How popular is the baby name Sunya 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 Sunya.

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Popularity of the baby name Sunya


Posts that mention the name Sunya

Baby names with SUN: Sunita, Tsuneo, Aysun

sunset

Looking for baby names that contain the word SUN?

If so, you’re in luck!

Because below you’ll find a long list of names that contain the letter sequence “s-u-n.” Most of these names come directly from the U.S. SSA’s baby name data.

  • Addisun, Addysun, Adysun
  • Alisun, Alysun, Allisun, Allysun
  • Assunta, Asunta
  • Assuntina
  • Assunto
  • Asun
  • Asuna
  • Asuncion
  • Aysun
  • Brysun
  • Cassundra, Casundra
  • Graysun, Greysun
  • Jahsun
  • Jasun, Jaysun, Jaesun
  • Jaxsun
  • Kaisun
  • Karsun
  • Kasundra
  • Kaysun
  • Kysun
  • Lasunda
  • Lasundra
  • Madisun, Madysun
  • Masun, Maysun
  • Olasunkanmi
  • Rasun
  • Sun
  • Suna
  • Sunaina
  • Sunako
  • Sunan
  • Sunana
  • Sunao
  • Sunasia
  • Sunawin
  • Sunay
  • Sunayana
  • Sunbeam
  • Sunbul
  • Sunda
  • Sundai
  • Sundance
  • Sundar
  • Sundara
  • Sundari
  • Sundas
  • Sunday, Sundae
  • Sunde
  • Sundeep, Sundip
  • Sundiata
  • Sundos
  • Sundown
  • Sundra
  • Sundrina
  • Sundrine
  • Sundus
  • Sundy, Sundie, Sundee, Sundi
  • Sunehri
  • Sunel
  • Sunella
  • Sunem
  • Sunetta
  • Sunette
  • Sunflower
  • Sung
  • Sunhild
  • Sunia
  • Sunidhi
  • Sunie, Suni, Sunee
  • Sunil, Suneel
  • Sunilda
  • Sunisa
  • Sunita
  • Sunitha
  • Suniti
  • Suniya, Suniyah
  • Sunja
  • Sunjai
  • Sunjay
  • Sunna, Sunnah
  • Sunniva
  • Sunny, Sunnie, Sunni, Sunnye, Sunnee
  • Sunrae, Sunray
  • Sunrise
  • Sunset
  • Sunshine, Sunshyne
  • Sunwoo
  • Sunya
  • Tsunade
  • Tsunami
  • Tsuneko
  • Tsuneo
  • Tysun
  • Yasunobu

Some of the above are non-traditional spellings of more common names such as Jason, Addison, and Cassandra.

Other sun-themed names I’ve blogged about include Bluesun, Skysun, Nightsun, Sunchase, Sunstar, and Sunwater.

Which SUN name do you like most? Let me know in the comments!

Source: SSA

Image: Adapted from 2008 sunset in Piriápolis by Alexandre Pereira under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Where did the baby name Seroba come from in 1927?

Newspaper photo and caption, "Radio Baby," (May, 1927)
Seroba Mary Lou in the newspaper, mid-1927

A week or so ago I came across a curious one-hit wonder name from 1927: Seroba.

For context, 1927 was the year Lindbergh became big news, the year both Sunya and Jobyna debuted, and the year Arbutus nearly cracked the top 1,000.

So I started doing some research, and you know what kept coming up in the search results? A bunch of news items about Mary Lou Bartley.

Who’s Mary Lou Bartley? If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember her from that post about radio-crowdsourced baby names.

Mary Lou was born in Kentucky in early 1927. Her parents had asked a radio station to help them name their baby. The station aired the request, and the result was hundreds of baby name suggestions from across the nation. This is the earliest (complete) example of baby name crowdsourcing that I know of.

What did Seroba have to do with Mary Lou Bartley, though?

That’s what I wanted to know. So I read through the news items, all from 1927, and realized that each one was calling her “Seroba Mary Lou.” Which was strange, as all the sources I’d used to reconstruct Mary Lou’s story for that crowdsourcing post — everything from the 1930 census all the way to her 2009 obituary — referred to her simply as “Mary Lou.”

