How popular is the baby name Torben 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 Torben.

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Popularity of the Baby Name Torben


Posts that Mention the Name Torben

Where did the baby name Yannick come from in the early 1980s?

Tennis player Yannick Noah
Yannick Noah

The name Yannick debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1981, and usage jumped upward a few years later, in 1983:

  • 1985: 30 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1984: 26 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1983: 30 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1982: 8 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1981: 9 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1980: unlisted
  • 1979: unlisted

The reason?

Professional tennis player Yannick (pronounced yah-neek) Noah, who was born in France in 1960, spent his childhood in Cameroon, and was discovered as an 11-year-old by tennis great Arthur Ashe.

Yannick won the French Open in 1983, and he reached career-high rankings of World No. 3 in singles and World No. 1 in doubles during the summer of 1986. But he was certainly getting press in the U.S. earlier than that.

One article from mid-1980, for instance, noted that Yannick — at that time ranked #1 in France and #12 in the world — was still seen as an anomaly in tennis:

In the United States, Yannick Noah is still a novelty. When the Frenchman plays tennis here, spectators flock to his court. Passers-by, upon seeing him, also stop. Someday, Noah hopes, Americans will watch him because he is Noah, not because he is black.

The write-up reminded me of an earlier article about another idiosyncratic tennis player, Torben Ulrich.

Speaking of being idiosyncratic…Yannick Noah, after nearly two decades of pro tennis, switched tracks and became a singer. Since then, he has scored multiple #1 hits in both France and Belgium. (Here’s Yannick’s YouTube channel.)

Usage of the name Yannick — a diminutive of Yann, a French form of John — increased again in the 2010s thanks to one of Yannick Noah’s namesakes, football player Yannick Ngakoue (who pronounces his first name yah-nihk). It saw peak usage in 2016, the same year Ngakoue joined the NFL.

Do you like the name Yannick?

P.S. While playing football at the University of Maryland, Yannick Ngakoue had a teammate named Yannik Cudjoe-Virgil. He told one reporter, “It’s not confusing. It’s pretty funny, actually. I never knew somebody’s had my name. I thought my name was very unique.” A few years later, a similar situation occurred at the University of Pittsburgh with a pair of football players named Qadree and Quadree.

Sources:

Image: Yannick Noah (Davis Cup) by Nationaal Archief under CC BY-SA 3.0 NL.

Popular and unique baby names in Scotland (UK), 2021

scotland

According to the National Records of Scotland (NRS), the most popular baby names in the country last year were Olivia and Jack.

Here are Scotland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 349 baby girls
  2. Emily, 318
  3. Isla, 317
  4. Freya, 270
  5. Ella, 259
  6. Amelia, 257
  7. Ava, 241
  8. Sophie, 238
  9. Grace, 235
  10. Millie, 216
  11. Lily, 205
  12. Sophia, 200
  13. Charlotte, 196
  14. Rosie, 190
  15. Aria, 183
  16. Evie, 181
  17. Maisie, 165
  18. Lucy, 164 (tie)
  19. Mia, 164 (tie)
  20. Eilidh, 160
  21. Ellie, 159 (3-way tie)
  22. Ivy, 159 (3-way tie)
  23. Orla, 159 (3-way tie)
  24. Jessica, 150
  25. Harper, 144
  26. Maya, 134 (tie)
  27. Willow, 134 (tie)
  28. Georgia, 126
  29. Daisy, 123 (tie)
  30. Sofia, 123 (tie)
  31. Mila, 122
  32. Isabella, 121 (tie)
  33. Ruby, 121 (tie)
  34. Hannah, 119
  35. Skye, 118
  36. Sienna, 116
  37. Molly, 113
  38. Hallie, 111
  39. Bonnie, 108 (tie)
  40. Poppy, 108 (tie)
  41. Eva, 106
  42. Esme, 104
  43. Anna, 102 (3-way tie)
  44. Ayla, 102 (3-way tie)
  45. Erin, 102 (3-way tie)
  46. Callie, 98
  47. Zara, 92
  48. Layla, 91
  49. Emma, 90 (tie)
  50. Robyn, 90 (tie)

Boy Names

  1. Jack, 382 baby boys
  2. Noah, 337
  3. Leo, 289
  4. Oliver, 284
  5. Harris, 273
  6. Finlay, 255
  7. Lewis, 254
  8. James, 252
  9. Rory, 247
  10. Alexander, 240
  11. Brodie, 236
  12. Alfie, 224
  13. Charlie, 220
  14. Theo, 219
  15. Archie, 217
  16. Lucas, 214
  17. Mason, 205
  18. Finn, 197
  19. Thomas, 193
  20. Freddie, 192
  21. Max, 190
  22. Logan, 187
  23. Harry, 181
  24. Jacob, 176
  25. Blake, 159 (tie)
  26. Luca, 159 (tie)
  27. Oscar, 157
  28. Jude, 155
  29. William, 146
  30. Caleb, 140
  31. Roman, 138
  32. Cameron, 136
  33. Jaxon, 133
  34. Adam, 131
  35. Joshua, 130
  36. Ollie, 129 (tie)
  37. Tommy, 129 (tie)
  38. Daniel, 125 (tie)
  39. Ethan, 125 (tie)
  40. Harrison, 124
  41. Luke, 122
  42. Arthur, 121
  43. Muhammad, 120
  44. Jamie, 118 (tie)
  45. Liam, 118 (tie)
  46. Reuben, 112
  47. Arlo, 110
  48. Grayson, 103 (3-way tie)
  49. Hunter, 103 (3-way tie)
  50. Kai, 103 (3-way tie)

The fastest-rising names in the girls’ top 100 were Lyla, Blake, and Rowan.

