Many babies share their names with colors. But which colors? What color names are given most to babies? Do American baby names span the rainbow? And have our hue choices changed over time? These seem like straightforward questions, but color usually takes a backseat to other word-name themes. The problem […]
There are far, far more names than we imagine. Last year, over 30,000 different names were recorded in the US national baby name statistics. Yet those stats only include names given to 5 or more boys or girls in a single year. What about the ultra-rare names? How many names […]
It’s the ultimate baby name dream: a name that’s stylish and appealing, yet undiscovered. In my Baby Name Wizard books I try to unearth these hidden gems. My “Why Not?” category lists names with the ingredients for popularity that have somehow slipped under the fashion radar. I submitted the first […]
I trashed my Amazon book recommendations in the pursuit of name science. Again. Romance novels are a source of endless name fascination, both for the names of their characters and the names of their authors. It’s a genre dominated by pen names. Even as the authors determine the names of […]
Some days, the y-axis feels like my enemy. I’ll be tracing a name’s past popularity on a graph, when the history cuts off abruptly at a point 100 or so years ago. Too many questions about the past are left unanswered. Now, though, we have an opportunity to take a […]
What makes names so powerful? A recent thread on tumblr offered one answer, based on connection. Some excerpts: “u ever think abt how some names have been used for centuries, millenniums even…like how many times has the earth heard a mother calling, ‘alexander!’…how many times have the stars caught a […]
What do Simone Biles, Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky have in common? If you were reading this article anywhere else, the answer would be about their records of excellence in Olympic sports. But in this space we measure impact in baby names. The three dominant athletes have had the exact […]
Who gets to name Kamala Harris? For those of us in the hearing world, the question may scarcely make sense. Vice President Harris is a grown woman whose name is well established (despite opponents’ attempts to diminish her by deliberately mangling it). But for American Sign Language users, the question […]
You should expect to meet a lot more Frankies, Stevies and Georgies in the years ahead. And you should expect most of them to be girls. An -ie suffix is a time-honored way to turn male names like Frank, Steve and George into cute diminutives. These boyish nicknames are also […]
The letter X has put its stamp on the past generation of American baby names. Over the last 25 years, names have included the letter seven times as often as in earlier generations. Beyond the numbers, we’ve seen a creative explosion in the way parents use X in names: inventing, […]
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