Celebrity Baby News: Matt and Mel Hetherington

12 Thursday Jul 2012

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Singer Matt Hetherington, and his wife Mel, welcomed their first child last week, and have named their son Oscar James.

Matt has been been a professional singer for more than twenty years, and has performed all over the world. He’s also acted in musical theatre, and has won awards for his roles in The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Next to Normal. This year, he was a contestant on Channel Nine’s The Voice, and was selected for Team Delta, being coached by pop star Delta Goodrem. His audition song was Stevie Wright’s Evie.

Melissa (nee Kotsos) is a model and actress who is currently a presenter on Melbourne travel show, Coxy’s Big Break on Channel Seven. She and Matt were married in 2007.

Celebrity Baby News: Jarrad and Clementine McVeigh

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

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Co-captain of the AFL Sydney Swans Jarrad McVeigh, and his wife, model Clementine, welcomed their daughter Lolita-Luella on July 8. Lolita-Luella McVeigh was born at Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick, arriving at 3.17pm and weighing 3.2 kg (7 pounds).

You may remember Jarrad and Clementine from the blog last year, when they lost their baby Luella at the age of four weeks, due to a congenital heart problem. After her death, the couple went on an overseas trip so they could get away from everything and work through their grief together. It was while they were in Italy that they conceived Lolita-Luella, and she was born 17 days before Luella’s birthday. The second part of her name is obviously in honour of her sister; I understand that she will be called Lolita in everyday life.

In an interview, Jarrad says that they are proud of Luella for the courage she demonstrated in her short life, that they think about her every day, and that she will always be part of their family.

Melbourne Suburbs That Could Be Used as Girl’s Names

08 Sunday Jul 2012

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Cardinia

Cardinia is an outer suburb of Melbourne, in the shire of the same name. The name Cardinia is taken from the local Bunurong phrase Kar Din Yarr, meaning “to look towards the rising sun”. I’ve always thought this would make a great girl’s name, with an interesting sound and an inspiring meaning. To me it sounds like a cross between Caroline and Gardenia, and is a native alternative to Dawn and Aurora.

Clematis

Clematis is another outer suburb in the Shire of Cardinia, leading into the Dandenong Ranges. It’s a tiny village dating to the turn of the century, with a few basic amenities. Its fire brigade formed in 1936, takes about 100 emergency calls per year, and has fought many major blazes in Victoria and New South Wales. The suburb is named after the climbing plant, which looks wonderful in the garden and has large, beautiful flowers. The plant’s name is Ancient Greek, and probably referred originally to the periwinkle (the plant we call clematis is from Asia, and related to the buttercup). Clematis is an elegant name filled with Edwardian charm; it’s more unexpected and alluring than Clementine.

Doreen

The name Doreen looks like an elaboration of the name Dora, perhaps influenced by Kathleen, and is said to have been invented by English author Edna Lyall, who published a novel called Doreen in 1894. The Doreen in her story was an Irish singer, and possibly Lyall had heard of the Irish name Dáiríne, which is pronounced daw-REEN-uh, and means “fertile”. Although this outer suburb of Melbourne had been settled since 1844, it was renamed Doreen in 1895, just a year after Lyall’s novel. Perhaps someone was a big fan of the book? Doreen plays a role in Australian literature too, for poet C.J. Dennis wrote a famous verse-novel called Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915), in which larrikin Bill meets, courts and marries his sweetheart. This is a girl who works in a pickle factory called Doreen, and she turns Bill from a Melbourne gang-member into a contented husband and father. It’s been made into two movies, a musical, a TV show and a ballet. Doreen was #83 in the 1900s, and peaked in the 1920s at #21, no doubt influenced by the rhymes of C.J. Dennis. It hasn’t charted since the 1970s.