Here’s a caption that ran in one newspaper:

Seroba Mary Lou Bartley of Whitesburg, Ky., who has the distinction of being the first baby to be christened over the radio.

And here’s an excerpt from an article that ran in another:

During the evening [of the radio broadcast] two thousand names were suggested by the listeners, and the suggestions came from almost as many places. There were many who preferred the quiet dignity of “Mary,” and as many who were interested in a name as modern as “Mitzi.” All of the suggestions were forwarded to the Bartleys and after much thought they conferred on the little newcomer, this name suggested by the radio — Seroba Mary Lou. Long live this Virginia Dare of radio!

I have no idea where the name Seroba came from. Was it part of the crowdsourced name? Did a newspaper reporter make it up? I also can’t figure out why some newspapers mentioned it and others did not.

Regardless, the Seroba-version of Mary Lou’s story was circulated widely enough to boost the baby name Seroba onto the charts for a single year:

  • 1929: unlisted
  • 1928: unlisted
  • 1927: 8 baby girls named Seroba [debut]
  • 1926: unlisted
  • 1925: unlisted

So that’s the explanation behind the one-hit wonder baby name Seroba. How crazy that it connects to a name we discussed for an entirely different reason more than three years ago.

What are your thoughts on the name Seroba — do you like it? Dislike it? Have you ever heard of it before?

P.S. Usage of the baby name Marylou spiked in 1927 as well…

Sources:

  • “Radio Baby.” Sausalito News 28 May 1927: 3.
  • “WLS Listeners Name Kentucky Babe.” Wyoming Reporter [Wyoming, NY] 1 Jun. 1927: 3.

Where did the baby name Sunya come from in 1927?

Actress Gloria Swanson in the silent film "The Love of Sunya" (1927)
Gloria Swanson in “The Love of Sunya“

The baby name Sunya first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1927:

  • 1929: 7 baby girls named Sunya
  • 1928: 5 baby girls named Sunya
  • 1927: 14 baby girls named Sunya [debut]
  • 1926: unlisted
  • 1925: unlisted

In was one of the top baby name debuts of 1927, in fact.

Where did it come from?

A silent film called The Love of Sunya, which was released in March of that year.

The movie starred Gloria Swanson as Sunya Ashling, a young singing student who — with the help of a guru from India and a crystal ball — is able to see different versions of her future with various suitors.

Sunya, having promised to marry Paul [Judson] and go to South America on his first engineering assignment, is courted also by millionaire Robert Goring; by De Salvo, an opera impresario; and by Louis Anthony, a young bank cashier. She learns that her father is in financial straits, and the yogi reveals […] that disaster and unhappiness will result regardless of whether she goes with De Salvo to become a singer or marries the millionaire to save her father.

In the end, Sunya “decides to follow her heart and marry Paul.”

The film was based on the play The Eyes of Youth (1917), in which the protagonist was called Gina Ashling. The filmmakers may have changed the character’s first name in order to emphasize the mystical nature of the plot. One contemporary writer defined the Sanskrit word sunya as “illusion,” but it actually means “empty” or “void.”

The Love of Sunya — Gloria Swanson’s first independent production — wasn’t a commercial success, but it was still influential enough to impact the baby name charts. (It was also the very first picture shown at the once-famous Roxy Theatre in New York City, incidentally.)

Do you like the name Sunya?

Sources:

Image: Lobby card for The Love of Sunya

Baby names that debuted most impressively in the U.S. data, 1881 to today

lotus bud

Though most of the baby names in the SSA’s annual datasets are repeats, each dataset does contain a handful of brand-new names.

Below are the most popular debut names for every single year on record, after the first.

Why bother with an analysis like this? Because debut names often have cool stories behind them, and high-hitting debuts are especially likely to have intriguing explanations tied to historical people/events. So this is more than a list of names — it’s also a list of stories.

