Category: historic names
By Linda Rosenkrantz
Last week we looked at some neglected girls’ namesake names, now it’s the boys’ turn as we seek some equally distinctive names from American history and culture, names that could provide unique-ish options with interesting back-stories. What’s especially evident here is how many of the unusual boys’ names are mothers’ maiden names that started out in the middle but were switched by their sons into first place.
Adlai Stevenson—There were three noted generational bearers of this name– their combined accomplishments: one vice president, two senators, one governor, a two-time presidential nominee, and an ambassador to the UN.
Alpheus Hyatt was the founder of the Marine Biological Lab at Woods Hole; his namesake Alpheus Hyatt Verrill invented the autochrome natural color photography process, and there have been two Alpheuses in the U.S. Senate.
By Arika Okrent, mentalfloss.com
The Social Security website has data on the thousand most popular baby names for boys and girls going back to 1880, when John and Mary came in first. A look at the old lists shows that the most popular names are always changing, but some of the naming trends have been around for longer than it might seem. Here are 11 naming trends of the past.
1. IMPORTANT TITLES
The current list has some names that carry a grand sense of importance (Messiah, King, Marquis), but the 1880s and 90s also had its grand titles in the 200 to 400 range of ranked popularity. For the boys, there was General, Commodore, Prince, and Major. For the girls there was Queen, which hovered around the 500 mark until the 1950s.
2. CITIES & STATES
Cities as names are not a new thing, however. Boston was a boy’s name in the 1880s. Dallas and Denver have been around since the 1880s, as has Cleveland (though it peaked in popularity during the presidency of Grover Cleveland, so perhaps should count as a president name instead.) Some of our state names come from women’s names, so it is expected that states like Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia should be represented on name lists. But other state names have made the list too. Missouri made the girl’s name list from 1880 until about 1900 and Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas also showed up a few times as girls’ names in the 1800s.
Trendy baby names have been around a lot longer Miley Cyrus or any of the famous Kardashians. From the dawn of recorded U.S. baby name history — aka 1880, when the federal government began keeping records — we’ve adopted names inspired by current events and popular people and culture, only to leave them behind for a new inspiration the next year.
The inspiration for name trends a century ago may have been politicians and war heroes rather than reality stars, but the definition of trendy baby names was the same: Names that spiked in popularity thanks to an outside influence, then sank from view along with its original bearer.
An organization called Flowing Data has calculated the trendiest names in US history, a fascinating look at which names burned the brightest only to fade the fastest.
As far as classic Hollywood cinema goes, it’s superstars like Grace Kelly (Grace is currently at Number 21) and Ava (Number 5) Gardner, and leading men like Errol Flynn (Flynn was used by celebri-couple Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr, and in the past two years has leapt from obscurity to Number 692) and Gary Cooper (Cooper’s at 83 in the U.S. and Number 11 in Australia!) whose names have most begun to influence current naming trends–and deservedly so. Hollywood’s Golden Era was chockful of enticingly simple, yet feminine girls’ names and strong, capable boys’ monikers; it’s no wonder they’ve recently been in the spotlight.
But the age of shoulder pads and pin curls and chinchilla coats was not only about the glamorous actors and actresses. Behind the scenes were the directors who helped make those stars into legends, and they happen to have had some very interesting names as well. In addition to vintage standards like Alfred (Hitchcock) and Frank (Capra), there were also such contemporary sounding appellations as King and Zion! Although I would have liked to include more female names, the truth is that before such modern icons as Sofia Coppola and Nora Ephron, women directors in the American film industry were a rare breed. I did, however, manage to find a couple of talented ladies, and their names are listed here as well.