Emerald

Emerald is a town and semi-rural area in the Shire of Cardinia, and its post office first opened in 1899. It’s a popular tourist destination, because it has the Puffing Billy steam train railway which opened in 1900, and enjoyed its heyday in the 1920s. The town also holds a number of festivals through the year. Emeralds have been mined on a small scale in New South Wales and Western Australia; there is a town in Queensland named Emerald; and David Williamson’s play Emerald City is a classic of modern theatre – the title a reference to The Wizard of Oz. Emerald is a name that I’ve seen in occasional use, and the popularity of Ruby is almost certainly making other gemstone names for girls seem more usable. It also has a connection to Ireland, because this country is known as The Emerald Isle. The name is ultimately from the Greek, meaning “green gem”. Perhaps the town got its name because it is set in the forest like a green jewel – although Gembrook is just up the road.

Iona

Iona is a rural area in the Shire of Cardinia; its post office opened in 1898, and it received its current name in 1905. It is named after an island in the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland. According to tradition, Saint Columba founded a monastery there in the 6th century, and it played a vital role in converting the Picts of Scotland and the Anglo-Saxons of northern England to Celtic Christianity. A renowned centre of learning for four hundred years, Viking raiders plundered it, and the monastery was abandoned. Today it has an ecumenical Christian community, active since the 1930s; they worship in the restored medieval Iona Abbey. The island’s name is thought to come from the Gaelic for “place of yew trees”, but may also be from the Old Norse for “island of the bear cave, island of the animal den”. It is still a popular name in Scotland, and seems like a good alternative to the popular Isla with the fashionable OH sound in it (it’s said ie-OH-na).

Jacana

The suburb of Jacana was originally farmland owned by Duncan Kennedy in the 1840s, and its streets were laid out in 1923 after the land was sold. During the 1950s to 1970s, the land was developed by the government Housing Commission, who built most of the houses. They also re-named some of the early streets, which had been given jocular names such as Emu Parade and Sunset Boulevard. Being developed as a Housing Commission suburb, it is a lower-middle and working-class area with good amenities. The suburb is apparently named after Jacana Avenue, which is in the next suburb of Broadmeadows; other streets nearby also have bird names, such as Ortolan and Dacelo. Jacanas are tropical birds that live on lily lakes in wetlands and found world-wide; in Australia we have the Comb-Crested Jacana. Its name is Brazilian-Portuguese, and pronunciation is very diverse around the globe. The Australian way to pronounce it is juh-KAH-nuh, although the original is more like ZHAH-suh-NUH. I think this is a pretty and unusual bird name that sounds similar to Jacqueline, Jana and Jacinta, but with its own “feel”.

Kallista

Kallista is in the outer suburbs, and the first European inhabitants were loggers in the 1850s; gradually farmers began settling in the area as the forest was cleared. From early on, the government preserved a section of it as state forest, and once the roads were completed, Melburnians began using it for weekenders and holiday homes. During the Depression, many people could not afford the luxury of a second home for holidays, and they were bought up cheaply by those hoping to support themselves by living off the land. The suburb gained its name in 1925, from the Ancient Greek Kalliste, meaning “most beautiful”. In Greek mythology, Callisto or Kallisto was one of the nymphs of Artemis, although Kalliste was one of the epithets of the goddess herself, and the stories of the nymph were probably originally about Artemis. Callisto was seduced by Zeus, and gave birth to a son named Arcas, who became the king of Arcadia. Jealous Hera turned Callisto into a bear, and when a teenaged Arcas was hunting in the woods, he almost shot his own bear-mother. Zeus placed them in the sky as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor to protect them. A very pretty “star” name.

Olinda

The outer suburb of Olinda began as a logging settlement, but began growing in the early 1900s as land became available for market gardening. It is famous as the home of artist Sir Arthur Streeton, and today is an artsy-craftsy sort of suburb, studded with antique shops and galleries. Olinda is named after Olinda Creek, which has its source in the suburb, and the creek was named after Alice Olinda Hodgkinson, the daughter of Victoria’s acting surveyor-general in 1859. Her unusual middle name is something of a mystery to me – I have seen it defined as a German name meaning “defender of the land”, which became used in Spain thanks to the Visigoths. However in English, this name is said to be derived from the place Olynthus in Greece, meaning “fruit of the wild fig tree”. Olinda’s Adventures was the first novel of a precocious teenage writer in the 17th century called Catherine Trotter. It fits in with other literary names of that period, such as Orinda and Belinda. It sounds like retro Linda, dressed up with the fashionable OH sound, and still seems exotic and poetic.

