Baby Names
Originally posted 2005-06-16 04:49:45
Naming babies has always caused my wife and me angst, and we had to do it five times. I wish we’d found The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager to help guide us. It’s a Java applet that shows name popularities over time: you start typing a name, and it starts displaying a graph of the usage per million babies per year. I discovered that my name, Robert, has steadily declined in popularity since the 1930s. I always knew that my parents were square.
I couldn’t resist plugging my children’s names into it. The data run through 2004. Here’s what I found:
Tyson: appeared in the 1970s, hit a peak in the 1980s, dipped in the 1990s, and has climbed to 265 usages per million babies. Rank when we named him: 441. Hard to admit this, but I was inspired by Mike Tyson, the insane boxer who later bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear. My wife drew her inspiration from Ty Detmer (BYU Heisman-winning quarterback). I’d also dated a girl who had a brother named Tyson, and thought it was a tough-sounding first name. I didn’t want to raise any wimps.
Jacob: Good ol’ Bible name, fell into relative disuse in the 1960s (100-200 per million babies), then stormed unabated through the 1990s to a #5 ranking and some 7,300 usages per million babies, when we named him. In 2004, it held the #1 ranking, with some 6,800 usages per million. So, either we were \”with it,\” or we were just lemmings.
Mallory: This is a family name on my wife’s side, and also evidence of my adolescent crush on Justine Bateman in Family Ties. Appeared in the 1980s (I wasn’t the only one eyeing Justine Bateman), and has risen in popularity since. Ranked 182 in the 1990s when we named her, with 410/million, and rests at 187, with 450/million in 2004.
Camille: The wife in the couple that became our best friends in college carried this name, and went by Camie. Our daughter follows suit. This name has been around forever, rising steadily to a 250 ranking in 2004, with about 290 usages per million. \”Camie\” has never been in the top 1,000.
Leila: My mother’s mother was named \”Lelia,\” though sometimes I find it spelled \”Leila,\” and thought that’s how she spelled her name when our Leila was born. Whoops. I have a cousin named \”Lela,\” dispensing with the confusion of the \”i\” placement. \”Leila\” was huge in the late 1800s, fell off dramatically, and has risen of late to a 353 ranking in 2004, with 220 usages per million. As a side note, our Leila has my mother’s name for a middle name: Alzina. \”Alzina\” has never been in the top 1,000.
So, except for \”Jacob,\” we’ve used relatively low-usage names that are currently on the upswing. Our children are the only ones with their names at their school, as far as I know, except for Jacob. He always shares a classroom with at least one other Jacob, and often more.
Though we’ll likely never need NameVoyager’s services again, I’ll keep it bookmarked–just in case.