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What gave the baby name Marcene a boost in 1920?

The characters Marcene and Darrell from the movie "The Broken Butterfly" (1919)
Marcene and Darrell from “The Broken Butterfly“

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Marcene more than quadrupled in usage in 1920. It was the fastest-rising girl name of the year, in fact.

  • 1922: 29 baby girls named Marcene
  • 1921: 22 baby girls named Marcene
  • 1920: 34 baby girls named Marcene
  • 1919: 7 baby girls named Marcene
  • 1918: 11 baby girls named Marcene

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) data for the same window of time shows a similar uptick in usage in 1920:

  • 1922: 18 people with the first name Marcene
  • 1921: 20 people with the first name Marcene
  • 1920: 27 people with the first name Marcene
  • 1919: 6 people with the first name Marcene
  • 1918: 10 people with the first name Marcene

What was behind the increase?

A silent film called The Broken Butterfly, which was released in November of 1919.

In the movie, set in rural Canada, Marcene Elliot (played by actress Pauline Starke) met and fell in love with composer Darrell Thorne (played by actor Lew Cody).

Darrell wrote a symphony named after Marcene, and traveled to New York for its premiere. While he was away, Marcene gave birth to their child.

When Darrell tried to return to Marcene, he was told that she had died, so instead he went overseas. When he finally came back to Canada, he discovered that Marcene was still alive — but “dying of a broken heart.” Marcene got to see Darrell one last time, and Darrell took the child.

The name Marcene derives from the male name Marcus, which was likely based on Mars, the name of the Roman god of war. Other female names with the same origin include Marcella, Marcelina, Marcia, Marciana, and Marcy.

What are your thoughts on the name Marcene?

Sources:

Image: Clipping from Photoplay Magazine (Feb. 1920)

Baby name story: Cutch

Baseball player Andrew McCutchen
Andrew McCutchen

In July of 2024, Pittsburgh Pirates fans Jordan and Eevanna Lundquist welcomed their third child, a baby boy.

His name? Cutch, in honor of Pirates player Andrew “Cutch” McCutchen.

The following month, Cutch-the-ballplayer and Cutch-the-baby met at PNC Park, on the day of a home game against the Cincinnati Reds.

In a video recorded just before the meeting, McCutchen said: “I’ve never known another human being [named] Cutch, besides myself.”

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Andrew McCutchen, April 2014 by Blackngold29 under CC0 1.0.

How did “Good Will Hunting” influence baby names?

The characters Skylar and Will from the movie "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
Skylar and Will from “Good Will Hunting“

The protagonist of the movie Good Will Hunting, which was released in December of 1997, was a young man from South Boston named Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon).

Will Hunting saw “nothing wrong with spending his whole life hanging out with his friends, quaffing a few beers, holding down a blue-collar job.”

The problem? He was also a self-taught mathematical genius with a photographic memory.

So several people in his life — including his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck), his psychotherapist Sean (Robin Williams), and his girlfriend Skylar (Minnie Driver) — pushed him to rise above his troubled past and embrace his gifts. As Chuckie put it, Will was “sitting on a winning lottery ticket” — he just had to find the courage to cash it in.

Good Will Hunting became one of the highest-grossing films of 1998. It also won a pair of Academy Awards: one for Best Supporting Actor (Williams), the other for Best Original Screenplay (Damon and Affleck).

So how did the movie affect the baby name charts?

The usage of Will, which was the only name used to refer to the main character (i.e., he was never called William), increased in 1998:

  • 2000: 447 baby boys named Will [rank: 510th]
  • 1999: 422 baby boys named Will [rank: 506th]
  • 1998: 339 baby boys named Will [rank: 578th]
  • 1997: 268 baby boys named Will [rank: 634th]
  • 1996: 280 baby boys named Will [rank: 622nd]

And the slow rise of Skylar for baby girls accelerated noticeably the same year:

Girls named SkylarBoys named Skylar
20002,503 [rank: 135th]748 [rank: 356th]
19992,513 [rank: 131st]695 [rank: 374th]
19981,731 [rank: 173rd]730 [rank: 358th]
1997953 [rank: 302nd]657 [rank: 372nd]
1996855 [rank: 328th]636 [rank: 373rd]

(The names Wil, Skyler, and Skyla also saw higher usage in 1998.)

Matt Damon wrote the first draft of the script for Good Will Hunting while attending Harvard College in the early ’90s. He based the character of Skylar, a pre-med student at Harvard, on his then-girlfriend, Skylar Satenstein, a former pre-med student at Harvard. (She’d since become a med student at Columbia.)

Incidentally, Satenstein went on the marry Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich (son of Torben Ulrich) in early 1997. Later the same year, Lars and Skylar attended the local premiere of Good Will Hunting together in New York City.

P.S. The movie was shot during the spring of 1997, which overlapped with the end of my own freshman year at Harvard. I remember other students saying they’d spotted a film crew in the area during those months.

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Good Will Hunting

Popular baby names (and Maori baby names) in New Zealand, 2024

Flag of New Zealand
Flag of New Zealand

Last year, the island nation of New Zealand welcomed a total of 59,199 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Isla and Noah.