Sassafras

Sassafras is in the outer suburbs, and lies between Olinda and Kallista. It was opened to farming in the 1890s, and a small township developed. Around the turn of the 20th century, it began to attract tourists, and still caters for them, with boutique stores, cafes serving Devonshire teas, and garden nurseries. Sassafras has very fertile volcanic soil, which makes it ideal for growing plants. Aptly enough, it is named after the sassafras tree, found growing there in profusion. These are not true sassafras, which are native to North America and Asia, but Southern Sassafras, an ancient tree from the southern hemisphere, with several species native to Australia. The one in Victoria is Atherosperma moschatum, and it grows in cool temperate rainforest. An evergreen, it flowers in winter with white petals, and its springy timber is in demand for speciality woodwork. The word sassafras is thought to be a corruption of saxifrage, an unrelated genus of tough alpine plants; their name is from the Latin for “stone breaker”. I have seen this once in a birth notice for a baby girl; it’s an unusual plant name which gives the nicknames Sass and Sassy.

Sunshine

This inner-city suburb has been a township since the late 19th century, and is an important part of our industrial history, because the Sunshine Harvester Works were moved here in 1906 by H.V. McKay, and became the largest manufacturing plant in Australia. It was after this that the suburb was given its present name; it is believed that McKay chose Sunshine for the name of his business after hearing a sermon by visiting American evangelist Rev. Thomas de Witt Talmage. The word sunshine seems to have been frequently used in Talmage’s writings, as a symbol of happiness and God’s blessings. McKay planned Sunshine on Garden City principles, and workers flocked there to live. The manufacturing plant was demolished in the early 1990s, but there is still plenty of industry, and it has attracted many migrants, especially from Malta and Vietnam. Skier Lydia Lassila grew up here, as did singer Bon Scott; Prince Philip lived here briefly. This cheerful, friendly name isn’t just from nature – it’s one connected to our manufacturing history, and also has idealistic Christian roots. Although unisex, the film Little Miss Sunshine helps give it a feminine edge. Sunny makes a cute nickname.

Truganina

This suburb is named after Truganini, considered to be the last “full blood” Palawa (Tasmanian Aborigine). Truganini was a chieftain’s daughter born in 1812 on Bruny Island, described as a vivacious and intelligent woman by contemporary sources. Her mother was killed by whalers, her two sisters were abducted and taken as slaves, her fiance died saving her from being abducted herself. Efforts at conciliation meant that Truganini and the last surviving Palawa people were moved around, including a short time in Melbourne, which is how the suburb received its name. By 1873, Truganini was the last Palawa left, and she died three years later. Her final request, that her ashes be scattered in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel near her island home, was ignored; she was buried in a convict workhouse in Hobart. Two years later, her skeleton was exhumed, and put on display by the Royal Society of Tasmania. In 1976, a century after her death, her last wish was finally fulfilled. Her name is the Palawa word for the tough plant we call grey saltbush (Atriplex cinerea), and can be spelled a number of ways. This could make an interesting heritage choice, although its namesake is a tragic symbol of Indigenous genocide. The correct pronunciation is not known, but Truganina could be said to give the nicknames True and Nina.

(Picture shows the Puffing Billy steam railway in Emerald)

Caprice Jorja and Kayden Brock: Birth Announcements from Sydney (June)

06 Friday Jul 2012

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Girls

Ainslie Mae (Lyndon, Lewis)

Bridie Eliza (Thomas)

Caprice Jorja (Memphis)

Dee Joyce

Eliza Lillian (Jacinta, Zane)

Emmy Charlotte (Archie)

Georgina Hope

May Robyn

Rosie Hunter

Scarlett Grace (Lulu)

Shae Annica (Neve, Lawson)

Violet Alice (Imogen, Xanthe, Saskia)

 

Boys

Alexander Graeme

Charlie Walter

Dominic Toby (Leo)

Hunter Jack (Oscar)

Izaiah Leigh

Kayden Brock (Daniel, Jason, Mitchell)

Levi Joshua Thomas (Sophie, Elias)

