Names: My newspaper column: now presenting an ancient Greek nymph and recent anachronistic TV aristocrat

[Ormond]

No adminstrator has locked the previous thread yet, but I figure some people will be upset if I don't start one since the previous is on page 21, and it seems appropriate to begin a thread with the annual Most Common Baby Names of the USA.

The Social Security Administration in the USA released their list of top names on May 12.  They count every separate spelling as a separate name. (Perhaps something to note is that their program does not allow for the use of any characters other than the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, so there are no hyphens, apostrophes, or accent marks in the data.) 

Every year I combine spellings I think are pronounced the same in the United States to come up with a list I think will show popularity to prospective parents more accurately. However, this is always a subjective process, dependent on one's personal experience but also on what one thinks the majority of Americans will say when the run across a particular spelling. And these days you have to think in both English and Spanish, at a minimum, when trying to figure out how a spelling is pronounced. Accents of course will affect this -- in nonrhotic England and Australia, for example, it would make sense to count Tayla and Taylor as the same name, but they are pronounced differently in the United States.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-a-look-at-the-top-baby-names-of-2022/article_b2962498-f592-11ed-9126-57cfc35db679.html

Edited April 21 by Ormond

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/cleveland-evans-spider-servant-or-standish-miles-popularity-defies-time/article_2fae90d8-ff2e-11ed-bdf0-57e5d888051f.html

It seems to me that Hollywood used to use Miles mostly as a name for villains, but as it's become popular as a baby name in the USA we are now getting heroes named Miles.

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/cleveland-evans-amelia-sounds-elegant-and-evokes-a-strong-image/article_d5763ef2-0b78-11ee-8c23-eb9cf4899f59.html

I wish I had had room to mention the "Amelia Bedelia" children's books. It's possible that another factor in the name's recent popularity (at least in the USA) is parents who read those books when they were children giving the name to their own daughter. 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/cleveland-evans-dylan-is-a-modern-name-with-an-ancient-origin/article_0626ba2a-15df-11ee-988e-4355b8172f5a.html

It was surprising to me just how recent the use of Dylan as a name for a real baby is. As the column points out, I could not find any reliable instances of a person named Dylan born before 1910. Any historical novel or film that has a character named Dylan is anachronistic -- it was only the name of the character in the Mabinogion before that date.

Amazingly to me, from information readily available on Google, the first two babies named Dylan who were born in the United States (Dylan Stephens and Dylan Thomas Smith) both still are alive today. That shows just how recent this name is.

Without the fame of Dylan Thomas, Dylan would probably still be a rare name confined to Wales and those of Welsh descent. 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column. I think it's a fascinating coincidence that the first person with Tyrone as a given name in the USA census was a Black man back in 1800, since the name later became so popular in the Black community in the later 20th century.  

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-tyrone-comes-in-many-forms/article_44f80d54-217d-11ee-aff4-eb43d22a359a.html

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/evans-arnolds-popularity-dwindles-after-schwarzenegger-turns-to-politics/article_600133dc-2c90-11ee-a3eb-2bf58aea68cb.html

I didn't have room to point out that Arnold may be reviving a bit in the UK at the moment.  Or to mention the cartoon show "Hey, Arnold!" that ran on Nickolodeon 1996-2004.

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column. It is remarkable to me how Nancy was way more popular in the United States than in Britain for well over two centuries. A few decades ago the British name expert Leslie Dunkling remarked that it was amazing Nancy had not yet returned to popularity in England despite its being a top ten name in the 1940s and 1950s in the USA. Well, it has finally happened -- for the first time in centuries Nancy is more common for babies in the UK now than in the USA, back in the England and Wales top 100 while almost out of the USA top 1000. However, it remains to be seen if Nancy in the UK can reach anywhere near the popularity there it had in the USA during the Baby Boom years.

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-its-no-mystery-how-nancy-rose-in-popularity/article_bf68366c-378b-11ee-8d3a-079f77b2858f.html

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-clydes-early-20th-century-popularity-mostly-blue-collar/article_fe6d044a-427c-11ee-acdb-0fbe11fccfe7.html

 

As I mention in the column, I really can't find a single explanation for Clyde's 19th century rise as a given name that's satisfactory to me. The main suggestion others have made is the creation of the title Baron Clyde for the British general Colin Campbell in 1858. The timing is right, but considering that most of the Clydes born in the 1860s and 1870s had working class parents in the Midwest, it is hard for me to believe that this could be the only factor. Baron Clyde retired a couple of years after he was given that title, died in 1863, and the title died with him since he had no children. Why would so many farmers and mechanics in Ohio and Michigan have named sons after him?

