How popular is the baby name Miklos 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 Miklos.

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Popularity of the baby name Miklos


Posts that mention the name Miklos

How did Hungarian immigration influence U.S. baby names in the 1950s?

Soviet tanks in Hungary (Oct. 1956)
Soviet tanks in Hungary (late 1956)

On October 23, 1956, university students in Budapest staged a demonstration against Communist rule in Hungary. The march quickly escalated into a full-scale, country-wide uprising.

Weeks later, the rebellion was crushed by Soviet forces.

In the aftermath of the ill-fated Hungarian Revolution of 1956, approximately 200,000 Hungarians (2% of the population) fled the country. More than 35,000 of these refugees were resettled in the United States in late 1956 and during the first half of 1957.

Did this influx of Hungarian immigrants have an impact on U.S. baby names?

Yes, though not a large one.

Many of Hungary’s traditional names (e.g., Ádám, Anna, Martin, Júlia, Paula, Sámuel) don’t stand out in the SSA data, but several unmistakably Hungarian names did see increased usage in 1957. The rises of Zoltan (Zoltán), Laszlo (László), and Katalin were the most conspicuous:

Boys named ZoltanBoys named LaszloGirls named Katalin
195913196
195882013
19571513*6*
1956...
1955...
*Debut

Also notable is the debut of Imre (pronounced EEM-reh) in 1958 — the year that former Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy was executed by the Soviets. (President Eisenhower said that Nagy’s death “shocked the conscience of the Free World.”)

Other Hungarian names that emerged in the data during the last years of the ’50s and the first years of the ’60s include Miklos (Miklós), Ildiko (Ildikó), Zsolt, and Csilla (a literature name based on the word csillag, meaning “star”).

P.S. I believe the debuts of Zsazsa (in 1957) and Attila (in 1958) had more to do with pop culture than with immigration, but I could be wrong. What do you guys think?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from A szovjet csapatok ideiglenes kivonulása 1956. október 31-én by Fortepan/Nagy Gyula under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Where did the baby name Miklo come from in 1994?

The character Miklo from the movie "Blood In, Blood Out" (1993).
Miklo from “Blood In, Blood Out“

The curious name Miklo first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in the mid-1990s:

  • 1996: unlisted
  • 1995: 9 baby boys named Miklo
  • 1994: 10 baby boys named Miklo [debut]
  • 1993: unlisted
  • 1992: unlisted

What put it there?

I think the answer is Blood In Blood Out (1993), a movie set in the Mexican-American community of East Los Angeles in the ’70s and ’80s.

The film’s main characters are three young men: mixed-race Miklo (pronounced meek-lo), who has a Mexican mother and a white father, Miklo’s cousins Paco and Cruz, both of whom are fully Chicano.

Miklo’s upbringing…has socialized him into developing a proud Chicano identity. However, his fair complexion, blue eyes, and sandy blond hair frequently serve as a topic of ridicule among relatives and fellow Chicanos, thus painfully reminding Miklo of his undesired whiteness.

Blood In Blood Out didn’t do well at the box office, but has since “attained cult status…as a classic, epic Chicano gangster flick.”

Several sources suggest that miklo (or miclo) might be a Chicano slang term for a light-skinned Hispanic person. If this usage is legit, though, I don’t know whether it predates the film or is due to the film.

In any case, I don’t think Miklo has anything to do with the similar-looking name Miklós (pronounced meek-losh), the Hungarian form of Nicholas that has been popping up in the SSA data since the late ’50s.

What are your thoughts on the name Miklo?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Blood In Blood Out