How popular is the baby name Louise 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 Louise.
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In 2023, the Western European microstate of Monaco welcomed 804 babies — 388 baby girls and 416 baby boys. All of these babies were born in Monaco’s single public hospital, the Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace (which was named after Grace Kelly).
Notably, though, only 229 them were born to residents of Monaco. The other 575 were born to non-residents, most of whom came from the nearby French communes of Menton, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, and Beausoleil.
So, what were the most popular names among the (mostly French) babies born in Monaco last year? Louise and Théo.
Here are Monaco’s top 5 girl names and top 5 boy names of 2023:
Girl names
Louise
Chloé
Emma
Jade
Chiara
Boy names
Théo
Gabriel
Léo
Leonardo
Andrea
Last year’s newborns included “the latest member of the Grimaldi family” — a baby girl named Victoire, born in April to Louis Ducruet (the son of Princess Stéphanie, whose brother, Prince Albert, is the current head of state). The House of Grimaldi has been the reigning house of the Principality of Monaco since the late 13th century.
In 2022, the top names in Monaco were Emma and Leonardo.
From the early 1900s to the late 1960s, Madonna was one of the top 1,000 girl names in the United States. In terms of rankings, it was most popular in the 1930s; in terms of raw numbers of births, it was most popular in the ’50s and ’60s.
The name has been in decline ever since, but it did see a sudden spike in usage in 1985:
1987: 61 baby girls named Madonna
1986: 70 baby girls named Madonna
1985: 146 baby girls named Madonna
1984: 63 baby girls named Madonna
1983: 23 baby girls named Madonna
In fact, it almost landed back inside the top 1,000 that year. (It ranked 1,033rd, just seven babies shy of 1,000th place.)
Here’s a visual:
What gave it a boost?
Mononymous pop superstar Madonna (birth name: Madonna Louise Ciccone).
The singer was born into a Catholic family in Michigan in 1958. She was named after her mother. (Her five siblings are named Anthony, Martin, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.)
Madonna rose to fame in the mid-1980s with a string of catchy hits:
“Holiday,” which peaked at #16 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in January of 1984
“Borderline,” which peaked at #10 in June of 1984
“Lucky Star,” which peaked at #4 in October of 1984
“Like a Virgin,” which peaked at #1 for six weeks starting in December of 1984
“Material Girl,” which peaked at #2 in March of 1985
“Crazy for You,” which peaked at #1 in May of 1985
It was written for the movie Vision Quest, in which Madonna had a cameo.
“Angel,” which peaked at #5 in June of 1985
“Into the Groove,” which was never technically released as a single
It was featured in the movie Desperately Seeking Susan, in which Madonna had a leading role.
“Dress You Up,” which peaked at #5 in October of 1985
She also got a lot of exposure on MTV. One of her most memorable MTV moments was the suggestive “Like a Virgin” performance at the very first Video Music Awards (in September of 1984):
In 1991, during a Vanity Fair interview, Madonna posed the question: “How could I be anything else but what I am having been named Madonna?”
Her name is based on the word madonna (which meant “my lady” in Old Italian). Today it’s associated with the Virgin Mary — hence its usage as a given name in Catholic families — but, centuries ago, it was simply a polite form of address similar to madame or milady. (Madonna’s first child, a daughter born in 1996, was also given a Virgin Mary-associated name: Lourdes.)
What are your thoughts on the name Madonna? Would you use it?
P.S. Coincidentally, the primary male characters in two of Madonna’s early movies — Vision Quest and Who’s That Girl — had nearly the same (rather uncommon) first name: Louden/Loudon.
In early 1874, Prince Alfred (son of Queen Victoria) married Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna (daughter of Czar Alexander II) in St. Petersburg. Their wedding “directly united the British and Russian royal families for the first time.”
(To mark the occasion, a London bakery invented the Marie biscuit, also known as the Maria cookie.)
Alfred and Maria ended up having five children: Alfred, Marie, Victoria Melita, Alexandra, and Beatrice.
