How popular is the baby name Ming 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 Ming.

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Popularity of the baby name Ming


Posts that mention the name Ming

Where did the baby name Mulan come from in 1998?

The title character from the movie "Mulan" (1998)
Mulan from “Mulan“

The name Mulan first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1998:

  • 2000: 6 baby girls named Mulan
  • 1999: 7 baby girls named Mulan
  • 1998: 16 baby girls named Mulan [debut]
  • 1997: unlisted
  • 1996: unlisted

Where did it come from?

The animated Disney movie Mulan, which was released in June that year. Mulan went on to become the seventh-highest-grossing film of 1998.

The titular character (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) was a young woman who lived with her parents and grandmother in ancient China.

When China was suddenly invaded by the Huns, the emperor ordered that one man from every family join the Imperial Army. Mulan, wanting to spare her ailing father from having to serve, dressed in her father’s armor and, posing as a man, enlisted in his place. (She was accompanied on her military adventures by a diminutive Chinese dragon named Mushu.)

The movie was based on the Chinese folk song Mùlán Cí, which can be traced back to the Northern Wèi dynasty (386-535).

The legendary female warrior Mùlán was named after a type of magnolia tree, the word for which comprises two characters — the first (mù) meaning “wood,” the second (lán) meaning “orchid.”

What are your thoughts on the baby name Mulan?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Mulan

Baby born outside mall, named after mall

In September of 2015, a baby boy was born at the entrance to the Sunway Pyramid shopping mall in Malaysia. It was the first-ever birth to occur at the mall, which has been open since 1997.

A month later, at the baby’s full moon celebration — which was sponsored by Sunway and “held at Capriciossa Restaurant, the outlet closest to the walkway where his mother went into labor and gave birth” — the parents announced that the baby’s name would be Kee Sun Way.

Kee Foo Ming, the baby’s father, had considered other names, but said that “the name Kee Sun Way stuck in my head. It means ‘double excellency’ in Chinese.”

Source: Louis, Lavinia. “Sunway Pyramid baby named after mall.” Malay Mail Online 25 Oct. 2015.

Image: Adapted from Sunway Pyramid front by Cmglee under CC BY-SA 3.0.