How popular is the baby name Luz in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Luz.
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One of last week’s post featured Glenna Lee McCarthy, whose father was famous Texas oil prospector and entrepreneur Glenn McCarthy (1907-1988).
Writer Edna Ferber fictionalized Glenn’s rags-to-riches life story in her novel Giant (1952) with the character Jett Rink.
The book was later made into a movie, which came out in October of 1956.
Jett was played by James Dean, who died in a car accident a month before the film premiered.
The other two main characters were Jordan “Bick” Benedict (played by Rock Hudson) and his wife Leslie Benedict (Elizabeth Taylor). Secondary characters included the Benedicts’ son Jordan, or “Jordy” (Dennis Hopper) and a neighbor named Vashti (Jane Withers).
The movie did well at the box office and was nominated for various Academy Awards, including a posthumous Best Actor nomination for Dean. It also gave a boost to several baby names.
In 1957, the year after the movie was released, the name Jett saw its then-highest-ever usage (a level that wasn’t surpassed until the 1980s).
1958: 17 baby boys named Jett
1957: 24 baby boys named Jett
1956: 14 baby boys named Jett
1955: 5 baby boys named Jett
1954: unlisted
The boy name Jordan more than doubled in usage in 1957, and the diminutive form Jordy debuted the same year:
Jordan
Jordy
1958
186 [rank: 567th]
.
1957
207 [rank: 539th]
5*
1956
101 [rank: 733rd]
.
1955
106 [rank: 712th]
.
1954
109 [rank: 692nd]
.
*Debut
Leslie — which had started being given more often to baby girls than to baby boys about a decade earlier — saw its highest-ever usage as a girl name in 1957:
1958: 6,010 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 79th]
1957: 6,101 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 77th] (peak usage)
1956: 4,386 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 104th]
1955: 4,403 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 99th]
1954: 4,148 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 99th]
Usage of the baby name Leslie
And Vashti, like Jordan, more than doubled in usage:
1958: 10 baby girls named Vashti
1957: 16 baby girls named Vashti
1956: 7 baby girls named Vashti
1955: 8 baby girls named Vashti
1954: 8 baby girls named Vashti
Interestingly, Luz — another name that was used for two different characters in the movie — saw a slight decline in usage from 1956 to 1957.
Below are hundreds of baby names with a numerological value of 5.
What do I mean by that?
Well, in numerology, you substitute each letter in a word with that letter’s ordinal value in the alphabet. (The letter B has a value of 2, for instance, because it’s the second letter.) Then you add those ordinal values together to come up with a total. Lastly, you add the digits of that total together to obtain a numerological value.
Here’s an example: The letters in the name Mia have the values 13, 9, and 1. Added together, these values equal 23. And the digits of 23 added together equal 5.
All of the “5” names below are sub-categorized by totals — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone. Within each group you’ll find some of the most popular “5” names per gender (according to the most recent set of U.S. baby name rankings).
5 via 14
The letters in the following baby names add up to 14, which reduces to five (1+4=5).
Girl names (5 via 14)
Boy names (5 via 14)
Ida, Adah, Caia, Dia, Becca
Ahad, Adi, Dj, Kc, Jac
5 via 23
The letters in the following baby names add up to 23, which reduces to five (2+3=5).
Girl names (5 via 23)
Boy names (5 via 23)
Mia, Alia, Aila, Adela, Cara, Addie, Laia, Edie, Jaci, Ami
Caleb, Coda, Acen, Iam, Adem
5 via 32
The letters in the following baby names add up to 32, which reduces to five (3+2=5).
What does the number five mean in numerology? Unfortunately, there’s no clear answer. Various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number five.
That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 5 being described as “freedom-loving,” “dynamic,” “adaptable,” “curious,” and “unpredictable.”
Personally, I prefer to look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 5:
Fingers
High-five (hand gesture)
Toes
Senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing)
Tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami)
Starfish (most starfish have 5 arms)
Basketball (5 players per side)
Olympic Games (symbolized by 5 interlocked rings)
Greek classical elements (water, earth, air, fire, aether)
Quintessence (refers to the fifth element, aether, which was a late addition to the list)
Chinese traditional elements (water, fire, earth, wood, metal)
What does the number 5 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?
(To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, and nine.)
We all know of baby names that come from Marian titles — names like Fátima, Lourdes, Dolores, Guadalupe, Carmel, Pilar, Milagros, Mercedes, Luz, Consolata, Consuelo, Corazón, Loreto, Remedios, and so on.
Well, I discovered three more the other day that were brand new to me.
The first was Chiquinquirá, which I learned about through a Gawker post (of all places). The name belongs to TV personality María Chiquinquirá Delgado Díaz of Maracaibo, Venezuela. Her name was inspired by La Virgen de Chiquinquirá, patroness of Colombia, of the Peruvian city of Caraz, and of the Venezuelan state of Zulia (which is where Maracaibo is located).
This discovery inspired me to seek out other rare Marian title-names (rare for the U.S., anyway). I ended up finding two more: Suyapa and Lasalette.
Suyapa comes from La Virgen de Suyapa, patroness of Honduras. (Suyapa is a suburb of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.) I found a few dozen instances of this name both on the SSA’s baby name lists and in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).
Lasalette comes from Our Lady of La Salette, a Marian apparition that occurred in France in the mid-1800s. I knew of the apparition, but I’d never realized La Salette was used as a name until I checked the SSDI and found three Lasalettes.
Please note that I did include names in the gray area between one syllable and two syllables. The deciding factor on these particular names will be your own interpretation/accent, so be sure to test the names out loud before making any final decisions. (“Hayle,” for instance — would you say it like Hale, or like Hailey? Or “Rise” — is it rize, or ree-sah?)
Many of these names also happen to be unisex, so they appear on the one-syllable boy names list as well.
What’s your favorite one-syllable girl name?
[Latest update: July 2023]
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