Marlon Peter (Ava, Theo)

Sebastian James (Emma, Amber)

Stephen Darian

Taj Christopher

Teddy Cooper

(June is whale-watching season in Sydney due to winter migration; the picture shows a humpback whale off Dover Heights in June. Photo from The Daily Telegraph)

Etta and Hal: Birth Announcements from Canberra (June)

06 Friday Jul 2012

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Twins

Henry and Clare (Sophie)

Thomas Isaac and Julius Cain

 

Girls

Aurelie Lara

Etta Ruby (Astor, Arlo)

Evie Harper

Grace Victoria (Jasmine, Renee, Rachel, Michaela)

Lucinda Grae “Lucie” (Kade)

Marissa Elizabeth Amy

Matilda Grace-Ida (Harrison)

Phoebe Carolyn

Rubie Doreen

Sonia Louise Margaret (Sophie)

 

Boys

Archie Nicholas

Axel Bradley

Charles Herbert

Frederick William (Grace, Leila)

Hal Mathieson Wiggins

Patrick John Paul

Rhys Lionel (Ava, Gracie)

Scott Jacobus

Tasman Richard (Quinn)

Xavier Leo (Thomas, Dominic)

(Picture shows people truffle-hunting in Braidwood near Canberra, as part of the Canberra and Capital Region Truffle Festival which began in late June; photo from the festival website)

Celebrity Baby News: Ash and Amanda McGrath

05 Thursday Jul 2012

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AFL player Ash McGrath, and his partner Amanda, welcomed their son Chase Ashley on July 3. Chase McGrath was born at 1.45 pm, and weighed 3.4 kg (7 pounds 7 ounces). He joins big sister Mikayla, aged 2.

Ashley made his debut for the Brisbane Lions in 2001, and has played with the team all his career. In 2009 he was selected to play for the Indigenous All-Stars. His brothers Toby and Cory also play in the AFL, and he is a cousin of former AFL player Dion Woods.

Famous Name: King

04 Wednesday Jul 2012

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It’s a big week in North America, because Canada Day was on July 1, and today is Independence Day in the United States. I thought we’d look at the name of someone from our history who hailed from the North American continent, and is one of the most colourful and mysterious characters in Australian politics – King O’Malley.

According to his own account, King O’Malley was brought up by an uncle and aunt in New York, and began working in their bank. He then became an insurance salesman, and according to him, was an extremely successful one who worked his way across the United States. In Texas, he founded his own church, with the extravagant title of the Waterlily Rockbound Church – the Redskin Church of the Cayuse Nation. The story he told was that he performed many miracles, and married a beautiful young devotee, who unfortunately soon died of tuberculosis.

O’Malley was told he had contracted the disease himself, and had six months to live. Apparently, going to Australia was #1 on his bucket list, and he arrived here around 1888, being perhaps thirty years old (there is no birth certificate to verify his age). Far from dying, he established himself (once again?) as a successful and well-known insurance agent. His interest in politics grew, and in 1896 he announced he would be running for the South Australian state parliament.

This was a bit awkward, because he had told everyone he was an American, which made him ineligible as a candidate. He changed his story, and said that, now he thought of it, he had actually been born in Quebec, Canada, making him a British citizen. He had merely been raised in the United States. It seems nobody asked to see any paperwork, and he was duly elected as an Independent.

Soon after the election, a man who had known him in the US claimed that O’Malley was an American citizen who had fled the country on embezzlement charges. O’Malley sued, but refused to allow himself to be cross-examined. He won his case, but people surely had to be a little suspicious that financial scandal was the cause of his migration to Australia. This might be why he had trouble getting re-elected.

Nothing daunted, he moved to Tasmania and joined the Australian Labor Party, where he began to make his mark, being elected to Australia’s first national parliament in 1901. In fact, one of his lasting legacies is that the ALP spells Labour the American way. He convinced them it looked more modern, and differentiated the party from the labour movement. He was also a leading proponent of the need for a national bank, and the government founded the Commonwealth Bank in 1911.

