How popular is the baby name Zeus 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 Zeus.
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According to New York City’s Department of Health, the most popular baby names in the city in 2017 were Emma and Liam.
Here are New York City’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2017:
Girl Names 1. Emma 2. Olivia 3. Mia 4. Sophia 5. Isabella 6. Ava 7. Leah 8. Emily 9. Sarah 10. Abigail
Boy Names 1. Liam 2. Noah 3. Jacob 4. Ethan 5. David 6. Lucas 7. Matthew 8. Jayden 9. Aiden 10. Daniel
In the girls’ top ten, Abigail replaced Madison.
In the boys’ top ten, David and Jayden replaced Dylan and Michael.
Within each of the five boroughs, the top baby names were…
Manhattan: Olivia and James
Bronx: Isabella and Liam
Brooklyn: Esther and David
Queens: Emma and Liam
Staten Island: Olivia and Michael
And finally, some of the baby names bestowed just 10 times each in NYC last year:
Artemis, Tzippy, Reizy (girl names)
Azriel, Zeus, Thaddeus (boy names)
NYC also used to break down top names by ethnic/racial group (see the 2015 rankings, for example) but this time around the press release didn’t include that information.
Earlier this month, my husband and I spent a couple of weeks in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
Old Town Square, Prague
Here are some of the names we spotted:
Wenceslas
Our hotel was located in Wenceslas Square, which was named in honor of Duke of Bohemia Wenceslas I (907-935).
His name is a Latinized form of the Slavic name Veceslav, which is made up of the Old Slavic words veche, meaning “more, greater,” and slava, meaning “glory, fame.” (The name Václav is a contracted form of Veceslav.)
Mikulas
We didn’t spend much time checking out Wenceslas Square (which was mainly for shopping) but did hang out a lot in Old Town Square (which was more historical). One of the big attractions there is the astronomical clock:
Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square, Prague
The oldest part of the clock was created by clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň in 1410, making this the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world (and the oldest one still working).
The name Mikuláš is simply the Czech form of Nicholas, which can be traced back to the Greek words nike, meaning “victory,” and laos, meaning “people.”
Tyge & Tycho
Also in Old Town is a Gothic church called the Church of Mother of God before Týn. (The church is in the center of that top photo of Old Town Square.)
Danish nobleman and astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), who relocated to Bohemia toward the end of his life, is buried here. Tycho’s birth name was Tyge (pron. tee-geh), but he Latinized it to Tycho (pron. tee-ko) as a teenager.
According to the site Nordic Names, Tyge is a form of Tyki, which is the Danish form of Týki, which has several possible derivations. Tycho, on the other hand, is based on the Greek word tyche, which means “luck.”
Karel & Deniska
A short walk from Old Town Square is the Vltava river. From the early 1400s until the mid-1800s, the only way to cross the Vltava was the Karlův most (Charles Bridge; literally, “Karel’s bridge”) which was named in honor of 14th-century King Charles IV.
A gold-colored cross on the bridge parapet marks the spot where, in 1393, St. John of Nepomuk was thrown into the river and drowned. Behind the cross decorative railing on which people like to put love locks:
Charles Bridge, Prague
A couple of the locks:
Love locks on Charles Bridge, Prague
I don’t know about the origins of Buka and Makc, but Deniska is a diminutive of Denisa, the feminine form of Denis, which comes from Dionysius, which is based on the name of the Greek god Dionysus, whose name is made up of elements referring to Zeus (dios) and the legendary Mount Nysa.
Dalibor
In that photo with the bridge with the railing, there’s a cluster of spires off in the distance. That’s the Prague Castle complex, which includes the Old Royal Palace, St. Vitus Cathedral, St. George’s Basilica, Rosenberg Palace, and Daliborka Tower.
Daliborka Tower, a former prison, was named after early prisoner Dalibor of Kozojedy (d. 1498). According to a legend that arose after his death, Dalibor learned to play the fiddle during his imprisonment and “people came from far and wide and listened, enraptured, to his soul-stirring playing.”
But an informational sign inside Daliborka debunks this myth:
The reality of Dalibor’s musical talent was, however, quite different: “the fiddle” was a nickname for an instrument of torture, a sort of rack on which the convicted man was stretched till […] the victim began “to fiddle” (change his tune, confess).”
Torture devices inside Daliborka Tower, Prague
The name Dalibor is made up of the Old Slavic words daleko, meaning “far, distance,” and bor meaning “war, fight.” (Daliborka is also the feminine form of the name.)