Here are New Zealand’s top 50+ girl names and top 50 boy names of 2024:

Girl names

  1. Isla, 190 baby girls
  2. Amelia, 183
  3. Charlotte, 173
  4. Lily, 158
  5. Isabella, 155
  6. Olivia, 154
  7. Hazel, 144
  8. Harper, 141
  9. Mia, 137
  10. Mila, 133
  11. Ava, 129 (tie)
  12. Ruby, 129 (tie)
  13. Sophie, 128
  14. Grace, 120
  15. Chloe, 114
  16. Ella, 113
  17. Aria, 112
  18. Willow, 107 (tie)
  19. Zoe, 107 (tie)
  20. Evelyn, 105 (tie)
  21. Millie, 105 (tie)
  22. Violet, 103
  23. Sophia, 102
  24. Daisy, 101
  25. Freya, 97
  26. Lucy, 96
  27. Ivy, 94
  28. Sienna, 92
  29. Emily, 91
  30. Amaia, 89 (tie)
  31. Matilda, 89 (tie)
  32. Olive, 88
  33. Margot, 87
  34. Kaia, 85 (tie)
  35. Maeve, 85 (tie)
  36. Ellie, 82
  37. Billie, 81 (tie)
  38. Layla, 81 (tie)
  39. Frankie, 80
  40. Stella, 79
  41. Georgia, 78 (tie)
  42. Sadie, 78 (tie)
  43. Maia, 77 (tie)
  44. Sofia, 77 (tie)
  45. Aurora, 74 (tie)
  46. Elsie, 74 (tie)
  47. Penelope, 72 (tie)
  48. Poppy, 72 (tie)
  49. Luna, 71
  50. Eden, 70 (3-way tie)
  51. Florence, 70 (3-way tie)
  52. Riley, 70 (3-way tie)

Boy names

  1. Noah, 250 baby boys
  2. Oliver, 228
  3. Leo, 202
  4. George, 198 (tie)
  5. Jack, 198 (tie)
  6. Luca, 192
  7. Theodore, 189
  8. Elijah, 159
  9. Theo, 158
  10. Arthur, 152
  11. Charlie, 149
  12. James, 141
  13. Lucas, 137
  14. Henry, 135
  15. Arlo, 132 (3-way tie)
  16. Hudson, 132 (3-way tie)
  17. William, 132 (3-way tie)
  18. Archie, 131
  19. Lachlan, 121
  20. Cooper, 116
  21. Ezra, 114 (tie)
  22. Finn, 114 (tie)
  23. Liam, 113 (tie)
  24. Thomas, 113 (tie)
  25. Ethan, 106 (4-way tie)
  26. Hugo, 106 (4-way tie)
  27. Levi, 106 (4-way tie)
  28. Oscar, 106 (4-way tie)
  29. Hunter, 105
  30. Max, 101
  31. Carter, 98 (tie)
  32. Louie, 98 (tie)
  33. Mason, 97
  34. Felix, 94
  35. Asher, 93
  36. Archer, 87 (3-way tie)
  37. Austin, 87 (3-way tie)
  38. Daniel, 87 (3-way tie)
  39. Beau, 85 (tie)
  40. Luke, 85 (tie)
  41. Benjamin, 84
  42. Alexander, 82
  43. Luka, 79 (tie)
  44. Roman, 79 (tie)
  45. Jasper, 78
  46. Elias, 77
  47. Riley, 76
  48. Joseph, 74
  49. Harvey, 72
  50. Louis, 71

The girls’ top 100 included Mackenzie (66th), Asees (80th), Arabella (89th), and Esther (92nd).

The boys’ top 100 included Zorawar (55th), Oakley (59th), Atlas (78th), and Bodhi (97th).

And what about Maori names specifically?

The top Maori baby names in New Zealand in 2024 — just like in 2023, and 2022 — were Aroha/Te Aroha for girls and Ariki/Te Ariki for boys.

Here are New Zealand’s top 10 Maori girl names and top 10 Maori boy names:

Maori girl names

  1. Aroha/Te Aroha, 173 baby girls
  2. Maia/Te Maia, 137
  3. Moana/Te Moana, 84
  4. Anahera/Te Anahera, 66
  5. Atarangi/Te Atarangi, 60
  6. Manaia, 58
  7. Rangimarie/Te Rangimarie, 54
  8. Rangi/Te Rangi, 49
  9. Marama/Te Marama, 48
  10. Tui, 45

Maori boy names

  1. Ariki/Te Ariki, 137 baby boys
  2. Wiremu, 100
  3. Koa, 76
  4. Mikaere, 74
  5. Rangi/Te Rangi, 70
  6. Nikau, 68
  7. Rawiri, 65
  8. Kiwa, 55
  9. Kahurangi/Te Kahurangi, 52
  10. Manaaki, 51

(Please note that I’ve simplified these lists a bit, because Maori names/words that contain macrons don’t render properly on my site.)

Interestingly, the Maori rankings don’t cover the calendar year 2024, like New Zealand’s national rankings do. Instead, they cover births from July 1, 2024, to June 18, 2025. These dates coincide with Matariki, a.k.a. Maori New Year.

Sources: Top Baby Names – New Zealand Government, Top baby names for 2024 – Beehive.govt.nz, Aroha/Te Aroha and Ariki/Te Ariki top Maori baby names of 2024/2025 – dia.govt.nz

Image: Adapted from Flag of New Zealand (public domain)