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Names: My newspaper column -- last three links restored


Ormond

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This is the start of the third thread of links to my column.

http://www.omaha.com...ore-common-name

I'm not completely happy with the headline the editor came up with for this one. Though Barney would be more common than Barnabas for all people now living, the last few years Barnabas has been more common than Barney for new babies. In the 2011 list that just came out yesterday, there were 8 boys named Barnabas and fewer than five of either Barney or Barnaby.

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I find this more interesting. What are your opinion?

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

and this:

http://www.ssa.gov/O...ames/twins.html

My column on May 29 will be about this data. I am presently going through the complete lists of all names given to 5 or more infants of the same sex in order to add together spellings I believe are probably pronounced the same. The SSA lists count every separate spelling as a different name and so understate the popularity of names like Aiden, Jayden, and Kayden where there are many different fairly common spellings being used.

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Wow, some of those names, especially for girls, must be really unpleasant for the kids. Come on, Mia and Mya? Heaven and Nevaeh? :huh: I wonder what the most common names for triplets are? Faith, Hope and Charity; Autumn, Spring and Summer; and Jayla, Kayla and Layla seem strong possibilities, but Arianna, Brianna and Crianna just wouldn't do ;)

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I find this more interesting. What are your opinion?

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

and this:

http://www.ssa.gov/O...ames/twins.html

I'm surprised Ava is that popular, I've not met anyone called Ava,it makes me think of the Smashing Pumpkins song which isn't a bad thing :).

Sophia is a pretty name, is it me or do the top 10 girls names seem to be slightly more traditional than the boys?.

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Theme twin naming is something that annoys me. Getting confused with my twin is very annoying anyway, it would be even more annoying if we had similar names as well.

My brother and I have simmilar names. We share same 5 letters, but names do not share origins, have no simmilar meaning, they are not respelling of the same name, they don't rhymme. My brother's name has 7 letters and mine has 6 letters.

I find twin names OK if they are not too simmilar.

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I was surprised that Heaven and Nevaeh where such common names for twins.

Not keen on that combination, although it does make me think of this New Yorker cartoon. :P

The Things have very different names - people have enough problems telling them apart, I'd have been very unpopular if they'd been given matchy-matchy names.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry, they forgot to put it up on their website on Tuesday and then I got busy with other things and so didn't check back later in the week. I was going to post it myself this morning. :)

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Forty-one different spellings of Aidan? Yeesh.

And remember that's only the ones that were given to five or more boys born in the USA in 2011; Social Security does not release numbers for names given to four or less on "privacy" grounds.

The 41 spellings given to five or more boys in the USA in 2011 were:

Aadan 11

Aaden 274

Aadin 11

Aadon 13

Aadyn 36

Aaiden 71

Aaidyn 7

Aayden 146

Aden 1193

Adin 111

Adyn 89

Adynn 8

Aedan 182

Aeden 80

Aedin 10

Aedon 6

Aedyn 49

Aidan 3685

Aiddan 5

Aidden 35

Aiden 15389

Aidenn 24

Aidin 40

Aidon 29

Aidyn 363

Aidynn 8

Aiiden 12

Aiyden 71

Aodhan 10

Aydan 342

Aydann 6

Aydden 10

Ayden 6085

Aydenn 146

Aydin 355

Aydn 8

Aydon 55

Aydyn 38

Ayeden 19

Ayedin 8

Ayiden 8

There were 900 boys named Adan and 26 named Adon. I did not count those with Aidan because some of the Adans are Hispanic boys given the Spanish form of Adam, which is pronounced "ah-DAHN", and I figured the Adons could as easily be a respelling of that name as of Aiden. But I'm sure some of the Adans are just respellings of Aidan where the parents don't realize they've replicated the Spanish name.

And there were also:

Aidean 5

Aideen 13

Aideyn 7

Aidian 6

Aydeen 9

Aydian 11

Aydien 11

some of which may be just typographical errors for Aiden, or where the parents are pronouncing those spellings as Aiden, though I couldn't quite get myself to include them as I'd never pronounce those spellings that way. :)

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Completely unrelated to Aidan, but I chaperoned my son's field trip yesterday and I was quite pleased that all of my charges had "normal" names. There was Henry, Xander, Thomas, Levi, Marissa and Madison. The only one that I kept having trouble with (I had the names written on a post-it that I kept looking at) was Ciara. She pronounced in "See-ARE-ah" and I kept wanting to say it like the Gaelic "KEER-ah."

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Not keen on that combination, although it does make me think of this New Yorker cartoon. :P

The Things have very different names - people have enough problems telling them apart, I'd have been very unpopular if they'd been given matchy-matchy names.

Oh I love that cartoon! You should print a copy and have it framed, and hang it in some prominent place, lol! Train the Things to have a sense of humour! But if you actually call them the Things, I 'm sure they already have a well-developed sense of humour. :rolleyes:

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