Unique? I Think Not
So, here’s an article from an Alberta newspaper about naming trends in Alberta over 2007. A substantial part of the article discusses a variety of “unique” names that popped up over the course of the year. Well, as any good editor will tell you, the word “unique” doesn’t mean “uncommon.” It means “one-of-a-kind.” So I decided to delve into the census records at Ancestry.com to see how many of these names actually were unique. Not surprisingly, almost none of them. Now for you purists, I didn’t look at every single instance of these names, so these numbers are more like broad strokes (okay, for you pure purists, we’ll say broad broad strokes :)). Also, it’s really hard to search for names by gender, so there may be some crossover there too. Either way, unique is not in the eye of the beholder. Take a look (the numbers in brackets are the number of hits in the Ancestry.com census database):
“Among the most interesting names for girls in 2007 were Princess [3,293], Psalms [no Psalms, but 11 Psalm], Rhapsody [4], Oakley [14,779], Kalifornia [none with a K], God’s [9 Gods (none with the apostrophe) and 491 God], Morning Star [3], Evening [116], Elektra [10], Creedance [unique!], Cassiopeia [1], Breaze [2], Blessing [495], Brazil [834], Cerenity [none with a C, 8 with an S], Chaos [28] and Raenbow-Roze [unique! sort of, see below]…
“There was no shortage of uncommon names for little boys in 2007 either. Topping the list is an Adonis [1,789], Blue-Quill [unique!], Corny [267], Felony [11], Furious [7], Geronimo [5,993], Gretzky [unique!], Hinton [5,862], Jackpine [8], Jesus [101, 382, though I’m sure a lot of these are Jesús], Kajun [unique!], Ivy [of course there were a lot of girls named this, but as I scanned the 159,763 entries, I did find a lot of men with this name too], Little [49,875], Maxxamillion [52 with one X], Milwaukee [11], Obsidian-Angel [unique! though there are 60,410 Angels], Rainbow [749], Salmon [8,689], Slim [1,671], Stylez [1], Tao [335] and Zero [896]. There were also three Blazes [723]….”
Unique my eye.
Posted: February 8th, 2008 under Name Fun, Name Media.
Comments: 5
I thought it very unusual that one of my relatives back in the 1800’s named their daughter “Pleasure”. Poor Child!
I have 3 nieces with “unique” names (first and middle names) : Nike Marcus (meaning Greek goddess of victory and after an uncle who died), Austi Rio (after Asti Spumanti), Hunter Ko’ipo (I think I spelled it wrong, but it is supposed to mean sweetheart in Hawaiian.)
when ny sister was pregnant she was joking and told her husband that if it was a boy she was going to name him Cajin Jalerpino (like jalapeno)
My little guy is named Blaze, and I thought it was uncommon, but now we’re running into them all over the place!
Boys names or June or Junie are common in the south. June is a shorten version of Junior. As to Ivy. That may be how is sounds but it usually IV, a nickname for the fourth. John Smith IV would be called IV or Ivy. John Smith III called Trey or Trip. John Smith Jr. called June or Junie. and last John Smith V would be called Quint. It a southern thing.