How popular is the baby name Napoleon 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 Napoleon.

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Popularity of the baby name Napoleon


Posts that mention the name Napoleon

Name quotes #106

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Ready for another batch of name quotes? Here we go!

From the article “What your name says about your age” (2016) in The Hindu:

Movie stars seem to have an impact on naming conventions too. The median [age of women named] Raveena, Karishma, Twinkle and Kajol are between 20 and 23 today, which, given the two movie stars’ debuts in the early 90s, makes sense. The median Aishwarya is 21, which is roughly how many years ago Ms. Rai Bachchan won the Miss World title.

Among men, there has been a sharp rise in the popularity of Shahrukh and Sachin, both peaks coinciding with their debuts on film screens and the cricket field respectively. Amitabh is declining in popularity after hitting a peak among those who were born in the mid 70s.

Finally, two unrelated quotes from a 2008 Mental Floss article about undesirable names. Here’s the first:

In June 2001, a total solar eclipse was about to cross southern Africa. To prepare, the Zimbabwean and Zambian media began a massive astronomy education campaign focused on warning people not to stare at the Sun. Apparently, the campaign worked. The locals took a real liking to the vocabulary, and today, the birth registries are filled with names like Eclipse Glasses Banda, Totality Zhou, and Annular Mchombo.

And here’s the second:

When Napoleon seized the Netherlands in 1810, he demanded that all Dutchmen take last names, just as the French had done decades prior. Problem was, the Dutch had lived full and happy lives with single names, so they took absurd surnames in a show of spirited defiance. These included Naaktgeboren (born naked), Spring int Veld (jump in the field), and Piest (pisses). Sadly for their descendants, Napoleon’s last-name trend stuck, and all of these remain perfectly normal Dutch names today.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

The Lamar family of Georgia

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar I (b. 1797)
Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar I

John and Rebecca Lamar married in the mid-1790s and lived on a 1,000-acre cotton plantation near Milledgeville, Georgia. They welcomed a total of nine children, four sons and five daughters, whose names were…

  1. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus (b. 1797)
  2. Mirabeau Buonaparte (b. 1798)
  3. Thomas Randolph (b. 1800)
  4. Evalina (b. 1803)
  5. Jefferson Jackson (b. 1804)
  6. Amelia (b. 1807)
  7. Louisa Elizabeth (b. 1807)
  8. Mary Ann (b. 1814)
  9. Loretto Rebecca (b. 1818)

The boys were named by their paternal uncle, Zachariah — a self-taught bachelor who also lived on the plantation and who,

like many of the men in the old plantation times, gave himself up to the ideal world of literature and history […] So when son after son was born to the head of the house this bookish enthusiast claimed the privilege of naming his infant nephews after his favorite of the moment, and the amiable and doubtless amused parents consented. Thus Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, Mirabeau Buonparte, Jefferson Jackson, Thomas Randolph, and Lavoisier Legrand (a grandchild) indicate how his interest shifted from history to politics, and from politics to chemistry.

Oldest son Lucius (named for Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus) went on to become a judge. Two of his own sons — Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II and Jefferson Mirabeau Lamar — had careers in law as well. In fact, Lucius II served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888 to 1893.

Second son Mirabeau (named for the Comte de Mirabeau and Napoleon) also went into law initially. Later he got into politics, and ended up becoming the second president of the Republic of Texas. (He was also the first vice president, under Sam Houston.)

I couldn’t find anyone in the family’s third generation named “Lavoisier Legrand,” but one of Mary’s sons was named Lucius Lavoisier (middle name in honor of French chemist Antoine Lavoisier).

Sources:

Where did the baby name Illya come from in 1965?

The character Illya Kuryakin from the TV series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (1964-1968).
Illya Kuryakin from “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.“

The name Illya double-debuted in the U.S. baby name data in the mid-1960s:

 Boys Named IllyaGirls Named Illya
196755 [rank 980th]10
196678 [rank 828th]11
196535*5*
1964..
1963..
*Debut

Illya was the top debut name for boys in 1965. In fact, it ended up becoming one of the top boy-name debuts overall, and it reached the top 1000 twice.

So where did it come from?

The influence wasn’t the movie that gave yesterday’s name Ilya a boost, but the Cold War-era spy show The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which premiered on TV in 1964 and ran until 1968. (U.N.C.L.E. was an acronym for “United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.”)

The main characters were CIA agent Napoleon Solo (played by Robert Vaughn) and KGB agent Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin (played by David McCallum). Illya, a Slavic form of Elijah, was spelled out in the opening credits.

The name Napoleon may have also gotten a slight boost from the show, though it’s hard to tell.

Do you like the name Illya?

(Other dual-gender debuts I’ve posted about include Chaffee, Dasani, Dondi, Rikishi, and Sundown.)

Where did the baby name Deserie come from in 1957?

Vocal group The Charts in the late 1950s
The Charts (Glenmore, Ross, Leroy, Stephen, and Joe)

The French name Desiree was first popularized in the U.S. by the 1954 movie Désirée, which told the story of Désirée Clary, the one-time fiancée of Napoleon Bonaparte who later became the queen of Sweden and Norway.

Several years later, during the doo-wop craze of the ’50s, five Harlem-based teens formed a vocal group called The Charts — intentionally naming themselves after the Billboard‘s hits list in the hope that they would one day see themselves on the charts.

Despite being booed off stage during an Apollo Theater amateur night, the quintet got signed to a label and ended up recording several songs before disbanding in 1958.

The only Charts song to actually reach the charts? “Deserie,” a “huge East Coast doo wop cult classic” that appeared on Billboard‘s pop chart four times during the second half of 1957, peaking at 88th.

Here’s a video featuring the song:

But the Charts actually charted twice, because the baby name Deserie debuted on the U.S. baby name charts the very same year:

  • 1960: 15 baby girls named Deserie
  • 1959: 8 baby girls named Deserie
  • 1958: 7 baby girls named Deserie
  • 1957: 13 baby girls named Deserie [debut]
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted

Though the spelling and pronunciation aren’t quite the same, Deserie (deh-zuh-REE) was no doubt inspired by then-trendy Desiree (deh-zi-RAY), which can be traced back to the Latin word for “desired,” desideratum.

Which name do you like better, Desiree or Deserie?

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