Their third child was born in November of 1876 while her father, a Royal Navy officer, was stationed on the island of Malta (which was then part of the British Empire). The baby girl was named Victoria after her grandmother and Melita after the national personification of Malta, her birthplace.
Where does the name Melita come from?
Most of the time, it derives from the ancient Greek word meli, meaning “honey.” In the case of the allegorical figure, however, it came from the name of an ancient Maltese city.
Melita (or Melite) was the Roman name of the city. The Romans had taken the island from the Phoenicians during the Second Punic War. The Phoenicians’ original name for the city (founded in the 8th century B.C.) was Maleth, meaning “shelter.”
What are your thoughts on the name Melita?
P.S. Victoria Melita’s older sister, Marie, went on to marry the future king of Romania. (Americans became familiar with Marie and two of her children, Nicolae and Ileana, when the three of them toured the U.S. for several weeks in late 1926.) And Victoria Melita’s paternal uncle, the future Edward VII, was the father of Louise, Victoria and Maud, a.k.a., Louvima.
According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Celine saw a steep rise in the usage during the 1990s:
1999: 394 baby girls named Celine [rank: 617th]
1998: 565 baby girls named Celine [rank: 456th]
1997: 443 baby girls named Celine [rank: 537th]
1996: 271 baby girls named Celine [rank: 774th]
1995: 231 baby girls named Celine [rank: 846th]
1994: 247 baby girls named Celine [rank: 815th]
1993: 157 baby girls named Celine
1992: 121 baby girls named Celine
1991: 77 baby girls named Celine
1990: 52 baby girls named Celine
1989: 43 baby girls named Celine
The name entered the top 1,000 in 1994, and even reached the top 500 (briefly) in 1998. That 1998 spike remained the name’s highest overall usage until the late 2010s.
Here’s a visual:
What was behind the rise?
Quebec-born singer Céline Dion, who became one of the dominant pop divas of the mid-to-late 1990s (along with Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey).
She’d been putting out French-language music in Canada for a decade before finally releasing her first English-language album, Unison, in 1990. The album featured the song “Where Does My Heart Beat Now,” which reached #4 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in March of 1991.
This first English-language hit was followed by many more, including…
“Beauty and the Beast” (1991), a duet with Peabo Bryson
theme song from the 1991 Disney movie Beauty and the Beast
“If You Asked Me To” (1992)
“The Power of Love” (1993)
“Because You Loved Me” (1996)
theme song from the 1996 movie Up Close & Personal
“It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” (1996)
“All by Myself” (1996)
“My Heart Will Go On” (1997)
theme song from the 1997 movie Titanic
“My Heart Will Go On” was Céline Dion’s biggest hit, and today it’s considered her signature song. Here’s a live performance:
The 5-time Grammy winner was born in March of 1968 in the town of Charlemagne, a suburb of Montreal. Her parents, Adhémar and Thérèse Dion, had a total of fourteen children:
Denise
Clément
Claudette
Liette
Michel
Louise
Jacques
Daniel
Ghislaine
Linda
Manon
Paul (twin)
Pauline (twin)
Céline
Céline, the baby of the family, was more than two decades younger than her oldest sibling, Denise.
How did she come to be named Céline?
Her mother had chosen the name after hearing the song “Céline,” written by the French writer and singer-songwriter Hugues Aufray, who had had great success in Quebec and France during the time Céline’s mother was pregnant with her. “Céline” told the story of a good-hearted, well-behaved girl, the oldest of a large family, whose mother died giving birth to the youngest. The Céline of the song sacrificed her youth to care for her brothers and sisters, and the years had passed without her ever knowing the joys of love.
Hugues Aufray’s song “Céline” [vid] was released in 1966.
Quebec’s baby name data, which only goes back to 1980, doesn’t reveal whether or not the song made the name Céline trendy in Quebec in the late 1960s. But it does show the name declining in usage during the 1980s — despite the fact that a teenage Céline Dion was racking up French-language hits in Quebec throughout the decade.
The French name Céline can be traced back (via the Roman family names Caelinus and Caelius) to the Latin word caelum, which means “heaven.”
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