Made responsible for the planning of the national capital, he at first said that Canberra was so dry a crow on vacation would need to bring its own water bottle, but then became an enthusiastic supporter. He approved the designs for the city by fellow American, Walter Burley Griffin.

Today a suburb of Canberra, O’Malley, is named after him, and there is also an Irish pub in the capital named King O’Malley’s which sports a picture of him on its signboard. This is something of an inside joke, as O’Malley was a member of the temperance movement, and introduced prohibition to the city of Canberra – something which made him extremely unpopular.

His political career ended after World War I, at least partly because of his pacifist views. Although only 59, he retired, and spent the rest of his life building up and embellishing his own legend, telling tall stories of his feats that were eagerly believed by his trusting supporters. He died in 1953, which would make him ninety-five by his own reckoning – it’s hard not to wonder if he put his age up a bit in order to fit in more years in which his exploits could have occurred. He was honoured with a state funeral.

O’Malley was an arresting character with a mischievous, mocking personality that many people found almost instantly annoying. His politics were considered radical to the point of charlatanism, and his oratorical style was a cross between P.T. Barnum and a revivalist preacher, with a rich range of original expressions, such as calling alcohol stagger-juice, and pubs drunkeries.

The secret to his success was that he was a massive hit with the ladies, and had no trouble at all getting the female vote. Tall, fashionably-dressed, flamboyant and loquacious, women went slightly ga-ga around him. He also had a number of policies which appealed to women, such as trying to pass a law that barmaids couldn’t be too attractive.

His commitment to women’s interests was probably genuine. When he married, he bought his wife several cottages so that she could be financially independent and have her own career, and after his death, he left in his will a trust fund for scholarships for female students of Home Economics.

O’Malley told so many stories about himself that I’m not sure the truth about him can be found now; I don’t think we even know who he really was. He had the hubris to give himself American Independence Day, July 4, as his birthday, although at other times it seemed to be July 2. It is now believed that he was from Kansas, that place about which another American story-teller would create a dream of a magical land with a fraudulent ruler in its Emerald City. King O’Malley was our Wizard of Oz – a mountebank, but a harmless one. He was a bounder, a fraud, a rapscallion, and a politician. But I repeat myself.

The name King is usually taken from the surname, which comes directly from the English word king, originally meaning a tribal chieftain. It’s very unlikely the ancestors of people named King were actually royal – the name may have denoted people who worked in the king’s household as his servants, or given as a nickname to someone who acted in a regal and perhaps arrogant manner.

In America, the surname King was often given to Irish immigrants to Anglicise an Irish name, such as Conroy (although the –roy in Conroy sounds like the French roi, meaning “king”, the name means “son of the keeper of hounds” or “servant of the keeper of hounds” in Gaelic). This seems significant in light of King O’Malley’s Irish surname.

King O’Malley claimed to be the son of Irish immigrant William O’Malley and Ellen King, with the implication that he had received his mother’s maiden name as his first name. This cannot be verified, as no such people can be found in the US census of the time. King may have been his middle name, or he may have made it up. Soon after his arrival in Australia, he styled himself as the Arizona Kicker King – the Arizona Kicker was a newspaper that O’Malley purported to have worked for.

It may sound fantastically over-the-top to us, but the name King was on the US Top 1000 from 1880 until the mid-1960s, and recently made a comeback in 2006. Since then use has steadily increased, and it is currently #389 (just one position behind Phoenix).

Although King Vidor was a famous Hollywood director, I wonder whether use of the name might be inspired by iconic civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. Jesus Christ is also known as The King of Kings in Christianity, which might give it a religious connotation.

King is one of those names that are not permitted to be registered in Australia, as King is an official title as well as a word. It might be possible to use it as a middle name though, and if King is a name in your family, that could give you a personal connection to it.

(Picture of King O’Malley from the ACT Museum and Art Gallery)

Celebrity Baby News: Shannan and Kylie Ponton

03 Tuesday Jul 2012

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TV fitness coach Shannan Ponton, and his wife Kylie, welcomed their first child yesterday July 2, and have named their son Maximus Colin. Maximus Ponton was born at 8.24 am and weighed 3.9 kg (around 8 and a half pounds). It seems he will be called Maxi for short. The news was announced on Shannan’s Facebook page.

Shannan is one of the personal trainers from the Channel Ten weight-loss reality show, The Biggest Loser, and first joined the show in 2007. His first book, Hard ‘n’ Up, was published earlier this year.

Kylie (nee Stray) has a background working in sport, and is Shannan’s personal assistant. She and Shannan were married in a beach wedding in 2010, and then honeymooned in Bali.

Celebrity Baby News: Shelley Craft and Christian Sergiacomi

02 Monday Jul 2012

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Television presenter Shelley Craft, and her husband Christian Sergiacomi, welcomed their daughter Eadie Rose on June 12. Eadie Sergiacomi joins big sister Milla Grace, who is nearly two.

Shelley is a popular presenter who was on Channel 7 for many years, until she moved to Channel 9 in 2008. She currently hosts Australia’s Funniest Home Videos, and is a co-host on Domestic Blitz and The Block. This year’s season of The Block had its final episode last night, with each couple’s renovated house going successfully to auction.

Christian is a cameraman on The Block, and he and Shelley were married in 2009, at their beach house in Byron Bay. He and Shelley have recently started their own business venture together, The Builder App.

You may remember that 2011 celebrity baby Sailor Shelley Denyer gained her middle name in honour of Shelley Craft.

Shelley and Christian proved that they had an eye for baby names when they chose Milla, as it is now Top 100 and still climbing. As Eadie is also on trend, it will be interesting to see how the name fares in the next couple of years.

MYTH: Australian Baby Names are Becoming Increasingly Influenced by American Trends

01 Sunday Jul 2012

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Since I last went mythbusting, the 2011 name data from the United States has been released, and this week it’s American Independence Day. To celebrate both events, I decided to compare Australian and US name data. (Lou at Mer de Noms brought out her own comparison of the data for the United States and England/Wales in May, and did something pretty interesting with it.)

That Australians are becoming increasingly Americanised, including their choice of baby names, is something not debated, but accepted as a truism. It is often mourned by older generations that Australians used to call their children good solid Aussie names like Barry and Sheila, and now give them sleek American-style names like Logan and Scarlett.

It’s a myth which sounds very plausible – I certainly know far more children named Logan and Scarlett than I do Barry and Sheila (actually I don’t know any children called Barry or Sheila). But I thought we should try to get some numbers to back the myth up.

So I decided to look at the Top 100 names from both countries, in the years 1930, 1950, 1970, 1990 and 2011. If the number of names shared by both countries went steadily up, that could help support the theory that Australian names were becoming increasingly “American”. By no means conclusive proof, but it would be a start, and frankly I couldn’t think of any other way of doing it.

As I went through calculating the number of shared names, I also took note of those trends at work in Australia and the United States, where they were the same and where they differed. This gave me a picture of changing trends through the years. (The data is from Victoria, because theirs go back to 1929).

1930

MALE – 65% shared with US Top 100

1930 marked the highest percentage of shared names between the countries. This wasn’t because Australians were more “American” in 1930, but because in every year, the common denominator for both countries were classic names like John, Thomas and William, and these sort of names took up more space of both countries’ Top 100.

Trends noticeable on the Australian Top 100 were names from Ireland, Scotland and Wales, such as Kevin, Malcolm and Trevor, and aristocratic English surnames, such as Neville. Americans preferred prominent surnames of their own citizens, such as Elmer and Lee. Popular names from America we didn’t share were “cowboy” names – Wayne, Earl and Jesse. In America, nicknames for boys were all the rage, including Billy, Bob and Jimmie.

FEMALE – 51% shared with US Top 100

Popular girls names in both countries were homespun names such as Margaret and Dorothy, as well as plant names like Hazel and Rose.

Australian trends for girls included names from Ireland and Wales, such as Sheila and Gweneth, saints names such as Carmel and Veronica, and literary inventions like Doreen and Mavis. American trends were for Germanic names such as Emma and Clara, and the clunky Old English Mildred and Bertha. America’s Hispanic population meant that Delores and Juanita were Top 100 there.

