Where did the baby name Kida come from in 2002?

The character Kida from the movie "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" (2001)
Kida from “Atlantis: The Lost Empire“

The name Kida first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 2002:

  • 2004: 10 baby girls named Kida
  • 2003: 10 baby girls named Kida
  • 2002: 5 baby girls named Kida [debut]
  • 2001: unlisted
  • 2000: unlisted

Where did it come from?

A character in the animated Disney movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which was released in June of 2001.

Atlantis was a Jules Verne-inspired adventure film set in the mid-1910s. It followed Smithsonian linguist Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) as he led an underwater expedition to find the legendary kingdom of Atlantis.

Upon arriving, Milo encountered an Atlantean princess named Kidagakash “Kida” Nedakh (voiced by Cree Summer). Kida hoped that Milo could help her revive the kingdom, which had “fallen into apathy and disrepair” since sinking into the ocean thousands of years earlier.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire did not feature singing, dancing, or cute sidekicks — unlike many of Disney’s animated films of the previous decade (e.g., Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King). Perhaps because of this, it was not a big hit at the box office.

But it clearly had a small influence on expectant parents. And it may have affected the name Milo as well, though it’s hard to tell by the data.

What are your thoughts on the name Kida?

Sources: Atlantis: The Lost Empire – Wikipedia, Atlantis: The Lost Empire review – Roger Ebert, SSA

Image: Screenshot of Atlantis: The Lost Empire

What gave the baby name Ren a boost in 1984?

The character Ren McCormack from the movie "Footloose" (1984)
Ren McCormack from “Footloose“

The simple name Ren, after dropping out of the U.S. baby name data for a year in 1983, returned with nearly two dozen baby boys in 1984:

  • 1986: 22 baby boys named Ren
  • 1985: 32 baby boys named Ren
  • 1984: 21 baby boys named Ren
  • 1983: unlisted
  • 1982: 10 baby boys named Ren

What brought it back?

The main character of the movie Footloose, which was released February of 1984 and went on to become the seventh-highest-grossing film of the year.

Ren McCormack (played by Kevin Bacon) was a teenager who loved to dance. The problem? He’d recently moved from the big city to a rural town where dancing was banned, thanks to the efforts of a local preacher.

As Ren challenged the anti-dancing law (so that the town’s high school could hold a senior prom), he also became romantically involved with the preacher’s rebellious daughter Ariel* (played by Lori Singer).

Coincidentally, one of the fastest-rising boy names in the U.S. in 1984 was the similar name Ryne; the trendiness of Ryne could have influenced the usage of Ren as well.

What are your thoughts on the name Ren? Do you like it as a standalone name, or do you prefer it as a nickname for something longer (like Lorenzo, Terrence, Warren, or Reynold)?

*Ariel was apparently the inspiration behind the name of Disney’s Little Mermaid…

Sources: Footloose – Wikipedia, 1984 in film – Wikipedia, Footloose review – Roger Ebert, SSA

Image: Screenshot of Footloose

Popular baby names in the Czech Republic, 2024

Flag of the Czech Republic
Flag of the Czech Republic

Last year, the central European country of the Czech Republic welcomed about 84,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Eliška (for the 13th year in a row) and Jakub (for the 14th year in a row).

Here are Czechia’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2024:

Girl names

  1. Eliška
  2. Viktorie
  3. Sofie
  4. Anna
  5. Natálie
  6. Amálie
  7. Ema
  8. Tereza
  9. Laura
  10. Adéla
  11. Julie
  12. Rozálie
  13. Nela
  14. Mia
  15. Emma
  16. Karolína
  17. Barbora
  18. Sára
  19. Stella
  20. Anežka – the Czech form of Agnes.
  21. Veronika
  22. Marie
  23. Kristýna
  24. Meda
  25. Valerie
  26. Ella
  27. Klára
  28. Jasmína
  29. Štepánka
  30. Josefína
  31. Lucie
  32. Aneta
  33. Nina
  34. Magdaléna
  35. Zuzana (3-way tie)
  36. Ester (3-way tie)
  37. Beáta (3-way tie)
  38. Alžbeta (tie) – the Slovak form of Elizabeth.
  39. Elena (tie)
  40. Rozárie – the Czech form of Rosaria.
  41. Katerina
  42. Sofia
  43. Leontýna
  44. Liliana
  45. Gabriela
  46. Emily
  47. Amélie
  48. Adriana (3-way tie)
  49. Michaela (3-way tie)
  50. Stela (3-way tie)

Boy names

  1. Jakub
  2. Matyáš
  3. Jan
  4. Adam
  5. Matej
  6. David
  7. Vojtech
  8. Filip
  9. Dominik
  10. Tomáš
  11. Daniel
  12. Tobiáš
  13. Oliver
  14. Štepán
  15. Antonín
  16. Sebastian
  17. Lukáš
  18. Martin
  19. Ondrej
  20. Mikuláš
  21. Šimon (tie)
  22. Marek (tie)
  23. Samuel
  24. Jonáš
  25. Václav
  26. Petr (tie)
  27. Teodor (tie)
  28. Patrik
  29. Jirí – the Czech form of George.
  30. Tadeáš
  31. Kryštof
  32. Michal
  33. Viktor
  34. Vilém – the Czech form of William.
  35. Jáchym
  36. Eliáš
  37. Josef
  38. Richard
  39. Eduard
  40. František
  41. Albert
  42. Tobias
  43. Theodor
  44. Alex
  45. Pavel
  46. Kristián (tie)
  47. Damián (tie)
  48. Vincent
  49. Jindrich – the Czech form of Heinrich.
  50. Michael

The girls’ top 100 included Markéta (57th), Klaudie (68th), Nella (76th), and Bára (97th).

The boys’ top 100 included Vít (55th), Robin (60th), Hynek (66th), and Kevin (81st).

Speaking of Kevin…Czech journalist Michal Kašpárek (who helped build an app based on Czechia’s baby name data) mentioned Kevin and several other non-Czech names during an interview with Radio Prague International last year. Some quotes:

  • Amélie: “Before the movie Amélie came out in 2001 about one girl a year in the Czech Republic was named Amélie. The year after there [were] 13, out of nowhere, and then the number doubled each year until reaching today’s 180 or so Amélies every year.”
  • Kevin: “Kevin became really popular after Home Alone came out, which was in the ’90s, when American names in general got more popular in the Czech Republic.”
  • Bob: “[O]ur data also shows that the first Bobs were showing up in the 1960s, possibly due to Bob Dylan.”
  • Amy: “There was also a big increase in the name Amy around that time that Amy Winehouse hit it big. That was a trend that didn’t stop after she passed away. Amy is still a really common name, and it hadn’t been before.”

I didn’t post about Czechia’s top baby names of 2023, but here are Czechia’s 2016 rankings.

P.S. Several Czech letters, such as R-with-caron and E-with-caron, don’t render properly on my site. So please imagine that they exist in several of the names above: the girl names Alžbeta, Katerina, and Štepánka, and the boy names Jindrich, Jirí, Matej, Ondrej, Štepán, and Vojtech.

Sources: Detským jménum loni opet kralovali Jakub a Eliška – Ceský statistický úrad, Eliška and Jakub remain most popular baby names in Czechia – Radio Prague International, Jakub, Eliška… Kevin: App spotlights first names in Czechia – Radio Prague International, Behind the Name

Image: Adapted from Flag of the Czech Republic (public domain)

How did Colin Kelly influence baby names in 1942?

USAAF pilot Colin P. Kelly, Jr. (1915-1941)
Colin P. Kelly

On December 8, 1941, the Empire of Japan began its attack on the U.S. territory of the Philippines.

General Douglas MacArthur was aware that Pearl Harbor had been attacked hours earlier but, despite this, U.S. forces in the Philippines were not prepared. The Japanese ended up destroying most of the B-17s and pursuit planes at Clark Field, the U.S. Army Air Base on Luzon.

One of the U.S. pilots stationed in the Philippines at that time was Captain Colin P. Kelly, Jr. (whose first name was pronounced KOH-lin).

Two days after the attack, in one of the few remaining B-17s, Kelly and his crew of seven men took off from Clark Field in search of enemy warships.

Kelly spotted a Japanese ship off the north coast of the island and dropped three bombs in that location. (Though it was widely reported that he’d destroyed a battleship, in truth he damaged a cruiser.)

While attempting to return to Clark Field, Kelly’s plane was chased by Japanese Zeroes that, “in repeated firing runs, raked the aircraft with machine gun and cannon fire.” One crew member was killed instantly, and the B-17 was set ablaze.

Kelly ordered the surviving men to bail out while he stayed at the controls and struggled to keep the bomber level. Soon after, the plane exploded in mid-air.

Colin Kelly poster

At a time when nearly all war news was bleak, the story of Colin Kelly’s bravery and sacrifice “profoundly affected the American public.”

His name remained in the news for months. It also started popping up elsewhere: on posters, on trading cards, even in song [vid].

As a result, the usage of the baby name Colin more than quadrupled in 1942:

Boys named ColinBoys named Kelly
1944237 [rank: 394th]275 [rank: 363rd]
1943320 [rank: 345th]275 [rank: 369th]
1942349 [rank: 323rd]249 [rank: 385th]
194175 [rank: 713th]160 [rank: 470th]
194058 [rank: 822nd]142 [rank: 485th]

The usage of variant spellings like Collin and Colon also increased that year, as did the male usage of the name Kelly.

Records reveal that dozens of the babies named Colin in the early 1940s also got the middle name Kelly. For example, a boy born in Vermont in mid-1942 was named Colin Kelly Ducolon.

One of Colin Kelly’s later namesakes was his own nephew, Colin Kelly Howerton, born to his sister (Emmala) in 1948.

And at least one pre-existing Colin — former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (b. 1937) — changed the pronunciation of his name from KAH-lin to KOH-lin in honor of Kelly.

What are your thoughts on the name Colin? (Which pronunciation do you prefer?)

Sources:

Images: