Tag Archives: UK name popularity

Waltzing with … Skyler

29 Sunday Jan 2012

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This post was first published on January 29 2012, and heavily revised on February 10 2016.

Tomorrow school goes back in three different states and territories (Queensland has already been back a week), which means that the summer holidays are drawing to a close. I chose this name as suitable for the start of term, thanks to its educational meaning.

Name Information
Skyler is a variant of Schuyler; a Dutch surname of German origin meaning “scholar”, said SKIE-luh. This name was brought to what is now the United States by Dutch colonists, who settled in the east during the 17th century.

The Schuylers were a prominent New York family. Pieter Schuyler was the first mayor of Albany in New York, and a commander of the British forces at the Battle of La Prairie, near Montreal. His descendants were numerous and distinguished, including his grand-nephew Philip Schuyler, who was a general in the American Revolution and Senator for the state of New York. It is said that the first use of the names Schuyler and Skyler was in honour of this family.

Schuyler has only appeared on the US Top 1000 a smattering of times. It shows up first at the beginning of the twentieth century, and then again between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s, only charting as a male name, and never getting higher than the bottom of the Top 1000. Currently Schuyler is almost equally given to both sexes in the US – 17 girls and 15 boys last year.

Famous people with the name include Schuyler Colefax, the 17th US Vice-President, who was a distant cousin of Philip Schuyler, and Schuyler Wheeler, inventor of the electric fan. Schuyler has been chosen as a baby name by actors Michael J. Fox and Sissy Spacek – both times for daughters. The name is barely used outside the United States, and pronunciation would be a puzzle to most.

During the 1940s and 1950s there was a popular American radio and television series called Sky King, about an Arizona rancher and pilot called Schuyler “Sky” King. During the 1950s, the spelling variant Skyler begins showing up in the data. It’s tempting to imagine that people tuned into the show, and began spelling the name as it sounded, or in such a way as to make the nickname Sky more obvious.

Skyler joined the US Top 1000 in 1981 for boys, and for girls in 1990 – it began showing up in data as a girls name in the late 1970s, so it had a brisk rise as a girls name. Skyler peaked for boys in 1996 at #217, and is currently #351. For girls, it peaked in 2000 at #250, and is currently #302.

Famous Skylers include Skyler Green, a footballer who played for the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, and actress Skyler Samuels, who played Gigi on Wizards of Waverley Place. A fictional Skyler is Skyler White from the TV series Breaking Bad, played by Anna Gunn. Fashion stylist Rachel Zoe has a son named Skyler.

In the UK, Skyler has charted for boys and girls since the late 1990s. Currently it is #406 for girls, while in 2014, there were 13 boys named Skyler. It is rising rapidly for both sexes.

Rising alongside Skyler is the variant Skylar. While it has never been higher for boys in the US than the 300s, and is currently #635, it is Top 100 for girls, being #48 and rising. A famous namesake is American singer and songwriter Skylar Grey, born Holly Hafermann – her stage name a reference to mysterious “grey skies”.

In the UK, Skylar is #212 for girls and rising steeply. It is occasionally used for boys, and in 2014 there were 5 baby boys named Skylar.

There are also spelling variants of Skyler/Skylar which are specifically feminine. Skyla is #531 in the US, #156 and rising in the UK, and in 2012 made the Top 100 in New Zealand. It is much more popular than Skylah, but that is rising rapidly as well.

Skyla and Skylah are much more common in Australia than any other spellings of Skyler, and the numbers in the UK and New Zealand suggest that this spelling makes the most sense for someone with a British/Commonwealth accent. I estimate that if Skyla and Skylah were added together, the name would be in the Australian Top 100 by now, or very close to it, while other spelling variants are extremely rare for either sex.

You can see that if all the different spellings of Skyler were added up, it would be an extremely common name in the English speaking world. So Skyla or Skylah may not be an original choice for girl, but a boy named Skyler would stand out in Australia. Some of the other spelling variants would be worth considering, although I think Schuyler will cause more problems than it is worth.

By now this name has become almost completely divorced from its true meaning, and we now connect it with such things as clear or cloudy skies, free-wheeling flight, and the wild blue yonder. The obvious nicknames are Sky and Skye, and it fits in with names like Shyla, Myla, Kayla, Kai, and Tyler. Its sound is at least part of the reason for its success.

POLL RESULTS
As a girl’s name Skyler received an approval rating of 52%. 38% of people thought it seemed okay, although only 5% of people actually loved it.

Skyler had a lower approval rating as a boy’s name, at 46%. 28% disliked Skyler on a boy, and only 4% loved it.

The favoured spelling of the name was Skyler, with 37% of the vote, although Schuyler was not far behind on 33%. The least popular was Skyla, which only one person voted for.

(Photo is of the NSW Schoolhouse Museum of Education in Sydney)

Famous Name: Beyoncé

21 Saturday Jan 2012

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Pop diva Beyoncé has been in the news a lot recently, since the birth of her first child, Blue Ivy Carter. However, her name has hit the headlines for a different reason, after inspiring an Australian taxonomist to name a horse fly after her.

Bryan Lessard, from the CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra, named the fly Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae because it has a prominent golden lower abdomen. To Bryan, who admits to being something of a fan, the unique dense gold hairs on the fly reminded him of Beyoncé’s flashy golden stage outfits.