1950

MALE – 59% shared with US Top 100 (down 6%)

American trends for boys we had picked up by 1950 include Gary, after Hollywood star Gary Cooper, and that supposed Australian favourite, Bruce, also popular in the US.

America continued its love of nicknames, with Bobby, Joe and Fred all Top 100. Several of the Irish boys names such as Kevin and Barry were now on the US Top 100 as well, but new Irish-style names such as Shane were still to gain American acceptance. Already in the US you can see a reluctance to use “feminine sounding” or unisex names such as Lindsay and Noel, which were Top 100 in Australia. In Australia, that same 1950s gender-anxiety produced the opposite result, with some unisex names like Leslie becoming male-only.

FEMALE – 47% shared with US Top 100 (down 4%)

The most noticeable shared trends for girls were those glamorous Hollywood names such as Marilyn (Monroe) and Rita (Hayworth). Even when Australians did take a name from America, such as Jennifer from Hollywood star Jennifer Jones, it didn’t always follow that Americans would embrace it as rapidly themselves. Jennifer was a 1950s name in Australia, but didn’t peak in the US until the 1970s.

Australian girls were being given French names like Annette and Jeanette, while Americans girls had Jacqueline. Another popular Australian “French” name was Lorraine, given in honour of St Joan of Arc, sometimes called The Maid of Lorraine. The American love of the nickname meant that names such as Judy and Peggy were Top 100 for girls.

1970

MALE – 56% shared with US Top 100 (down 3%)

Popular 1970 names which we think of as “American style” were in evidence on both charts, such as Bradley, Jason, Glenn, Darren and Craig.

Australian boys names not picked up in the US included Scottish-style names such as Ross, Graham, Stuart and Gavin, and the “feminine sounding” Ashley and Jamie. Differing ethnicities also made their mark, with Spanish Carlos in the US Top 100, and Italian and Greek names like Giovanni and Giorgio in the Australian Top 100. American nicknames powered on, with Larry, Terry and Jerry amongst them.

FEMALE – 51% shared with US Top 100 (up 4%, return to 1930 level)

It was the decade of those 1970s names Sharon and Tracey, although Sharon in particular had been popular in America for some time and we’d only just caught up.

Names such as Samantha and Amanda were already popular in Australia in 1970, but would have to wait until the 1980s to make it big in the US. Conversely, Amy was popular in the US, but wouldn’t be here until the 1980s. French Nicole was in vogue in both countries, and we’d caught up with Jacqueline; however Australia also had Danielle, Louise, Justine, Natalie, Simone and Josephine – typical 1970s girls names that were underused in the US. Scottish and Welsh names like Fiona, Megan and Bronwyn were popular here but didn’t get a look-in in the US. We were proudly using names of Australian origin, like Kylie and Narelle; naturally these were unknown in the US.

1990

MALE – 56% shared with US Top 100 (no change)

Trends from the US we were embracing were Old Testament names, such as Jacob and Zachary; and the new surname names, such as Ryan and Mitchell.

A new generation of “too feminine” boys names that were popular in Australia were ignored in the US, such as Shannon, Tristan and Leigh, as were more Scottish, Welsh and Irish-ish names, such as Lachlan, Rhys and Kane. Hayden and Jayden were already Top 100 in Australia, but not in the US. America had finally gone off nickname names, while Australia now had Jack, Jake and Ricky. American names Beau, Jackson and Tyson were popular then, as now, in Australia; of the three, only Jackson has hit the US Top 100 so far.

FEMALE – 56% the same as the US Top 100 (up 5%)

Names that both countries had in common were those typical 1990s names, like Tiffany, Brittany, Kayla and Caitlin.

Americana we were still to discover included unisex names for girls like Ariel, Shelby and Paige. Although the US had Danielle and Natalie by now, French names such as Monique, Elise, Renee and Madeleine which were popular here had apparently failed to make an impression. Although Welsh Caitlin was all the rage, the US were not on board with Tegan and Rhiannon, as we were. Most notably, Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Sophie, Chloe and Zoe were missing from the US Top 100 – while American parents who chose these names in 1990 were ahead of the trends, in Australia, parents choosing these names in 1990 were just following the trends.

