Where did the baby name Shyheim come from in 1994?

Shyheim's album "AKA the Rugged Child" (1994).
Shyheim album

The name Shyheim debuted impressively in the U.S. baby name data in 1994:

  • 1997: 102 baby boys named Shyheim
  • 1996: 110 baby boys named Shyheim
  • 1995: 83 baby boys named Shyheim
  • 1994: 168 baby boys named Shyheim [rank: 819th]
  • 1993: unlisted
  • 1992: unlisted

In fact, Shyheim was the top boy-name debut of 1994, reaching the top 1,000 for the first and only time that year.

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

A number of variant forms also popped up in the data in the mid-1990s:

19931994199519961997
Sheheem1836312747
Shyheem.23*201629
Shyhiem.17*171120
Shaheim14*13917
Shiheem.6*12810
Shaiheem.5*...
Shahiem..9*56
Shiheim...5*.
Shyhem...5*.
*Debut

So what caused this sudden interest in the name?

Shyheim (pronounced shy-HEEM or shah-HEEM) — in full, Shyheim Dionel Franklin — a teenage rapper from New York City who was affiliated with the Wu-Tang Clan.

Shyheim’s most successful single, “On and On,” was released in late 1993 and reached #89 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in April of 1994. The same month, he released his successful debut album, AKA the Rugged Child. This was followed by his equally successful second album, The Lost Generation, in mid-1996.

Since then, though, Shyheim’s musical output hasn’t been as well-received, and the usage of the name has declined accordingly.

What are your thoughts on the name Shyheim? (How would you spell it?)

Sources: Shyheim – Wikipedia, Billboard Hot 100 (Week of April 9, 1994)

Where did the baby name Liesl come from in 1965?

The character Liesl von Trapp from the movie "The Sound of Music" (1965)
Liesl von Trapp from “The Sound of Music“

The German name Liesl (pronounced LEE-zl), which is related to Elizabeth, first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1965:

  • 1967: 96 baby girls named Liesl
  • 1966: 100 baby girls named Liesl
  • 1965: 24 baby girls named Liesl [debut]
  • 1964: unlisted
  • 1963: unlisted

This was the year the Oscar-winning movie musical The Sound of Music was released. Set in Austria in the late 1930s, the film told the story of singing governess Maria (played by Julie Andrews) and featured the seven children of the von Trapp family: Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl.

Eldest child Liesl (played by Charmian Carr) was “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” as she explains in the song:

The movie was modeled after the Tony award-winning musical of the same name, which was ultimately based upon the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta von Trapp. (Maria ended up marrying the children’s widowed father, Georg, and thereby becoming a von Trapp herself.)

In real life, the seven von Trapp children were named Rupert, Agathe, Maria, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina. Later, Georg and Maria welcomed three more: Rosmarie, Eleonore (nn “Lorli”), and Johannes.

Sources: The Sound of Music – Wikipedia, SSA

Where did the baby name Quisto come from in 1984?

The character Quisto Champion from the TV western/soap opera "The Yellow Rose" (1983-1984).
Quisto from “The Yellow Rose“

The curious name Quisto debuted in the U.S. baby name data in the middle of the 1980s:

  • 1986: unlisted
  • 1985: unlisted
  • 1984: 9 baby boys named Quisto [debut]
  • 1983: unlisted
  • 1982: unlisted

While Quisto was only in the data once, it debuted impressively enough to tie for top one-hit wonder boy name of 1984.

Where did it come from?

The short-lived nighttime soap opera/western The Yellow Rose (1983-1984), which was set in West Texas on the sprawling “Yellow Rose” ranch. The ranch had been built by the late Wade Champion, but was now being run by Wade’s young widow Colleen (played by Cybill Shepherd) and his sons Roy and “Quisto” (real name Ramon).

I don’t know how the character acquired his nickname (if anyone out there watched the show and remembers, please leave a comment!), but I can tell you about the cowboy slang term quisto. It refers to a quirt — a woven-leather whip with a short handle and “a lash of three or four heavy, loose thongs.” The word quirt is derived from the Mexican Spanish word cuarta, “whip,” which comes from the Spanish word cuerda, “cord.”

And Quisto wasn’t the only Yellow Rose character to have an impact on baby names. Chance McKenzie — a “lanky, taciturn” ex-convict and ranch-hand played by Sam Elliott — gave the baby name Chance a boost in 1984:

  • 1986: 508 baby boys named Chance [rank: 368th]
  • 1985: 650 baby boys named Chance [rank: 313th]
  • 1984: 880 baby boys named Chance [rank: 249th]
  • 1983: 230 baby boys named Chance [rank: 555th]
  • 1982: 186 baby boys named Chance [rank: 636th]

What are your thoughts on the names Chance and Quisto? Which one would you be more likely to use?

Sources:

Where did the baby name Arkham come from in the 2010s?

Arkham Asylum as it appears in the video game "Batman: Arkham Asylum" (2009)
Arkham Asylum

The rare name Arkham first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 2014:

  • 2016: 14 baby boys named Arkham
  • 2015: 9 baby boys named Arkham
  • 2014: 7 baby boys named Arkham [debut]
  • 2013: unlisted
  • 2012: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Well, we know it came from Batman — from the Arkham Asylum, where Batman villains are sent for imprisonment/treatment.

But it’s hard to know what (if anything) caused the debut specifically. Arkham Asylum was being depicted in various media around that time, including…

  • the TV series Gotham (which premiered in 2014),
  • the direct-to-video movie Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014), and
  • several video games, such as Batman: Arkham Origins (2013).

Given the ubiquity of Arkham Asylum these days, it’s interesting to note that Arkham is a relatively recent addition to the Batman universe.

The first Batman comic book was published in 1940, but the comics didn’t introduce Arkham Asylum until 1974. (So, Adam West’s televised version of Batman wouldn’t have had any knowledge of an asylum in Gotham City back in the 1960s.)

According to the backstory, Arkham Asylum was founded in 1921 by psychiatrist Amadeus Arkham. He remodeled the Arkham family mansion into a hospital for the mentally ill following the death of his mother, Elizabeth. The asylum’s official name is the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.

The word “Arkham” was taken from writings of H. P. Lovecraft, who used the Salem-inspired fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, as a setting for his unsettling stories. We don’t know how the town’s name was coined, but we do know that it was home to a sanitarium.

What are your thoughts on Arkham as a given name? Would you use it?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Arkham Asylum by Shane Crotty under CC BY-SA 4.0.