More “Year of the Dragon” baby names

Chinese dragon
Chinese dragon

Chinese New Year is coming up! We will soon be transitioning out of the Year of the Tiger and into the Year of the Rabbit.

And, while I don’t have anything to say about tigers or rabbits, I do I have something to say about dragons.

I wrote about Dragon year baby names (like Long and Ryu) a few years ago. Since then, though, I’ve discovered a whole new set of dragon-names that I missed the first time around — probably because I was too focused on data from the second half of the 20th century.

These new-to-me names all feature the element tatsu, which, like ryu, is a Japanese word for “dragon.” Interestingly, both of these words are represented by the same kanji character:

Kanji character for "dragon"

Ryu is the on’yomi (Sino-Japanese) reading of the ideogram, while tatsu is the kun’yomi (native Japanese) reading.

Turns out that, during the Dragon years of the early 20th century, names with the element tatsu saw higher-than-expected usage in places with large numbers of Japanese-Americans, particularly the territory of Hawaii:

Population
of Hawaii		Japanese population
of Hawaii
1950499,794184,598 (36.9%)
1940422,770157,905 (37.4%)
1930368,300139,631 (37.9%)
1920255,881109,274 (42.7%)
1910191,87479,675 (41.5%)
1900154,00161,111 (39.7%)

So, what names are we talking about?

Tatsuo

The tatsu-name that emerged first in the U.S. baby name data — and the one that was the most popular overall — was the male name Tatsuo, which saw discernible spikes in usage during the Dragon years of 1916, 1928, and 1940:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Tatsuo in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Tatsuo

Here’s the data on Tatsuo for those specific years:

  • In 1916, 57 U.S. baby boys were named Tatsuo.
    • Tatsuo was the fastest-rising boy name.
    • Tatsuo ranked 833rd nationally.
    • 41 [72%] were born in Hawaii, 12 in California.
  • In 1928, 39 U.S. baby boys were named Tatsuo.
    • 20 [51%] were born in Hawaii, 14 in California.
  • In 1940, 6 U.S. baby boys were named Tatsuo.

Tatsuo saw its highest-ever usage in 1916 — the one and only year it managed to rank inside the U.S. top 1,000.

Tatsumi, Tatsuro, Tatsuko, Tatsue

Tatsuo wasn’t the only tatsu-name seeing usage during the first decades of the 1900s.

In 1916, Tatsuo was joined in the data by the girl names Tatsuko and Tatsue and the boy names Tatsumi and Tatsuro:

TatsuoTatsukoTatsumiTatsueTatsuro
191816....
19171059..
19165714*†11*†7*5*†
19156*....
1914.....
*Debut, †Peak usage

Many of the babies named Tatsuko (which was one of the top debut names of 1916) and Tatsumi were born in Hawaii. This is probably true for Tatsue and Tatsuro as well, but their usage was too low to register in the SSA’s state-by-state data.

Tatsuro was a one-hit wonder, but the other three were back in the data in 1928:

TatsuoTatsukoTatsumiTatsue
19307...
19297.5.
1928391077
192785..
19269...

Other tatsu-names were also being bestowed during these years. In the Social Security Death Index, for instance, I found dozens of people — many born in either 1916 or 1928 — with names like Tatsuharu, Tatsuhiko, Tatsuichi, Tatsuji, Tatsukichi, Tatsunobu, Tatsunori, Tatsushi, Tatsuwo, and Tatsuyuki.

For the next three Dragon years (1952, 1964, and 1976), tatsu-names were absent from the data.

Mid-century anti-Japanese sentiment following the late 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor may have had something to do with this. It’s likely that, during this period, many Japanese-Americans did not give their babies conspicuously Japanese first names — reasoning that this would help their children assimilate and/or reduce the risk of discrimination.

Tatsuya, Tatsu, Tatsuki

Starting in the late 1980s, we see three new tatsu-names emerge in the U.S. baby name data. Each one debuted during a Dragon year:

  • The male name Tatsuya first appeared in 1988.
  • The male name Tatsu first appeared in 2000.
  • The male name Tatsuki first appeared in 2012.

Tatsuya remained in the data for several decades (though, curiously, it did not see a spike in usage in 2000). The other two, on the other hand, were one-hit wonders.

2024

The Year of the Dragon comes around again early next year, on February 10.

Which dragon names, if any, do you think we’ll see in the data in 2024?

Sources:

Image: Imperial Dragon by Joey Gannon under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Where did the baby name Alson come from in 1888?

Politician Alson J. Streeter (1823-1901)
Alson J. Streeter

The name Alson first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1888:

  • 1890: unlisted
  • 1889: unlisted
  • 1888: 5 baby boys named Alson [debut]
  • 1887: unlisted
  • 1886: unlisted

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) data for the same window of time shows a similar increase in usage in 1888:

  • 1890: 7 people named Alson
  • 1889: 14 people named Alson
  • 1888: 14 people named Alson
  • 1887: 3 people named Alson
  • 1886: 4 people named Alson

What was the influence?

A third-party candidate in the 1888 U.S. presidential election named Alson J. Streeter.

In May of that year, Streeter — a former Illinois state senator — had won the nomination of the fledgling Union Labor Party (made up of both agricultural and industrial workers).

He ran against Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison, Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, and several other third-party candidates, including Belva Lockwood.

Harrison won the electoral vote (and hence the election), but Cleveland won the popular vote. Prohibition candidate Clinton Fisk came in third with 2.2% of the popular vote, while Alson Streeter took fourth with 1.3%.

Support for Streeter was particularly high in the states of Kansas (where he won 11.4% of the vote), Texas (8.2%), Arkansas (6.8%), and Missouri (3.6%). So it doesn’t surprise me that the people I found named “Alson Streeter” specifically were also from these states:

In Streeter’s case, the name Alson may have come from a family surname. If so, it’s likely that Alson is a variant of the surname Allison, which would have originally referred to the son of someone with an Al-name like Alan, or Alexander.

Do you like the name Alson? Would you use it?

Sources: 1888 United States presidential election – Wikipedia, Alson Streeter – Wikipedia, Union Labor Party – Encyclopedia of Arkansas, SSA

Where did the baby name Crissangel come from in 2007?

Title of the TV series "Criss Angel Mindfreak" (2005-2010)
“Criss Angel Mindfreak”

The name Crissangel appeared for the first and only time in the U.S. baby name data in 2007:

  • 2009: unlisted
  • 2008: unlisted
  • 2007: 5 baby boys named Crissangel [debut]
  • 2006: unlisted
  • 2005: unlisted

The similar names Chrisangel and Crisangel also popped up in the early 2000s.

Where did these names come from?

Magician and illusionist Criss Angel, whose reality series Criss Angel Mindfreak aired on A&E from 2005 to 2010. The show, focused on street magic and stunts, had episodes with titles like “Shark Cage Escape,” “Mass Levitation,” “SUV Nail Bed,” and “Burning Man.”

Criss Angel was born in New York in 1967 as Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos. (He’s of Greek descent.) These days he primarily performs live shows in Las Vegas.

He also has three children with his wife, Shaunyl. Their names are:

  • Johnny Crisstopher, b. 2014
  • Xristos Yanni, b. 2019
  • Illusia Angelina, b. 2021

His sons’ names echo one another in that “Johnny” and “Yanni” are diminutives of John and Yiannis (a Greek equivalent of John), and “Crisstopher” and “Xristos” are both based on the ancient Greek word khristos (“anointed one”).

His daughter’s first name, Illusia, is clearly a reference to dad’s line of work.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Crissangel?

Sources: Criss Angel – Wikipedia, Criss Angel Mindfreak – IMDb, Behind the Name

What gave the baby name Jaycie a boost in 1996?

U.S. gymnast Jaycie Phelps at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Jaycie Phelps

The baby name Jaycie nearly quadrupled in usage from 1995 to 1996:

  • 1998: 118 baby girls named Jaycie
  • 1997: 162 baby girls named Jaycie
  • 1996: 200 baby girls named Jaycie [rank: 963rd]
  • 1995: 51 baby girls named Jaycie
  • 1994: 40 baby girls named Jaycie

In fact, it reached the top 1,000 for the first and only time in 1996.

Other spellings of the name (like Jacy, Jacey, Jaycee, and Jayci) also saw increased usage that year.

What was the influence?

U.S. gymnast Jaycie Phelps. She was part of the 1996 U.S. women’s gymnastics team — the “Magnificent Seven” — that won gold at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The U.S. gold broke Soviet Union’s decades-long winning streak in the women’s team all-around.

Jaycie Phelps, who was born and raised in Indiana, is now back in her home state running the Jaycie Phelps Athletic Center.

What are your thoughts on the name Jaycie? (What spelling do you prefer?)

P.S. The other six gymnasts on the U.S. team that year were named Amanda, Amy, Dominique (2), Kerri, and Shannon.

Sources: