How popular is the baby name Marie 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 Marie.

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Popularity of the baby name Marie


Posts that mention the name Marie

Popular baby names in Belgium, 2019

Flag of Belgium
Flag of Belgium

According to data from Statistics Belgium, the country’s most popular baby names in 2019 were Olivia and Arthur.

Here are Belgium’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2019:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 651 baby girls
  2. Emma, 563
  3. Mila, 518
  4. Louise, 515
  5. Alice, 407
  6. Lina, 388
  7. Juliette, 378
  8. Anna, 349
  9. Elena, 347
  10. Lucie, 343

Boy Names

  1. Arthur, 610 baby boys
  2. Liam, 575
  3. Louis, 549
  4. Noah, 545
  5. Adam, 504
  6. Jules, 470
  7. Lucas, 451
  8. Victor, 449
  9. Gabriel, 391
  10. Mohamed, 357

In the girls’ top 10, Anna and Lucie replaced Marie and Sofia.

The boys’ top 10 includes the same names, but in a different order.

The #1 names within each of Belgium’s three regions were:

  • Brussels: Nour and Adam
  • Flanders: Olivia and Liam
  • Wallonia: Olivia and Louis

Finally, here are some of the baby names that were given to 5 babies each in Belgium last year.

Rare Girl NamesRare Boy Names
Ayliz, Bintou, Cerise, Doja, Elmedina, Fem, Gina, Honorine, Iluna, Jitske, Karlijn, Lilo, Miruna, Nellia, Olga, Puck, Rinad, Sondos, Wissal, ZayaAlperen, Bulut, Chahine, Dastan, Eiden, Furkan, Ghali, Haytham, Ivar, Jarno, Kassim, Lokman, Muaz, Nunzio, Odilon, Pelle, Remco, Sigge, Tidiane, Zias

In 2018, the top names were Emma and Arthur.

Source: First names for boys and girls | Statbel

Image: Adapted from Flag of Belgium (public domain)

Baby born aboard steamship St. Louis, named St. Louis

Steamship St. Louis
SS St. Louis

On July 8, 1895, a steerage passenger aboard the steamship St. Louis (traveling from Southampton to New York) gave birth to a baby boy.

The passenger, Marie Sillanpau,* named her son St. Louis “in honor of the ship.”

She was also given a gift of $69.50, collected from the saloon passengers.

*Her surname may have actually been the Finnish Sillanpää.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from SS St. Louis

Where did the baby name Gia come from?

Actress Gia Scala (1934-1972)
Gia Scala

The Italian name Gia is a pet form of Gianna, which itself is a contracted form of Giovanna (akin to Joanna). But Gia as a standalone name was very rare in the U.S. until the late 1950s, when usage increased enough for the name to debut in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1959: 51 baby girls named Gia
  • 1958: 43 baby girls named Gia
  • 1957: 18 baby girls named Gia [debut]
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted

What gave it a boost?

America’s first famous Gia: actress Gia Scala, whose career took off in the late 1950s.

Her “real” name is hard to pin down. She was born in England with the name Josephine Scoglio. But…she spent her childhood in Italy, and when she applied for U.S. citizenship in 1957, she said her legal name was Giovanna Scoglio.

In any case, she started going by Gia not long after she moved to the U.S. (in the early 1950s), and Universal Studios gave her the stage name “Gia Scala” at the start of her film career.

Graph of the usage of the baby name Gia in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Gia

Since then, several other famous Gias have also influenced the charts…

  • Fashion model Gia Marie Carangi was at the peak of her fame in the late ’70s and early ’80s. It doesn’t look like her modeling career had any impact on the baby name Gia, but when the TV movie Gia starring Angelina Jolie came out in 1998, usage of the name more than tripled, and the compound name Giamarie debuted.
  • Usage more than doubled from 2009 to 2011 (when Gia peaked in the national rankings at 300th place) thanks to two people: reality TV contestant Gia Allamand, who appeared on both The Bachelor and Bachelor Pad in 2010, and celebrity baby Gia Francesca, born to Mario Lopez and his wife in September of 2010.

Do you like the name Gia? Would you ever use it?

Sources: Gia Scala – Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Gia Scala – Wikipedia

P.S. Gia Allamand was on the same season of The Bachelor as Tenley Molzahn, whose name, Tenley, also happened to be a 1950s debut in the SSA data.

Covid, Corona, Quarantino: Even more virus-inspired baby names

Illustration of the COVID-19 virus
COVID-19 virus

We’ve already talked about a bunch of virus-inspired names (Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Coviduvidapdap, Corona, Corona, Lockdown, Sanitizer), but there are still more! Here’s a round-up of nine others that I’ve seen, but haven’t blogged about yet…

Corona and Corona (India): A baby girl born on March 29 was named Corona Kumari, and a baby boy born on April 5 (at the same hospital) was named Corona Kumar. The names weren’t a coincidence: They were suggested by Dr. S. F. Basha, who treated both mothers.

Corona (Indonesia): A baby girl born on April 30 was named Nara Fatimah Corona.

Covid (Philippines): A baby girl born on April 13 was named Covid Marie.

Lockdown (India): A baby boy born on May 22 — aboard a Shramik Special [train], which is very interesting — was named Lockdown.

Lockdown (India): A baby boy born in April was named Lockdown. His father Sanjay said, “We went through so much trouble due to coronavirus outbreak and lockdown. He was born in the midst of such peril. So, we have decided to name him Lockdown.”

Quarantine and Sanitizer (India): A set of male twins born in May were named Quarantine and Sanitizer. Their father Dharmendra said, “Both give us protection. So, this feeling of security should remain lifelong. These are the best names that we could [find] for our children.”

Quarantino (India): A baby boy born on May 31 was named Emmanuel Quarantino. The parents had traveled from Goa to Manipur several days earlier, so they’d been placed under institutional quarantine at an isolation center called Emmanuel School. This was where the baby was born, hence the name.

(Quarantino is my favorite virus-name so far. It keeps making me think of Quentin Tarantino.)

Have you spotted any other names like these in the news? If so, please leave a comment!

Sources: Meet Emmanuel Quarantino, A Manipuri Baby Boy Who Was Born In A Quarantine Centre, Manipur: Woman gives birth to baby boy at COVID-19 quarantine centre, names him Emmanuel Quarantino, ‘Lockdown Yadav to Sanitiser Singh’: Indian parents and their tryst with Covid names, Meerut couple names their newborn twins ‘Quarantine’ and ‘Sanitizer’, Corona Kumar and Kumari: 2 Andhra Pradesh couples name newborn babies born during lockdown, Corona Kumar, then Covid Marie, the newborns being named after a pandemic, ‘Corona’ baby: Newborn girl in West Java named after pandemic

Image: COVID-19 virus (CDC)