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There are two other explanations in the column, about the poem"Clyde"  and the Clyde Line steamship company, but neither of them by itself seems adequate to explain the pattern of use. I should mention there was a local Revolutionary War hero in the Mohawk Valley area of New York state named Samuel Clyde. That might fit geographically as Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa had a great many early settlers from upstate New York. But why wouldn't Clyde have boomed a bit earlier than the late 1850s if a Revolutionary War hero was responsible?

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So at this point I think the big increase in Clydes is still a bit mysterious and we can just say the name was "in the air" and fit in with the fashions of the time.

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/cleveland-evans/article_92539362-4bf2-11ee-a2e6-67c958de830d.html

I was surprised to see that Daryl Hannah wasn't able to get Daryl into the top thousand names for American girls back in the late 1980s when she was first famous. I remember her as being quite a sex symbol back then so the name must have had an extremely masculine image for young parents at that point. 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to yesterday's column. Sorry I didn't have room to mention the song "Molly Malone".  When I Google there also seem to be lots of other songs mentioning the name Molly which I have never heard of.

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-molly-peaked-with-millennials/article_cfad70c0-57ff-11ee-804a-4372c086e0f4.html  

 

[Ormond]

Below is a link to today's column. I am sorry I didn't have room to mention the television executive Brandon Tartikoff (1949-1997), who in the early 90s in the USA may have been one of the most famous persons in such a position ever, even hosting "Saturday Night Live" once.

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-heartthrob-brandon-walsh-pushes-name-into-top-10-in-early-90s/article_8b6834be-638e-11ee-94e4-5f9b13b4f7b9.html

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-german-nickname-sends-bertha-on-downward-trajectory/article_013200fa-6dfb-11ee-a97a-cbd1d06c6e93.html

They edited out the following paragraph:
In 2014 Princeton University psychologists found people generally thought hurricanes with male names would be larger and more destructive than those with female names. However, they tested five each female and male names – and though four female names (Dolly, Fay, Hanna., and Laura) were the “weakest” of the ten, “Bertha” was second “strongest,” more feared than Arthur, Cristobal, Kyle, or Marco, and only slightly less scary than Omar.

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When that study first came out it was widely reported in the media, but only the general finding that male names were considered more dangerous than female names on average was discussed. I have always thought that looking at the full research report shows how very specific stereotypes can develop around specific names because of how Bertha was perceived as more "dangerous" than other female or even most other male names. The study accidentally gave evidence for Bertha's stereotype, which has been just about the strongest one for any single name in the USA. So if "The Gilded Age" is giving Bertha a new stereotype, that really will be remarkable.

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-will-sofia-coppolas-priscilla-give-rise-to-ancient-name/article_9c246640-7902-11ee-940c-cfa32b59229d.html

It's always fascinating to me to discover flash-in-the-pan famous figures who had an impact on what people named their kids and then are forgotten today. Today's case in point is Priscilla Lane. The three films of her films mentioned in the column are those which I thought modern day movie fans would be most likely to have seen on TV because of who her co-stars were. But perhaps even more important in terms of baby names was the 1938 film "Four Daughters".  This film, considered one of the best of the year by critics back in 1938, not only featured Priscilla Lane and two of her real life sisters, but her character's love interest was played by Jeffrey Lynn (1905-1995) in his first big starring role. Lynn is another actor who was very popuiar back then, and who was one of the influences on promoting Jeffrey as a baby name. So "Four Daughters", a film mostly forgotten today, was partly responsible for creating fashions for both Priscilla and Jeffrey because of its young stars.  

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-jodie-jody-jodi-no-matter-the-spelling-its-origin-was-as-a-nickname/article_fbb13d82-8405-11ee-8414-97501fcdebb3.html

Sorry I didn't have space to mention more famous people with this name, such as novelist Jodi Picoult especially Jody Williams (born 1950), winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work against landmines. 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-mary-was-no-1-for-nearly-seven-decades/article_5455312a-8f08-11ee-817d-330f018d03a6.html

The headline is a bit odd because Mary was #1 in the English speaking world for about 290 years, not just "nearly seven decades." Whoever wrote it must have just paid attention to the paragraph about the Social Security data, which begins in 1880, so 1880 to 1947 is "nearly seven decades."

[Ormond]

Here is the link toi today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-irish-love-songs-popularized-eileen/article_38f92f9e-983b-11ee-ac19-bb769e3f95d0.html

That Eileen has started to come back may mean other names ending in -een or -ene such as Doreen and Darlene may be ripe for revival soon.

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-medieval-name-soars-from-modern-media-exposure/article_61e30aee-a3fb-11ee-970d-8f483eec512c.html

Hope everyone has a great new year!

[Lady Winter Rose]

Omg omaha finally in Europe

[Lady Winter Rose]

Nice article, love the name Tristan

[Fragile Bird]

I would love to read your columns, @Ormond, but the paper insists that I subscribe!