the sun thanks to the moon getting in the way and casting its shadow over us. So you could use a name associated in some way with darkness, such as…

“Shadow” names

  • Chhaya (Sanskrit)
  • Shade (English)
  • Shadow (English)
  • Umbra (Latin)
  • Zalaph (Hebrew)
  • Zillah (Hebrew)

“Dark” or “Black” names

  • Adham (Arabic)
  • Blake (English surname)
  • Charna (Yiddish)
  • Ciar & Ciara (Irish)
  • Ciarán (Irish)
  • Dubhán (Irish)
  • Duff (Irish surname)
  • Jett (English)
  • Kara (Turkish)
  • Krishna (Sanskrit)
  • Melaina (ancient Greek)
    • Melania (Latin, based on melaina)
    • Mélanie (French form of Melania)
  • Raven (English)
  • Sullivan (Irish surname)

“Night” names

  • Layla (Arabic)
  • Nisha (Sanskrit)
  • Njóla (Icelandic)
  • Noctis (Latin)
  • Nox (Latin)
  • Nyx (ancient Greek)
  • Rajani (Sanskrit)
  • Rajnish (Sanskrit)
  • Tuta (Quechua)
  • Yoalli (Nahuatl)

I think Blake and Sullivan are particularly intriguing choices.

The English surname Blake can come from either of two similar Middle English words that happen to have opposite definitions: blac, meaning “black,” or blac, meaning “wan, pale, white, fair.” So it manages to encapsulate the concepts of both darkness and lightness — two key elements of an eclipse.

And the Irish surname Sullivan, “descendant of Súileabhán,” is based on the Gaelic personal name Súileabhán, meaning “little dark eye” — which sounds a lot like a poetic description of an eclipse.

Name pairings with both “celestial” and “dark” associations

You could combine some of the “celestial” and “dark” names above to get something more specific, like…

  • Layla Soleil: “night” and “sun”
  • Jett Helios: “black” and “sun”
  • Ciarán Sol: “black” and “sun”
  • Mélanie Stella: “dark” and “star” (“Dark Star” is also a Grateful Dead song)
  • Luna Zillah: “moon” and “shadow” (“Moon Shadow” is also a Cat Stevens song)

Names (or name pairings) featuring the letters “S” and “E”

This is as inconspicuous as it gets. Commemorate the solar eclipse simply by using the letters “S” and “E” in combination. You could choose a single name that starts with “Se-,” like…

Sela
Selene (“moon” in Greek)
Selma
Seraphina
Seren (“star” in Welsh)
Serenity
Sean
Sebastian
Sefton
Sergio
Seth
Severino

Or, you could use a pair of names that start with “S-” and “E-,” such as…

Sabrina Eden
Sydney Elise
Sarah Evangeline
Susanna Elizabeth
Simon Elijah
Spencer Ellis
Shane Everett
Samuel Edward

Which of the above names (or combos) do you like most? What other solar eclipse-themed ideas would you add to this list?


Updates

  • May 2018: The baby name Eclipse debuted in the 2017 data! The baby name Moon also more than tripled in usage last year.
  • Dec. 2021: Did you know that Cleopatra gave her twins the middle names Selene and Helios?
  • Dec. 2022: The rare Icelandic name Myrkvi can mean “eclipse” (also “darkness”).
  • Feb. 2023: Actress Soleil Moon Frye‘s given names mean “sun” and (of course) “moon.”
  • Apr. 2024: A baby born during the April 2024 total solar eclipse was named Sol Celeste.
  • May 2024: The baby name Eclipse saw its highest-ever usage (so far) in 2023, thanks to the “ring of fire” annular solar eclipse of October 2023.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from 2017 Total Solar Eclipse by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under CC BY 2.0.