matt – Nancy’s Baby Names

How popular is the baby name Matt 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 Matt.

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Popularity of the baby name Matt

Posts that mention the name Matt

August 8, 2025August 1, 2025

Where did the baby name Syriana come from in 2005?

Movie poster for "Syriana" (2005) — “*Syriana*” poster

The name Syriana first appeared in the U.S. baby named data in 2005:

2007 62 baby girls named Syriana
2006 119 baby girls named Syriana [peak usage]
2005 16 baby girls named Syriana [debut]
2004: unlisted
2003: unlisted

A year later, Syriana reach peak usage and the spellings Syrianna and Cyriana both debuted in the data.

What was inspiring parents to name their daughters Syriana in the mid-aughts?

The geopolitical thriller Syriana, which came out in theaters in November of 2005.

The movie’s complicated plot wove together numerous storylines and characters, “from the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf.” Film critic Roger Ebert described Syriana as being “about oil and money, America and China, traders and spies, the Gulf States and Texas, reform and revenge, bribery and betrayal.”

The ensemble cast included actors George Clooney (who played a veteran CIA officer) and Matt Damon (who played an energy analyst based in Switzerland).

How did the movie come to be named Syriana? Here’s how writer and director Stephen Gaghan explained it:

While ‘Syriana’ is a very real term used by Washington think-tanks to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East, as our title it is used more abstractly. ‘Syriana,’ the concept – the fallacious dream that you can successfully remake nation-states in your own image – is a mirage. Syriana is a fitting title for a film that could exist at any time and be about any set of circumstances that deal with man’s unchecked ambition, hubris, and the fantasy of empire.

What are your thoughts on Syriana as a baby name?

Sources:

Syriana – Wikipedia
Syriana (official website): Synopsis, About the Film
Ebert, Roger. “‘Syriana’ pours oil on troubled sands.” RogerEbert.com 8 Dec. 2005.
SSA

Image: Movie poster for Syriana

July 18, 2025July 11, 2025

How did “Good Will Hunting” influence baby names?

The characters Skylar and Will from the movie "Good Will Hunting" (1997) — Skylar and Will from “*Good Will Hunting*“

The protagonist of the movie Good Will Hunting, which was released in December of 1997, was a young man from South Boston named Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon).

Will Hunting saw “nothing wrong with spending his whole life hanging out with his friends, quaffing a few beers, holding down a blue-collar job.”

The problem? He was also a self-taught mathematical genius with a photographic memory.

So several people in his life — including his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck), his psychotherapist Sean (Robin Williams), and his girlfriend Skylar (Minnie Driver) — pushed him to rise above his troubled past and embrace his gifts. As Chuckie put it, Will was “sitting on a winning lottery ticket” — he just had to find the courage to cash it in.

Good Will Hunting became one of the highest-grossing films of 1998. It also won a pair of Academy Awards: one for Best Supporting Actor (Williams), the other for Best Original Screenplay (Damon and Affleck).

So how did the movie affect the baby name charts?

The usage of Will, which was the only name used to refer to the main character (i.e., he was never called William), increased in 1998:

2000: 447 baby boys named Will [rank: 510th]
1999: 422 baby boys named Will [rank: 506th]
1998: 339 baby boys named Will [rank: 578th]
1997: 268 baby boys named Will [rank: 634th]
1996: 280 baby boys named Will [rank: 622nd]

And the slow rise of Skylar for baby girls accelerated noticeably the same year:

	Girls named Skylar	Boys named Skylar
2000	2,503 [rank: 135th]	748 [rank: 356th]
1999	2,513 [rank: 131st]	695 [rank: 374th]
1998	1,731 [rank: 173rd]	730 [rank: 358th]
1997	953 [rank: 302nd]	657 [rank: 372nd]
1996	855 [rank: 328th]	636 [rank: 373rd]

(The names Wil, Skyler, and Skyla also saw higher usage in 1998.)

Matt Damon wrote the first draft of the script for Good Will Hunting while attending Harvard College in the early ’90s. He based the character of Skylar, a pre-med student at Harvard, on his then-girlfriend, Skylar Satenstein, a former pre-med student at Harvard. (She’d since become a med student at Columbia.)

