How popular is the baby name Toby in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Toby.
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The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel. They are divided into two territories — the bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey — and, like the Isle of Man, they are Crown Dependencies, but not officially part of the UK. (The residents of all three regions are British citizens, though.)
The Bailiwick of Jersey includes the most-populous island, Jersey, while the Bailiwick of Guernsey includes the less-populous islands of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, and Herm.
English is the official language in both bailiwicks, but local forms of Norman French (like Jèrriais, and Guernesiais) are also spoken on certain islands.
Channel Islands (off the coast of France)
Now, on to the names!
Jersey
Last year, Jersey welcomed a total of 890 babies — 426 girls and 464 boys. Here are the island’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2021:
Girl Names
Sienna
Isla
Olivia
Willow
Ellie
Maria
Sophia
Valentina
Amelia
Charlotte
Boy Names
Arthur
Oliver
Noah
Freddie
Alexander
Lucas
Toby
William
Henry
Sebastian
Since 2014, the name Sienna has reached the girls’ top 10 only twice…but it ranked #1 both times. I can’t account for the higher usage in 2018, but the 2021 return could be attributable to the influence of royal baby Sienna Elizabeth, born in September to Princess Beatrice.
Guernsey
Last year, Guernsey welcomed a total of 527 babies — 263 girls and 264 boys. Here are the bailiwick’s top girl names and top boy names of 2021:
Girl Names
Olivia, 6 baby girls
Charlotte, 4 (6-way tie)
Evie, 4 (6-way tie)
Florence, 4 (6-way tie)
Imogen, 4 (6-way tie)
Isla, 4 (6-way tie)
Penelope, 4 (6-way tie)
Boy Names
Luca, 6 baby boys (tie)
Theodore, 6 (tie)
Archie, 5 (3-way tie)
Leo, 5 (3-way tie)
Theo, 5 (3-way tie)
Arthur, 4 (6-way tie)
George, 4 (6-way tie)
Max, 4 (6-way tie)
Oscar, 4 (6-way tie)
Thomas, 4 (6-way tie)
William, 4 (6-way tie)
My source also mentioned a few other facts…
Isabella was given to 3 baby girls, Jessica to 2, and Isabella-Jude, Izabella, and Isabelle to 1 each.
Lucas was given to 3 baby boys, and Matthew, Mateus, Matheus, and James to 1 each.
Over 54% of the babies born in Guernsey last year were given a name that was used just once.
Back in 1996, the top names in Guernsey were Jessica, Lauren, and Sophie (a 3-way tie) and James.
This is the first time I’ve posted rankings for Guernsey, but I’ve been posting Jersey’s rankings for a few years — here’s 2020, for instance.
P.S. In case you’re wondering, the word “bailiwick” refers to the jurisdiction of a bailiff.
A while back, I stumbled upon a register of people who were associated with Oxford University in the late 1500s and early 1600s.
Interestingly, the author of the register decided to include a chapter dedicated to first names and surnames, and that chapter included a long list of male forenames and their frequency of occurrence from 1560 to 1621.
The author claimed that, for several reasons, these rankings were “probably…more representative of English names than any list yet published” for that span of time. One reason was that the names represented men from “different grades of English society” — including peers, scholars, tradesmen, and servants.
So, are you ready for the list?
