How popular is the baby name Wilbrod 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 Wilbrod.

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Popularity of the baby name Wilbrod


Posts that mention the name Wilbrod

What turned Aubrey into a girl name in the 1970s?

The Bread album "Guitar Man" (1972)
Bread album

We’ve already discussed whether we think Aubrey is a girl name or a boy name. But, in that post, I forgot to mention why the name Aubrey, which was traditionally used as a male name, underwent a gender switch in the first place.

See, it all started in the 1970s…

Graph of the usage of the baby name Aubrey in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Aubrey
Girls named AubreyBoys named Aubrey
1975229 (rank: 666th)199 (rank: 572nd)
1974185 (rank: 757th)174 (rank: 608th)
1973142 (rank: 882nd)169 (rank: 611th)
197220180 (rank: 595th)
197110218 (rank: 545th)

In 1973, the usage of Aubrey as a girl name suddenly increased and the name reached the girls’ top 1,000 for the first time.

The next year, the usage for girls — still rising — surpassed the usage for boys. And it’s been that way ever since.

What caused the switch?

The Bread song "Aubrey" (1973).
Bread single

The song “Aubrey” (1973) by the group Bread, which was included on their late 1972 album Guitar Man. Here’s how it begins:

And Aubrey was her name,
a not so very ordinary girl or name.
But who’s to blame?

The melancholy ballad was released as a single in February of 1973. It peaked at #15 on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” chart a month later.

Several decades later, in the early 2000s, the usage of (girl-name) Aubrey rose very quickly. Aubrey reached the girls’ top 100 for the first time in 2006:

Baby girls named AubreyBaby boys named Aubrey
20085,566 (rank: 42nd)135
20074,506 (rank: 69th)138
20063,659 (rank: 93rd)142
20052,264 (rank: 153rd)148
20041,815 (rank: 190th)145

We can attribute this sudden trendiness to singer Aubrey O’Day — first of the reality TV show Making the Band 3 (2005-2006), then of the musical group Danity Kane.

So, what does the name Aubrey mean?

The name can be traced back (via Old French) to two possible Germanic sources. The first is the name Alberic, made up of the elements alb, “elf,” and ric, “powerful.” The second is the female name Albrada/Alberada, made up of the elements alb, “elf,” and rad, “counsel.”

(Most baby name books/websites try to create a phrase out of the unrelated elements in compound Germanic names. They’ll say Aubrey means “ruler of elves,” for instance. But, as I mentioned in the Wilbrod post, it’s more accurate to leave the elements unconnected.)

What are your thoughts on the baby name Aubrey?

Sources:

Where did the name Wilbrod come from?

Statue of St. Willibrord in Luxembourg
St. Willibrord

A reader named Sam sent me a great question several days ago:

I remember my late great-grandfather very fondly and have been thinking about passing on his name as a middle name for a son. However, there’s one catch: his name was Wilbrod, and I don’t know a thing about the name. I’ve never met any other Wilbrods, and what little I’ve been able to dig up is that it’s the name of a street in Ottawa and a rare but not entirely unheard of first and last name in certain francophone groups (historically) and in East Africa (currently). My great-grandfather was himself Canadian, of predominantly Ojibwe and partly either French or Belgian heritage. I’d love to know a little about the name’s history and meaning, if you have any information about it.

I can see why this one would be hard to research. Not only is it rare, but the historical figure who popularized it goes by a different spelling.

The name Wilbrod can be traced back to St. Willibrord (658-739), an Anglo-Saxon missionary who became the first Bishop of Utrecht in 695. Today he’s considered the patron saint of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

According to one source, “Wilbrod” is a specifically French form of the name. Other forms include Wilbrord, Wilebrode, Wilibrord, Willbrord, Willebrode and Willibrode.

What does it mean?

Well, like many Germanic names, it contains two elements.

The first element comes from the word willa, meaning “will, wish, desire.” We can see this element in various Anglo-Saxon words, such as:

  • wilboda, meaning “welcome messenger”
  • wildæg, meaning “wished-for day”
  • wilgæst, meaning “welcome guest”
  • wils?ð, meaning “desired journey”
  • willspell, meaning “good tidings”
  • wilðegu, meaning “agreeable food”

We can also identify it in several modern names/surnames, including:

  • William/Wilhelm, a combination of “will, desire” and “helmet, protection”
  • Wilbert, “will, desire” and “bright”
  • Wilfred/Wilfried, “will, desire” and “peace”
  • Willard, “will, desire” and “brave, hardy”
  • Wilmer, “will, desire” and “fame”

The second element in Willibrord is the word brord, meaning “a prick or point, a lance, javelin, the first blade or spire of grass or corn.”

Though it’s tempting to merge the definitions of the two elements into a phrase like “desired lance,” it may be more accurate not to, as compound Germanic names were not always constructed with meaning in mind. Name elements were sometimes simply passed down from one generation to the next, for instance. (The first part of St. Willibrord’s name likely came from the name of his father, Wilgils.)

P.S. Wilbrod Street in the Sandy Hill district of Ottawa was named for one of the sons of former landowner Louis-Théodore Besserer.

Sources:

  • Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
  • Ferguson, Robert. The Teutonic Name-System Applied to the Family Names of France, England, & Germany. London: Williams & Norgate, 1864.
  • Latham, Edward. A Dictionary of Names, Nicknames and Surnames of Persons, Places and Things. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1904.
  • Orel, Vladimir. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
  • Smith, William and Henry Wace. A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines. London: John Murray, 1887.
  • Stevenson, W. H. “The Christian Name William.” Notes and Queries 3 Apr. 1886: 272.
  • Willibrord – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Echternach Statue Willibrord by Palauenc05 under CC BY-SA 4.0.