Incidentally, Satenstein went on the marry Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich (son of Torben Ulrich) in early 1997. Later the same year, Lars and Skylar attended the local premiere of Good Will Hunting together in New York City.

P.S. The movie was shot during the spring of 1997, which overlapped with the end of my own freshman year at Harvard. I remember other students saying they’d spotted a film crew in the area during those months.

Sources:

Good Will Hunting – Wikipedia
Good Will Hunting review – Roger Ebert
Nicolaou, Elena. “The Surprising True Story Behind Good Will Hunting.” Refinery29 5 Dec. 2017.
List of 1998 box office number-one films in the United States – Wikipedia
SSA

Image: Screenshot of Good Will Hunting

October 18, 2024September 27, 2024

Where did the baby name Johnse come from in 2013?

The character Johnse Hatfield from the TV miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys" (May 2012) — Johnse Hatfield from “*Hatfields & McCoys*“

The curious name Johnse first popped up in the U.S. baby name data in 2013:

2016: unlisted
2015: 9 baby boys named Johnse
2014: 12 baby boys named Johnse
2013: 8 baby boys named Johnse
2012: unlisted

Where did it come from?

The three-part TV miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, which aired on the History Channel in May of 2012.

The Emmy-winning show was (of course) about the legendary feud between the Hatfield family of West Virginia and the McCoy family of Kentucky.

One of the subplots focused on the doomed romance between Johnson “Johnse” Hatfield (played by Matt Barr) and Roseanna McCoy (played by Lindsay Pulsipher). The nickname Johnse was pronounced JAHN-zee.

(Confusingly, the patriarch of the Hatfield clan — William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield [played by Kevin Costner in the miniseries] — had a nickname with a similar ending, but a different pronunciation: Anse rhymed with “dance.”)

What are your thoughts on the name Johnse? Would you use it as a standalone name?

P.S. The Johnse/Roseanna romance was highlighted in the 1949 film Roseanna McCoy…

Sources: Hatfields & McCoys (miniseries) – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Screenshot of Hatfields & McCoys

May 11, 2023February 3, 2024

Popular baby names in Ukraine, 2022

The Eastern European country of Ukraine is the second-largest country on the continent, after Russia.

Several years ago, Ukraine had a population of roughly 42 million, making it Europe’s eighth most populous country. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February of 2022, however, more than 8 million Ukrainians have fled to other countries (such as Poland).

Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice recently revealed the top baby names of 2022 in the capital city of Kyiv and in five nearby regions (called “oblasts”). All six of these places are located in the central/western part of the country:

Rankings weren’t included, so, in the tables below, I’ve written the names in the order in which they appeared in the news release.

Kyiv (city)

Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, has a population of over 2.9 million — making it the seventh most populous city in Europe. Here are Kyiv’s top baby names of 2022:

	Girl Names	Boy Names
City of Kyiv	Sofiya Polina Viktoriya Eva Anna Mariya	Mark Oleksandr Maksym Matviy Artem

The city’s rare names included…

Girls: Afeliya, Javelina, Vlastylyna, Ava, Elya, Danya, Mriya, Agpiya, Sonya, Lali, Lukeriya, Zlatoslava, Zemfira
Boys: Orion, Hraf (Graf), Kiy, Kai, Slaven, Horus, Avenir, Eleazar, Danko, Yavir, Danislav, Azariy, Veleslav

Javelina and its male equivalent, Javelin, are two of the weapon-inspired names that have emerged in the wake of the Russian invasion. They come from the FGM-148 Javelin — an American-made, hand-held, anti-tank missile system. The weapon is featured in the pro-Ukrainian “St. Javelin” internet meme (above). Incidentally, a baby born in Sonoma County in 2022 was named Javelin — perhaps his family is Ukrainian?

Another weapon-inspired name being given to baby boys is Bayraktar. This one comes from the Bayraktar TB2 — a Turkish-made unmanned aerial vehicle that carries laser-guided bombs. The word bayraktar means “flag-bearer” in Turkish.