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Top baby names in Malaysia, 2024

Flag of Malaysia
Flag of Malaysia

The Southeast Asian country of Malaysia is home to about 34 million people, more than 60% of whom are Muslim.

So it’s not surprising that the boy names Muhammad and Abdul and the girl names Nur and Siti “continue to top Malaysia’s baby name charts,” according to the director-general of Malaysia’s National Registration Department. Popular picks such as these are “commonly followed by a second name,” he noted.

(Siti — the one non-Arabic name among the top four — is the Malay form of the Hindu name Sita, which means “furrow” in Sanskrit. About 6% of Malaysia’s residents are Hindu.)

The names Aisyah, Maryam, and Rayyan are also trendy in Malaysia right now, as is the practice of altering the spelling of traditional names, “with Amir now often spelled as Ameer and Zahra as Zara.”

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Malaysia (public domain)

What gave baby name Kazuko a boost in 1927?

Emperor Hirohito, a.k.a. Emperor Showa (1901-1989)
Emperor Hirohito of Japan

According to the U.S. baby name data, the Japanese name Kazuko saw a distinct spike in usage in 1927 — the one and only year it reached the U.S. top 1,000.

  • 1929: 20 baby girls named Kazuko
  • 1928: 28 baby girls named Kazuko
  • 1927: 63 baby girls named Kazuko [rank: 958th]
    • 31 born in California, 21 in Hawaii, 6 in Washington state
  • 1926: 14 baby girls named Kazuko
  • 1925: 15 baby girls named Kazuko

Nearly 83% of the usage came from California and Hawaii — states with relatively large numbers of Japanese-Americans.

We saw a very similar pattern of usage when looking at Shoji, which was influenced by the start of Japan’s Showa era in the waning days of 1926. So I suspected that Kazuko was likewise influenced by the Showa era. For years, though, I was unable to figure out how the name and the era were connected.

Then I discovered a key fact about the second kanji (i.e., Chinese character) in the word Showa.

Kanji character for "peace"
“peace”

This kanji, which means “peace” or “harmony,” is usually pronounced “wa.” But it can also pronounced in other ways. And one of those others ways is “kazu” — a nanori reading used exclusively in Japanese personal names.

The SSA’s data doesn’t reveal how Japanese names are rendered in Japanese, but my hunch is that most of the 1927 Kazukos wrote their names using this particular character. (And the “-ko” portion of their names was almost certainly represented by the kanji meaning “child” that was so trendy during that period for girl names, e.g., Yoshiko, Chiyoko, Mitsuko, Haruko, Yoko.)

Soon after leaning about the “kazu” pronunciation, I noticed that the Japanese girl name Kazue (pronounced kah-zoo-eh) doubled in usage the same year, no doubt for the same reason:

  • 1929: 7 baby girls named Kazue
  • 1928: 5 baby girls named Kazue
  • 1927: 24 baby girls named Kazue
    • 13 born in Hawaii, 9 in California
  • 1926 12 baby girls named Kazue
  • 1925: 13 baby girls named Kazue

Do you have any thoughts on the name Kazuko? How about Kazue?

Sources: Showa era – Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Kazuko – Behind the Name, SSA

Images: Adapted from Emperor Showa (public domain)

Baby named for college basketball star, becomes college basketball star

College basketball player Azzi Fudd
Azzi Fudd

Last month, college basketball player Azzi Fudd led the University of Connecticut Huskies to victory in the NCAA women’s championship game (against the South Carolina Gamecocks). After the win, Azzi (pronounced ay-zee) was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

Where did Azzi’s unique first name come from?

Her mother, Katie Smrcka-Duffy, had also played basketball in college. (She was drafted into the WNBA in 2001, in fact, but never ended up playing professionally.) So when Katie had a baby girl in late 2002, she named her daughter Azzi after Jennifer Azzi — a fellow female player she looked up to.

Jennifer Azzi had been a member of the undefeated U.S. women’s basketball team that won gold at the 1996 Summer Olympics. The team’s dominance helped launch the WNBA in 1997.

A few years before winning gold, though, the original Azzi had led the Stanford University Cardinal* to victory in the 1990 NCAA women’s championship game (against the Auburn Tigers). After the win, she was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

What are your thoughts on Azzi as a first name? (Do you think Azzi will debut in the U.S. baby name data in 2025?)

*Cardinal is singular because it refers to the color, not the bird.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Azzi Fudd free throw by John Mac under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Where did the baby name Rhondda come from in 1946?

Rhondda Kelly, Miss Australia 1946
Rhondda Kelly

In December of 1945, the Miss Australia beauty pageant was held in Sydney.

The winner was 19-year-old university student Rhondda Kelly, the representative from Queensland (fittingly).

At least one Australian baby girl — born in March to Mr. and Mrs. Mark Fellows at the Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital in Maryborough, Queensland — was named Rhondda in her honor.

But I don’t think this baby was her only namesake.

Why? Because, in mid-1946, Rhondda Kelly embarked upon a six-month round-the-world trip that included an east-to-west crossing of the U.S. and Canada during October. Photographs of Miss Australia 1946 were published in various U.S. papers (including the New York Times) that month.

Right on cue, the name Rhondda surfaced in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1948: unlisted
  • 1947: 6 baby girls named Rhondda
  • 1946: 5 baby girls named Rhondda [debut]
  • 1945: unlisted
  • 1944: unlisted

It remained there for just one more year before falling back below the five-baby threshold.

(Actress Rhonda Fleming — who kicked off the mid-century rise of Rhonda in the late ’40s — wasn’t given a leading role in a movie until 1947.)

So, where does the rare name Rhondda come from?

A Welsh place name (of unknown etymology) that refers to both a river, Afon Rhondda, and a valley, Cwm Rhondda, in South Wales.

What are your thoughts on the name Rhondda? Do you like this spelling, or do you prefer Rhonda?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Rhondda Kelly (1945)