Here’s the top 100:
John, 3,826 individuals
Thomas, 2,777
William, 2,546
Richard, 1,691
Robert, 1,222
Edward, 957
Henry, 908
George, 647
Francis, 447
James, 424
Nicholas, 326
Edmund, 298
Anthony, 262
Hugh, 257
Christopher, 243
Samuel, 227
Walter, 207
Roger, 195
Ralph, 182
Peter (and Peirs/Pers), 175
Humphrey, 168
Charles, 139
Philip, 137
David, 129
Matthew, 116
Nathaniel, 112
Michael, 103
Alexander, 98 (tie)
Arthur, 98 (tie)
Laurence, 90
Giles, 88
Stephen, 86
Simon, 83
Daniel, 79
Joseph, 78 (tie)
Lewis, 78 (tie)
Andrew, 69
Roland, 65
Griffith (and Griffin), 60
Evan, 55
Abraham, 54 (tie)
Leonard, 54 (tie)
Owen, 53
Gilbert, 52
Morris (and Maurice), 51
Bartholomew, 46 (3-way tie)
Oliver, 46 (3-way tie)
Timothy, 46 (3-way tie)
Morgan, 45
Martin, 44 (tie)
Rice, 44 (tie)
Gabriel, 41
Benjamin, 40
Jeffrey/Geoffrey, 38
Ambrose, 36
Adam, 35
Toby (and Tobias), 34
Jerome, 33
Ellis, 30
Paul, 29
Bernard, 28 (3-way tie)
Gregory, 28 (3-way tie)
Isaac, 28 (3-way tie)
Jasper (and Gaspar), 26 (3-way tie)
Josiah (and Josias), 26 (3-way tie)
Randall (and Randolph), 26 (3-way tie)
Miles, 24
Lancelot, 23
Austin (and Augustine), 22 (tie)
Jarvis (and Gervase), 22 (tie)
Brian, 21
Matthias, 20 (tie)
Reginald (and Reynold), 20 (tie)
Jeremy, 19
Theophilus, 19
Joshua 18 (3-way tie)
Marmaduke, 18 (3-way tie)
Valentine, 18 (3-way tie)
Fulke, 17 (tie)
Sampson (and Samson), 17 (tie)
Clement, 16 (4-way tie)
Ferdinando, 16 (4-way tie)
Herbert, 16 (4-way tie)
Zachary, 16 (4-way tie)
Cuthbert, 15 (3-way tie)
Emanuel, 15 (3-way tie)
Vincent, 15 (3-way tie)
Adrian, 14 (3-way tie)
Elias, 14 (3-way tie)
Jonah (and Jonas), 14 (3-way tie)
Tristram, 13
Allan, 12 (6-way tie)
Ames, 12 (6-way tie)
Barnaby (and Barnabas), 12 (6-way tie)
Gerard (and Garret), 12 (6-way tie)
Lionel, 12 (6-way tie)
Mark, 12 (6-way tie)
Abel, 11 (3-way tie)
Erasmus, 11 (3-way tie)
Roderic, 11 (3-way tie)
Did the relative popularity of any of these names surprise you?
The author did note that “the more common names occur more frequently than they ought to…from the tendency to confuse less common names with them.”
For example, a person called ‘Edmund,’ if he is frequently mentioned in the Register, is almost certain to be somewhere quoted as ‘Edward,’ ‘Gregory’ as ‘George,’ ‘Randall’ or ‘Raphael’ as ‘Ralph,’ ‘Gilbert’ as ‘William,’ and so on.
Now here are some of the less-common names, grouped by number of appearances in the register:
Westerns were the hottest thing on television in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and we can see it in the baby name data. Here’s yet another Western-inspired debut, Hoby:
The inspiration? Hoby Gilman, the main character of the TV western Trackdown (1957-1959).
Hoby, played by actor Robert Culp, was a Texas Ranger who spent his days tracking down bad guys in post-Civil War Texas. “[Culp’s] Hoby Gilman was a cooler character than other deadpan Western cowboys. Culp…imbued Hoby with a hipness that was ahead of the time but which presaged the Sixties yet to come.”
Notably, Trackdown “was given official approval from the (modern day) Rangers and the state of Texas.”
The character originated on an episode of Zane Grey Theatre in May of 1957. A mere five months later, a whole series based on Hoby had emerged. (A whopping five episodes of Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre were developed into subsequent TV shows. Impressive.)
Robert Culp went on to co-star with Bill Cosby in I Spy from 1965 to 1968. His character, named Kelly, gave a temporary boost to the male usage of Kelly, which peaked for boys in 1967/1968.
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