How popular is the baby name Rose 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 Rose.

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Popularity of the baby name Rose


Posts that mention the name Rose

Tennessee family with 19 children

kinderfest

A couple of weeks ago, Gil and Kelly Bates of Lake City, Tennessee — and also of the reality TV show United Bates of America — welcomed their 19th child.

Here are the names and ages of all 19:

  1. Zachary Gilvin, called “Zach,” 23
  2. Michaella Christian, called “Michael,” 22
    • Her name is pronounced “like the male version [of] Michael with [an] “uh” sound on the end.”
  3. Erin Elise, 20
  4. William Lawson, called “Lawson,” 19
  5. Kenneth Nathaniel, called “Nathan,” 18
  6. Alyssa Joy, 17
  7. Tori Layne, 16
  8. Trace Whitfield, 15
  9. Carlin Brianne, 13
  10. Josie Kellyn, 12
  11. Katie Grace, 11
  12. Jackson Ezekiel, 9
  13. Warden Justice, 8
  14. Isaiah Courage, 7
  15. Addallee Hope, 5
    • “The double letters in her name remind us that God gave her a second chance in life when she was born with complications that caused her breathing and her heart to stop.”
  16. Ellie Bridget, 4
  17. Callie-Anna Rose, 2
  18. Judson Wyatt, 1
  19. Jeb Colton, newborn

Have any favorites?

P.S. They also have a dog named Johnny and a cat named Kitty.

Sources: Gil and Kelly Bates Welcome Baby No. 19, America’s largest family, the Bates, on miracle 19th child who survived after failing to breathe on his own at birth, About Our Family – The Bates Family, Update on Michael – The Bates Family

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus

Arbutus, the flower name you’ve never heard of

trailing arbutus

Lily, Daisy, Jasmine, Rose…Arbutus?

When I first spotted “Arbutus” in the U.S. baby name data, I’ll admit I had no idea what I was looking at. A myth name? A misspelling?

Turns out it’s a flower name.

“Arbutus,” the Latin word for strawberry tree, today commonly refers to the fragrant trailing arbutus, which was once (but is no longer) classified in the genus Arbutus.

Trailing arbutus (a.k.a. Epigaea repens, mayflower) is the official floral emblem of both Massachusetts and Nova Scotia.

Graph of the usage of the baby name Arbutus in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Arbutus

The baby name Arbutus, very rare nowadays, was given to dozens of baby girls every year from the 1910s to the 1940s. In 1927, it ranked 1,081st — just a few babies away from top-1,000 status.

Some people even got “Trailing Arbutus” as a name. I’ve found two women in West Virginia marriage records named Trailing Arbutus, and H. L. Mencken mentions a Trailing Arbutus — surname Vines, incredibly — in Tennessee.

Do you like the name Arbutus? Would you ever consider using it?

Image: Adapted from Epigaea repens (Trailing arbutus) by Fritz Flohr Reynolds under CC BY-SA 3.0.

How did pioneering music website IUMA influence baby names in the year 2000?

IUMA's main menu from 1996 to 1997.
IUMA’s main menu (1996-1997)

Long before MySpace and Napster, there was the Internet Underground Music Archive, or IUMA (pronounced ie-YOO-mah).

Created in 1993 by a trio University of California computer science students, IUMA (www.iuma.com) was the first major music distribution website. Its goal was to help unsigned artists publicize their music and talk directly to fans.

In mid-2000, IUMA launched the “Name Your Baby IUMA” contest.

You love your baby. You love new music. Prove your love and devotion to both by naming your baby IUMA!

Why a baby name contest?

We had a really small advertising budget. And we were looking for a way to let the whole world know about IUMA and IUMA artists. We couldn’t afford TV or radio ads, and we couldn’t afford giant billboards! Then we realized that these ads get far fewer impressions than someone’s name! We decided to throw our advertising dollars into a campaign that will have a lifetime of impact!

The parents of the first ten U.S. babies named “Iuma” between August 1, 2000, and November 1, 2000, would get their choice of either $5,000 or $100-worth of music downloads per month for (the baby’s) life.

Iuma logo in 2000
IUMA’s logo (2000)

So did any parents take the bait?

Yes, a handful of babies were indeed named Iuma in 2000. Enough baby girls got the name, in fact, that the music site’s acronym appeared for the first and only time in the U.S. baby name data that year:

  • 2002: unlisted
  • 2001: unlisted
  • 2000: 8 baby girls named Iuma [debut]
  • 1999: unlisted
  • 1998: unlisted

And that’s not all. Several baby boys also got the name, as did a handful of international babies (in Brazil, Germany and Russia).

Which of these babies became the 10 verified winners? Here’s the official list:

  • Iuma Dylan-Lucas Thornhill, born on August 11, 2000, in Hutchinson, Kansas
  • Iuma Ross, born on August 21, 2000, Williamsburg, Pennsylvania
  • Iuma Becht born on September 1, 2000, in Augusta, Georgia
  • Iuma Carlton, born on September 8, 2000, in St. Petersburg, Florida
  • Iuma Farish, born on September 13, 2000, in Dallas, Texas
  • Iuma Devi, born on August 31, 2000, in Cambria, California
  • Iuma Godfrey, born on September 21, 2000, in Los Angeles, California
  • Iuma Daigre, born on October 5, 2000, in Houston, Texas
  • Iuma Radnedge, born on October 6, 2000, in Dallas, Texas
  • Iuma Hebert, born on October 6, 2000, in Dallas, Texas

The rest of the babies named Iuma (including Iuma Rose Carter of Carvers, Nevada; Iuma Heidi VanRyker of Darmstadt, Germany; and Iuma Dara Lewis of New York City) didn’t make the cut.

Here’s what Travis Thornhill — father of the first-born winner, and bass player whose band used IUMA for promotion — told reporters upon winning (and choosing the $5,000 option):

My wife was overdue, and the hospital had to induce labor for the child to be born. On the day we were going into the hospital, I logged into IUMA and saw the ‘Name Your Baby IUMA’ contest, which I took as a sign. My wife liked the idea because the child’s grandma said this baby would bring prosperity, and this contest could be what she was talking about. Plus, the kid will have a cool story when he grows up.

Hopefully the other winners also went with the one-time payment of $5,000, as IUMA went belly-up about a year after the contest. It was offline entirely by 2006.

P.S. Though the company is long gone, much of the music itself is still online! Check out the Internet Archive’s IUMA collection.

Sources:

Images: Screenshots of IUMA’s webpage

Celebrity baby name: Endellion

Prime Minister David Cameron (in 2016)

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, welcomed a baby girl on Tuesday (Aug. 24). Their fourth child was born a month early while the Camerons were on vacation in Cornwall.

Regarding the baby’s name, Cameron was quoted as saying, “It was very exciting having a baby in Cornwall. We’ll have to have something Cornish in there somewhere.”

And indeed they did get something Cornish in there. The baby was named Florence Rose Endellion. Endellion is in honor of St Endellion, a village in north Cornwall. The village name is based on the name of a 6th century Cornish saint, St. Endelienta.

The Camerons’ older children are named Ivan, Arthur and Nancy. (Ivan passed away in 2009 at age 6.)

Sources: British PM announces new baby’s name, Cameron ‘proud dad’ after wife Samantha has baby girl, Camerons reveal daughter’s name
Image: Adapted from David Cameron announces his resignation by Tom Evans under OGL 3.