How popular is the baby name Michele 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 Michele.
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“Everly” is hot…”Beverly” is not. It’s a one-letter difference between fashionable and fusty.
If you’re sensitive to style, you’ll prefer Everly. It fits with today’s trends far better than Beverly does.
But if you’re someone who isn’t concerned about style, or prefers to go against style, then you may not automatically go for Everly. In fact, you may be more attracted to Beverly because it’s the choice that most modern parents would avoid.
If you’ve ever thought about intentionally giving your baby a dated name (like Debbie, Grover, Marcia, or Vernon) for the sake of uniqueness within his/her peer group — if you have no problem sacrificing style for distinctiveness — then this list is for you.
Years ago, the concept of “contrarian” baby names came up in the comments of a post about Lois. Ever since then, creating a collection of uncool/contrarian baby names has been on my to-do list.
Finally, last month, I experimented with various formulas for pulling unstylish baby names out of the SSA dataset. Keeping the great-grandparent rule in mind, I aimed for names that would have been fashionable among the grandparents of today’s babies. The names below are the best results I got.
Interestingly, thirteen of the names above — Bobbie, Cary, Dale, Jackie, Jimmie, Jody, Kerry, Kim, Lynn, Robin, Sandy, Tracey, Tracy — managed to make both lists.
Now some questions for you…
Do you like any of these names? Would you be willing to use any of them on a modern-day baby? Why or why not?
Dick Gregory was an African-American comedian and civil rights activist.
He and his wife Lillian were also the parents of 11 children:
Michele
Lynne
Richard, Jr. (1963) – died as a baby
Pamela Inte (1964) – twin
Paula Gration (1964) – twin
Stephanie (1965)
“Gregory” – no official first name
Christian
Miss
Ayanna (1971)
Yohance (1973)
Those last two births are notable because they inspired other parents to use Ayanna and Yohance, and the resultant upticks in usage made Ayanna and Yohance the top baby name debuts of 1971 and 1973, respectively.
Dick Gregory with wife Lillian & baby Ayanna
Ayanna
1973: 177 baby girls named Ayanna
1972: 343 baby girls named Ayanna
1971: 194 baby girls named Ayanna [debut]
1970: unlisted
1969: unlisted
Dick and Lillian Gregory found the name Ayanna in Jet magazine, which claimed Ayanna was a female name from East Africa meaning “beautiful flower.”
This information probably came from The Book of African Names (1970) by Chief Osuntoki. Name expert Dr. Cleveland Evans says Osuntoki was “half right” about Ayanna:
Ayana is a name used for both males and females in Ethiopia, but its meaning is uncertain. Ayyanaw is a male Amharic name meaning “we saw him.” Ayana is an Oromo word for the spirits believed to mediate between the high god, Waka, and human beings in the ancient indigenous religion of the Oromos, but it’s unclear if either of those is related to the common Ethiopian name. ln any event, it’s easy to see how parents looking through Osuntoki’s book would seize upon Ayanna as one of the few names included that fit in well with the look and sound of American names of the time.
Yohance
1975: 13 baby boys named Yohance
1974: 23 baby boys named Yohance
1973: 44 baby boys named Yohance [debut]
1972: unlisted
1971: unlisted
A 1973 issue of Jet states that Dick and Lillian found the name Yohance (pronounced yoh-HAHN-seh) in a book called Names from Africa, and that Yohance “means “God’s gift” in the Hausa language of Nigeria.”
The only sources I’ve found that mention Yohance are baby name books, so I’m not entirely convinced that Yohance is a legitimate Hausa name. Some of the books claim Yohance is a form of John, but an online Hausa bible I found translates John as “Yahaya” — similar, but not quite the same.
Gregory
One of Dick Gregory’s children is named Gregory — just Gregory. Like Tifft and Gatewood, Gregory doesn’t have a first name. Here’s the explanation:
My oldest son, Gregory, has just one name. His birth certificate does not read “Gregory Gregory,” but rather simply “Gregory.” In the American system, whose computers, bureaucracy and institutional requirements demand two names to function, my son Gregory is a symbol of independence of the built-in entanglements which predetermine the destiny of the “two-namers” in a controlled society.
Miss
One of Dick Gregory’s daughters is named Miss, making her full name “Miss Gregory.” Here’s why:
At the time of her birth, racial hangups in the United States made it difficult for some white folks to call a black woman “Miss” and a black man “Mister.” So to be on the safe side, my wife and I named our daughter Miss. All her life, anyone who calls her by her proper name will have to say, “Miss Gregory.”
Inte & Gration
The middle names of Dick Gregory’s twins Paula and Pamela are “Inte” and “Gration.” Dick wrote in his memoir:
On March 18, 1964, one year and three days after Richard Jr. was born, Lil gave birth to Paula and Pam. We gave them the middle names of Inte and Gration so they would always remember the sacrifice their mother had made while they were still in the womb.
Lillian’s sacrifice was that she’d been jailed for attempting to dine at a restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. (She went to the restaurant knowing she’s be arrested; her intent was the draw attention to the fight for civil rights.)
Looking for a set of baby names with something in common? If so, here are some 7-letter anagram names for you to check out!
Anagrams are words that contain the same set of letters, but not in the same sequence. For instance, the words “observe,” “obverse,” and “verbose” are all anagrams of one another.
Anagram names can be a neat option for siblings — particularly multiples (like twins and triplets). They’re also a clever way to connect a baby name to the name of an older relative (e.g., grandpa Stanley, granddaughter Eastlyn).
Below are hundreds of seven-letter names (collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names) that happen to be anagrams of other names.
While cleaning out my bookmarks the other day, I rediscovered this post on French names from francophile blog Polly-Vous Francais. It contrasts the names found in the birth and death announcements of a French newspaper. Here’s a sampling:
Male Births
Male Deaths
Female Births
Female Deaths
Anselme Edouard Guillaume Hipployte Hugo Lancelot Louis Timothée Victor Vladimir
Albert Emile Gabriel Jacques Jean Paul Pierre Roger Vincent Yves
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