Here’s the format: “Girl name(s), number of baby girls; Boy name(s), number of baby boys.” Keep in mind that the raw numbers aren’t too trustworthy for about the first six decades, though. (More on that in a minute.)

1880s

  • 1881: Adell & Celeste, 14; Brown & Newell, 14
  • 1882: Verda, 14; Cleve, 13
  • 1883: Laurel, 12; Brady, Festus, Jewell, Odell & Rosco, 8
  • 1884: Crystal & Rubie, 11; Benjamen, Jens, Oakley & Whitney, 9
  • 1885: Clotilde, 13; Arley & Terence, 9
  • 1886: Manuelita, 10; Terrence, 10
  • 1887: Verlie, 13; Myles, 11
  • 1888: Ebba, 18; Carlisle, Hughie & Orvel, 9
  • 1889: Garnett, 12; Doyle, 9

1890s

  • 1890: Verena, 11; Eduardo & Maggie, 10
  • 1891: Gayle, Idabelle & Zenia, 9; Sheridan, 14
  • 1892: Astrid, Dallas & Jennett, 9; Corbett, 23
  • 1893: Elmyra, 12; Estel, Mayo, Shelley & Thorwald, 8
  • 1894: Beatriz, Carola & Marrie, 9; Arvel, Erby & Floy, 8
  • 1895: Trilby, 12; Roosevelt, 12
  • 1896: Lotus, 11; Hazen, 11
  • 1897: Dewey, 13; Bryon, Frankie, Mario & Rhoda, 7
  • 1898: Manilla, 35; Hobson, 38
  • 1899: Ardis & Irva, 19; Haven, 9

1900s

  • 1900: Luciel, 14; Rosevelt, 20
  • 1901: Venita, 11; Eino, 9
  • 1902: Mercie, 10; Clarnce, 9
  • 1903: Estela, 11; Lenon & Porfirio, 7
  • 1904: Magdaline, 9; Adrain, Arbie, Betty, Desmond, Domenic, Duard, Raul & Severo, 8
  • 1905: Oliver, 9; Eliot & Tyree, 9
  • 1906: Nedra, 11; Domenico & Ryan, 10
  • 1907: Theta, 20; Taft, 16
  • 1908: Pasqualina, 10; Robley, 12
  • 1909: Wilmoth, 9; Randal & Vidal, 9

1910s

1920s

  • 1920: Dardanella, 23; Steele, 11
  • 1921: Marilynne, 13; Norberto, 14
  • 1922: Evelean, 14; Daren, 35
  • 1923: Nalda, 15; Clinard & Dorland, 9
  • 1924: Charis, 14; Melquiades, 13
  • 1925: Irmalee, 37; Wayburn, 11
  • 1926: Narice, 13; Bibb, 14
  • 1927: Sunya, 14; Bidwell, 14
  • 1928: Joreen, 22; Alfread & Brevard, 9
  • 1929: Jeannene, 25; Donnald, Edsol, Rhys & Wolfgang, 8

1930s

(From the SSA: “Note that many people born before 1937 never applied for a Social Security card, so their names are not included in our data.”)

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

  • 2000: Kelis, 108; Rithik, 22
  • 2001: Yaire, 184; Jahiem, 155
  • 2002: Kaydence, 70; Omarian, 31
  • 2003: Trenyce, 88; Pharrell, 67
  • 2004: Eshal, 38; Jkwon, 100
  • 2005: Yarisbel, 30; Jayceon, 48
  • 2006: Lizania, 35; Balian, 24
  • 2007: Leilene, 81; Yurem, 206
  • 2008: Aideliz, 91; Yosgart, 72
  • 2009: Greidys, 186; Jeremih, 87

2010s

2020s

I’ve already written about some of the names above, and I plan to write about all the others as well…eventually. In the meanwhile, if you want to beat me to it and leave a comment about why Maverick hit in 1957, or why Moesha hit in 1996, feel free!

Source: U.S. SSA

Image: Adapted from LotusBud0048a (public domain) by Frank “Fg2” Gualtieri

[Latest update: May 2025]