The fastest-rising names in the boys’ top 100 were Carson, Struan, and Myles.

Other names that have seen higher usage recently include Maeva (influenced by Made in Chelsea actress Maeva D’Ascanio) and Connell (influenced by Normal People character Connell Waldron).

And what about the unique names?

Almost 12% of baby girls were given a name that no other girl was registered with in 2021. Almost 9% of boys had unique names for births last year.

Baby names bestowed just once in Scotland last year include…

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Arlo-Moon, Aquamarine, Boglarka, Bryar-Loch, Cleagh, Cocohuay, Dervla, Diadem, Ember-Willow, Estrid, Falluin, Floraidh, Ghillie, Gwenno, Hessa, Humna, Iolanthe, Ischia, Jahanara, Juaa, Ketaki, Knoxie, Linaz, Liola-Sky, Mharli-Mae, Myfanwy, Nardos, Nymeria, Ocean-Bleu, Otterly, Pannavee, Paris-Sarah, Quinnie, Ribhinn, Ruoyi, Salka, Stuti, Thyra, Tifa, Unsa, Velvetjane, Wilda, Xiylo, Ying, Zanna, ZarnishArziki, Athilan, Bligh, Bruar, Caladh, Ciurar, Domhnall, Doski, Eloim, Ezra’banx, Firth, Fury, Gilmar, Guyan, Hanzala, Harcus, Ieuan, Ivaylo, Jockie, Joris, Kairimui, Kallikrates, Linstrum, Lorenzo-Moon, Marric, Massinissa, Nakoah-Knox, Nimrod, Oputjo, Otter, Parnaj, Prokop, Quanders, Rascal, Rhue, Simanga, Somhairle, Torben, Trix, Uziah-Nova, Vakaris, Wrath, Xanthus, Yuveer, Zander-Blu, Zebedee

Here are possible explanations/associations for some of the above:

  • Diadem, a type of crown
  • Ischia, an island near Naples
  • Nymeria, a direwolf from Game of Thrones
  • Ribhinn, a Scottish-Gaelic word (rìbhinn) meaning “maiden, girl”
  • Tifa, a character from the Final Fantasy video games
  • Kallikrates, a 5th-century BC Greek architect
  • Masinissa, a 2nd-century BC Numidian king
  • Somhairle, a 12th-century Norse-Gaelic king

Finally, here are Scotland’s 2020 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

Source: Babies’ First Names 2021 – National Records of Scotland, Trends in baby names 2021 (PDF)

Where did the baby name Torben come from?

torben ulrich, tennis, baby name, 1960s
Torben Ulrich (in 1957)

The name Torben first emerged in the U.S. baby name data in the late 1960s:

  • 1971: unlisted
  • 1970: unlisted
  • 1969: 6 baby boys named Torben
  • 1968: 7 baby boys named Torben [debut]
  • 1967: unlisted
  • 1966: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Sports…sort of.

The source seems to be Danish professional tennis player Torben Ulrich. But he’d been playing professionally for many years by the late ’60s. What happened in 1968?

That year, Torben was memorably profiled in American newspapers by sports columnist Murray Olderman. The article wasn’t about Torben’s tennis-playing as much as it was about Torben’s unapologetic nonconformism. Here’s how it began:

Behind dark glasses framed by swirls of long brown hair, Torben Ulrich looks out on a curious world. It’s the world that’s curious–not necessarily Torben–because it sees him as a slightly hunched, slender, effete, bearded and tressed hippie. It also sees him, curiously, as an athlete who has made his living, more or less, for 20 years by playing tennis. We say more or less because Torben also plays the tenor sax in a rock ‘n’ roll band, tootles a classical flute, writes a weekly column for a Copenhagen newspaper, broadcasts on the Danish national radio and raises a family.

In a tone that vacillated between mockery and admiration, Olderman described Ulrich’s nomadic lifestyle, sleeping habits (night owl), language skills (Danish, English, French, German, Italian, etc.), and sense of style (including “a bracelet made from the hair of an elephant’s tail”).

I imagine the profile would have struck a chord with counterculture readers. In fact, maybe it was those readers specifically who were enticed enough by the name Torben — which is a variant of Torbjörn, which can be traced back to Old Norse elements meaning “thunder” (Thor) and “bear” — to choose it for their newborns that year.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Torben?

P.S. The article also mentioned that Torben had a 4-year-old son. That son, Lars Ulrich, grew up to become the co-founder/drummer of the heavy metal band Metallica. (Metallica is also a baby name, btw.)

Sources:

Image: Tennis – Wimbledonsterren in Noordwijk – Nationaal Archief

Name in the news: Metallica

Swedish couple Michael and Karolina Tomaro welcomed a baby girl in late 2006 and christened her Metallica, in honor of the legendary American rock band.

When the family tried to register the name with Sweden’s National Tax Agency, however, the name was rejected because it was deemed “inappropriate.”

The Tax Agency apparently refused to register the name Metallica for two specific reasons: it’s the name of a rock group, and it includes the word “metal.” (The parents also mentioned that the official handling the case called the name “ugly.”)

The parents are now “locked in a court battle” with the Tax Agency.

What are your thoughts on “Metallica” as a baby name?

Update, 4/20/2007: A few weeks after this story became international news, the Tax Agency “said it was dropping its appeal, allowing young Metallica to keep her name.”

Sources: Baby named Metallica rocks Sweden, Baby Metallica allowed to keep her name

P.S. Did you know that Metallica co-founder Lars Ulrich — who is Danish, not Swedish, but Nordic nonetheless — has a father named Torben, and that Torben Ulrich influenced U.S. baby names back in the 1960s?