How popular is the baby name Natasha 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 Natasha.

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Popularity of the baby name Natasha


Posts that mention the name Natasha

For-profit baby names

California mom-to-be Natasha Hill — the woman who was supposed to be getting $5,000 for allowing strangers to name her unborn baby via the site Belly Ballot — isn’t really pregnant. She isn’t even really named “Natasha Hill.”

Her name is Natasha Lloyd, and she’s an actress who was hired by the website’s founder to help drum up publicity.

Yep — the whole thing was a hoax. The folks at Today.com were the ones to figure it out:

When TODAY Moms first reported on the contest, some readers were incredulous; they couldn’t believe a real mom would do such a thing. Now it appears they were right.

Except…they weren’t. Several “real moms” (and dads) have indeed done such a thing. Here are all the for-profit baby names (and attempts) I know of:

*I never blogged about these three, so here are the details:

  • In 2001, Jason Black and Frances Schroeder of New York tried to auction off the name of the their third child (first son) via Yahoo and eBay. They were aiming for a corporate sponsor, so the bidding started at $500,000. No one bid. They ended up naming the baby Zane Black.
  • In 2002, Bob and Tracy Armstrong from Florida tried to auction off the name of their baby (gender unknown) via eBay. After eBay pulled the auction for the third time, they decided not to try again.
  • In 2002, Heather and Steve Johnston of Washington state tried to auction off the name of their baby boy via eBay. The bidding started at $250,000. I found no follow-up stories, so I imagine the auction was either pulled or unsuccessful.

Video games on one end, $15,000 on the other…such wildly different values placed on baby names. Kinda fascinating, isn’t it?

Sources: $5,000 online baby-name contest revealed as hoax, Mom crowdsources baby name for $5,000

Image: Adapted from $20 Federal Reserve Bank Note (1929) (public domain)

[Latest update: March 2022]

English family with 14 children

kinderfest

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Radford family, with 16 kids.

Here’s another brood from England that’s nearly as large — the Watson family of Guernsey, with 14 children:

  1. Natasha, 22
  2. Bradley, 21
  3. Shanice, 19
  4. Mariah, 16
  5. Georgia, 15
  6. Caitlin, 12
  7. Brittany, 11
  8. Febrianne, 10
  9. Charlie, 9
  10. Lilly-Arna, 8
  11. Nerilly-Jade, 7
  12. Armani, 5
  13. Tallulah, 4
  14. Indianna, 3

Which of the 14 names is your favorite?

Source: Single mother of 14 slams critics who brand her a scrounger

Soviet-inspired baby names in India

Moscow isn’t just a city in Russia. It’s also a village in Kerala, India. Communist supporters changed the village name in the 1950s.

Many babies born in the state of Kerala — especially those born during the Cold War decades — were given Soviet-inspired names as well. Some examples:

Anastasya
Brezhnev
Gorbachev
Gagarin
Khrushchev		Lenin
Natasha
Pushkin
Stalin
Tereshkova

One man named Gagarin was born the same year as Yuri Gagarin’s famous flight. He said “his name inspired him to a keen interest in astronomy.”

Another, named Pushkin, works as a bank employee. He said his named embarrassed him as a child:

His friends had names like Sathish, Unni and Ramesh.

“It was only later that I realised the importance of having such a name,” he says.

“None of the 25,000 in my bank has a non-Indian name. I am well known because of this name.”

Names like these are rare nowadays, but “[m]any still name their sons after Lenin.”

Source: Raman, Sunil. “Stalin and Lenins reunite in India.” BBC News 1 Nov. 2005.

Why aren’t Turkish babies named Natasha?

American writer Meg Nesterov is chronicling her experience of being pregnant in Turkey over at travel blog Gadling. Her latest post has to do with choosing a baby name:

“Whatever you do, if it’s a girl, don’t call her Natasha,” was the first bit of advice a Turkish friend gave me about having a baby in Istanbul. While a common and inoffensive name in the US and Russia, in Turkey and many other European countries, Natasha doesn’t have the best connotation. It tends to be slang for, well, a certain kind of professional woman from Eastern Europe, or just a gold-digger; not things with which you want your baby to be associated.

She also mentioned several English names that don’t sound quite right in Turkey, such as Erik (which means “plum” in Turkish) and Dana (which means “veal” or “calf”).

So go check out Meg’s “knocked up abroad” series. (And leave her a comment with your favorite Russian girl names while you’re there.)