Baby Name: Somnang

The Khmer Rouge, which came to power in Cambodia in April of 1975, was responsible for a genocide that claimed the lives of roughly 1.7 million people (21% of the country’s population). The majority of these people were executed; others succumbed to exhaustion, starvation, and disease.

In January of 1979, the Khmer Rouge government was finally overthrown.

In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled the country. Nearly 158,000 of these refugees were resettled in the United States. Most arrived in the early to mid-1980s. (More than 27,000 came in 1981 alone.)

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

Yes — Khmer names began appearing in the SSA data in the early 1980s:

Dozens of other Khmer names debuted over the course of the decade. (The SSA’s state-by-state data indicates that a number of these babies were born in California specifically.) Here’s what I’ve spotted so far:

• 1982: Veasna, Vanny, Sok, Sophea, Sotheary, Vuthy, Bopha, Heang, Sarn
• 1983: Chantha, Vannak, Savy, Somaly, Vannary, Mony, Rany
• 1984: Rithy, Sophear, Sophal, Thida, Ratha, Rathana, Socheata, Somnang, Sophany, Soriya
• 1985: Sopheak, Sophat, Sophan, Rattana, Sambath, Sophana, Thary, Thavy, Chandara, Sokhom, Theary, Chamroeun, Rothana, Saroeun, Saroun, Savoeun, Sophanna, Thoeun, Thyda, Vibol
• 1986: Sarith, Ratana, Sothea, Phalla, Sareth, Socheat, Sophorn, Sovanna, Raksmey, Sinath, Vannara
• 1987: Sovanny, Sarom
• 1988: Rathanak, Chanthy
• 1989: Rathany, Sopath

Veasna and Sopheak were among the highest-debuting boy names of 1982 and 1985, while Sophan and Sarith were the top one-hit wonder boy names of 1985 and 1986.

Another Khmer name that caught my eye was Nary, which re-emerged in the data in 1982 and reached peak usage several years later. (It may have simply been a typo for Mary when it first appeared in the 1930s.)

I’ll also mention that Vanna — which became trendy for baby girls in the mid-1980s thanks to television’s Vanna White — happens to be a unisex Khmer name. This could explain its usage for baby boys that decade.

Other names that popped up in the data during the ’80s — names like Leng, Som, Heng, Chavy, Da, Rith, Narin, and Chany — may have been used by Cambodian families as well, though they’re also used by people of various other cultures (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Jewish).

P.S. In Khmer names, the letter-pairs “ph” and “th” make aspirated P- and T-sounds. So Sophea and Vuthy, for instance, are pronounced soh-pee-ah and voo-tee.

Sources:

• Wikipedia: Cambodian Americans, Cambodian genocide, Cambodian name
• Widyono, Benny. “The Spectre of the Khmer Rouge over Cambodia.” UN Chronicle 1 Apr. 2008.
• Cambodian Genocide Program – MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
• American Council for Nationalities Service. “Southeast Asian Refugee Arrivals in the United States by Nationality, FY 75-87.” Refugee Reports, vol. 8, no. 12, 1987, p. 10. (found via Mekong.net)
• Behind the Name
• SSA

Image: Adapted from Houses in Nong Samet by Cmacauley under CC BY-SA 3.0.