2011

MALE – 59% shared with US Top 100 (up 3%, return to 1950 level)

Congruence in popularity between the two nations has risen to 1950 levels, with many name trends in common, mostly a fresh crop of Biblical names, such as Elijah, and surname names, such as Mason.

American parents are now avoiding a new generation of Scottish names, such as Angus and Hamish, while Irish names like Declan and Flynn are also neglected in the US. Oddly enough, Kevin is still Top 100 in the US, while it’s considered a bit dated here. The scunner against nicknames continues as Americans shun Australian populars Charlie, Harry, Archie, Sam and Nate. No longer merely  shying away from “feminine sounding” names for boys like Bailey and Riley, parents in the US have actually given these names to their daughters in such numbers that they are now Top 100 for girls, while Top 100 for boys here. Several names we have taken from the US, such as Jett, Hudson and Jasper, are still not popular in America.

FEMALE – 47% shared with US Top 100 (down 9%, return to 1950 level)

Girls names have also returned to 1950s levels. Many names are shared because America has caught up with our popular names from 1990, but Australian parents have also begun to use unisex names for girls like Madison and Addison.

America has abandoned many names as “outdated” such as Amy, Jessica, Holly and Amber that have taken on “modern classic” status here. While America has accepted Lily, it is less keen on our popular plant names Daisy, Ivy, Violet, Willow, Olive and Rose. British-style names such as Isla and Imogen cut no mustard in the States. Meanwhile, popular American virtue names like Genesis, Serenity, Trinity, Nevaeh and Destiny do not resonate here. Perhaps they will in the future.

CONCLUSIONS

I did not manage to bust this myth, but neither did I find much evidence to support it, so I will give its status as MYTH UNCONFIRMED.

As I compared popularity charts from the two countries, I realised more and more that it was a case of apples and oranges. Names took longer to gain popularity in the US, and it was harder for them to stay in the Top 100; name popularity was a competitive environment there. Australia has a much smaller population size, which means that name trends show up faster here. We’re also more likely to hold onto our favourite names once we’ve found them, sometimes for generations.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that American parents are absolutely obsessed with getting ahead of the current trends, and can watch the slowly rising popularity of their chosen names with almost comical anxiety. This makes some sense, because trending names can take so long to reach the Top 100 that they have a good chance of having ten to twenty years before that happens. In Australia, this behaviour makes no sense at all, because as soon as a name begins to show up in the data, it’s basically already quite popular. As we keep names around for longer, there’s no real rush to “catch” a name on the way up either; we can always wait until it’s a cosy, familiar “classic”.

In any given year, Australia and the US will share around half the names on their respective Tops 100s, and this has not changed across time. We share many name trends, and since at least 1950, Australia has been drawn to names from America. Sometimes it took us a long time to get onto a particular trend from America, and other times we took to it with greater enthusiasm than Americans did themselves.

Both countries also have their own styles of naming. Australia has always been fond of Irish-inspired names, and although Barry and Sheila have fallen by the wayside, we now have Finn and Molly. Scottish names continue to be a growth area, with Angus, Hamish, Callum and Isla seeming rather stylish to us. Through the years, there were many names unique to the Australian popularity charts. Names that I thought of as typical of their period, such as Dulcie in 1930, Glenys in 1950, and Jacinta in 1970 seemed to be unknown in the US.

Americans are slow to adopt Irish names, but often touchingly faithful to them, and are wary of Scottish and Welsh names. They have a deep suspicion of unisex names for boys or anything that even sounds remotely feminine, while comfortable with briskly masculine names for girls. Flower names are not popular there; perhaps they seem too girlish even for girls.

Due to going overboard on nicknames in the past, America has developed almost a horror of them, much in the same way I can no longer stomach gingerbread after overindulging on it a few Christmases ago. As nicknames are currently internationally popular, this has seen them unfairly branded as a bit stuffy on the issue, when they’re really just over the whole thing.

We don’t have to try to follow American trends, and in fact a couple of them would be downright foolish for us to imitate. But the United States has proved a rich source of name inspiration for many decades, and I know it will continue to be so for many decades to come.