Svatopluk
Getting back to the river…one of the other bridges over the Vltava is the art deco Svatopluk Čech Bridge, named after Czech writer Svatopluk Čech (1846-1908).
Svatopluk Bridge, Prague
The name Svatopluk is made up of the Old Slavic words svetu, meaning “blessed, holy,” and pulku, meaning “people, folk.”
Avigdor
You guys know I love graveyards, but sadly I didn’t get a chance to see Prague’s famous Old Jewish Cemetery. (We walked by it a few times, but always on our way somewhere else.)
I do remember reading, though, that the oldest stone there belongs to a rabbi named Avigdor Kara (d. 1439). The name Avigdor may be based on the phrase Avi Gedor (I Chron. 4.18), which means “father of Gedor,” with the name Gedor meaning “wall” or “fence.”
Now let’s wrap things up with this gratuitous shot of St. Vitus Cathedral:
St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague
Have you ever been to the Czech Republic? Do you remember seeing/hearing any interesting names while there?
The top baby names in England and Wales were announced last week.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, the most popular baby names last year were Amelia and Oliver.
Here are England and Wales’ top 20 girl names and top 20 boy names of 2013:
Girl Names
Amelia, 5570 baby girls
Olivia, 4598
Emily, 4049
Ava, 3575
Isla, 3526
Jessica, 3507
Poppy, 3422
Isabella, 3246
Sophie, 3013
Mia, 2993
Ruby, 2948
Lily, 2883
Grace, 2799
Evie, 2767
Sophia, 2764
Ella, 2722
Scarlett, 2643
Chloe, 2401
Isabelle, 2287
Freya, 2266
Boy Names
Oliver, 6,949 baby boys
Jack, 6,212
Harry, 5,888
Jacob, 5,126
Charlie 5,039
Thomas, 4,591
Oscar, 4,511
William, 4,268
James, 4,236
George, 4,202
Alfie, 4,138
Joshua, 3,973
Noah, 3,830
Ethan, 3,572
Muhammad, 3,499
Archie, 3,265
Leo, 3,264
Henry, 3,248
Joseph, 3,225
Samuel, 3,188
There were some big moves on the boys’ side: Oscar rose from 17th to 7th, while Riley plummeted from 8th to 21st. (Here are the biggest moves overall for boy names and girl names.)
New to the top 20 are Scarlett, Archie, Henry and Joseph. They replaced Charlotte, Riley, Daniel and Max.
One thing I found interesting? Freya wasn’t on the England top 20. It also wasn’t on the Wales top 20. And yet still it managed to rank 20th on the combined top 20. Very sneaky, Freya.
Here are some of last year’s rare baby names, each given to between 3 and 10 babies (inclusive):
*Enlli, which debuted last year, comes from the name of the Welsh island Ynys Enlli (called Bardsey Island in English). The island name is usually translated as “island of the current,” with ynys meaning “island,” and enlli meaning “current.” You can hear the proper pronunciation of Ynys Enlli at Forvo.
Finally, all of my previous posts on the popular (and unique) baby names in England and Wales: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008.
Several days ago, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was the impressive “Io: Moon Over Jupiter,” which was taken by the Cassini spacecraft.
Jupiter’s moon Io [EYE-oh] was discovered by Galileo in 1610. He named it for Io the mythological character — a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, then turned into a cow.*
The name Io doesn’t have a known meaning, and it’s rare in the U.S.:
2010: 6 baby girls named Io
2009: 8 baby girls named Io
2008: 5 baby girls named Io
2007: 5 baby girls named Io
2006: 5 baby girls named Io
Nevertheless, I’ve always found it intriguing. There aren’t many two-letter girl names out there, and this is the only one I know of from Greek myth.
Do you like the name Io? Would you give it to your baby girl?
*The name of the Bosphorus, which comes from ancient Greek and means “ox passage,” commemorates Io-the-cow’s crossing of the strait.
A baby girl born on December 19, 1882, in West Derby, Liverpool, England, to Arthur and Sarah Pepper was named:
Ann Bertha Cecilia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louisa Maud Nora Ophelia Quince Rebecca Starkey Teresa Ulyses Venus Winifred Xenophon Yetty Zeus Pepper
Regarding the name, the Boston Evening Transcript quipped, “Apparently the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has little power in London”:
(The handwriting on the original birth record is relatively clear, but certain names are hard to make out — this accounts for the spelling differences between my version and the Transcript‘s version.)
“Jottings.” Boston Evening Transcript 3 Aug. 1889: 4.
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