The rare fly was collected in 1981, the same year Beyoncé was born, from eucalypt forests in the Atherton Tablelands of Queensland.

I’m not sure whether this is the most flattering thing that’s ever happened to Beyoncé, but I love that it shows scientists are just normal people who listen to R&B in their labs while they work, and find themselves as captivated by a gold frock as the next person. And perhaps are human enough to want to see their names in the gossip magazines, and maybe even get a personal response from their idol (she hasn’t made one).

BEYONCE

Beyoncé’s name is as unique as the horse fly, being created especially for her. Her mother Tina’s maiden name is Beyincé, a Creole surname from Louisiana. When she discovered that the Beyincé name was dying out, Tina decided to call her daughter Beyoncé, her own version of the surname. Apparently Tina’s parents were not impressed at first, because “that’s a last name”.

Beyincé is a form of the French surname Boyancé, related to the Old French word for “wood”. It’s an equivalent of English surnames such as Woodward or Forrester.

While the names of celebrities often become popular baby names (think Scarlett and Ashton, for example), Beyoncé’s name remains in very rare use. It belongs so completely to herself, and no other.

DESTINY

Destiny’s Child was the successful girl group of which Beyoncé was a founding member, prior to her embarking on her solo career.

The English word destiny comes from French, and ultimately from the Latin destino, the source of the word destination, meaning “appoint, establish”. It comes from an ancient root meaning “to stand, to place” (also the source of the word obstinate). Destiny is used as a synonym for the word fate, although technically fate is the divine agency or power which brings about the predetermined future events which are our destiny.

Destiny has been used as a girl’s name since the 19th century, and originated in the United States. It has been on the US Top 1000 since 1975, and reached the Top 100 in 1994, leaving it in 2012. It is currently #203.

In the UK, Destiny peaked in 2001 at #211 , and is currently #412. It is also in use in The Netherlands, and is a fairly uncommon name in Australia, although certainly not unknown.

Apart from Destiny’s Child, the name may remind you of Destiny Cyrus, the birth name of actress and singer Miley Cyrus (born just after the name reached the Top 100). It’s a slightly dated virtue name which still has a spiritual or philosophical feel to it, but also suggests the strength to forge your own path in life, to make your own destiny.

POLL RESULTS

Beyoncé gained an approval rating of 15% from the public. Only one person liked the name Beyoncé, while 68% thought it was terrible.

Destiny did rather better, with an approval rating of 32%. However, once again only one person liked the name, and 48% thought it was terrible.

 

Famous Name: Elvis

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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This article was first published on January 14 2012, and substantially revised and re-posted on September 14 2016.

Famous Festival
On January 11, the 20th annual Elvis Festival kicked off in the country town of Parkes, west of Sydney – an annual celebration of Elvis Presley’s life and music. For five days in the second week of January, the population of Parkes is swelled by Elvis impersonators, women with big hair, and people wearing blue suede shoes. There are parades, contests, dancing, singing, hip swivelling, and a mass renewal of wedding vows performed by a celebrant in an Elvis costume.

The festival began in 1992, when a small group of local Elvis fans decided to hold a festival on the day of the star’s birthday, January 8.  The next year the festival attracted 200 people from around the country; by 2005 they came in their thousands, by 2007 it had been extended to five days, and now there are more than a hundred events, and the town’s population of 10 000 more than doubles during the Elvis Festival.

The townspeople were originally lukewarm on the Elvis Festival idea. Parkes is the proud owner of an observatory, which has at times assisted NASA on space missions (as fictionalised in the movie The Dish), and had always seen itself as devoted to science and research. An Elvis Festival seemed a bit frivolous.

However by now Parkes has fully embraced the festival, and the whole town gets into the fun by dressing up and decorating the buildings. It’s one of the mayor’s roles to dress as an Elvis impersonator and meet the train from Sydney, where all the similarly-attired fans have travelled together.

People flock here from all over the globe to come to the self-proclaimed Elvis Capital of the World. It injects millions into the economy of the town, and in 2007 they set a record for the most number of Elvis impersonators in one place.

In 2017 the Festival will celebrate its 25th birthday and the theme will be Viva Las Vegas.

Name Information
Elvis Presley was one of those performers lucky enough to have been given such a distinctive name that he had no need to choose a stage name. He was named for his father Vernon, whose middle name was Elvis.

Elvis is an Anglicisation of the Irish name Ailbhe, said like Alva: the meaning is not known for sure, but may derive from the Gaelic albho, meaning “white” – it is also Anglicised as Albus, the Latin for “white”. The name Ailbhe could be given to either sex, and in Irish legend there is a female warrior and follower of Finn McCool named Ailbhe.

A male example of the name is Saint Ailbhe, nearly always known as Saint Elvis. He was a 6th century bishop venerated as one of the four great patron saints of Ireland. Saint Ailbe’s legend is quite fairy-tale – cast out by his royal father (like Oedipus), he was raised by a she-wolf (like Romulus and Remus), and at the end of his life voyaged by ship to the Otherworld (like King Arthur going to Avalon). There is a Welsh village named St Elvis in the saint’s honour, as he is said to have baptised Saint David, the patron of Wales, in this area.

The English surname Elvis does not seem to be derived from the Irish name, and is probably a variant of the surname Elwes, which comes from the female name Heloise or Eloise.

Elvis has been used as a name since perhaps the 18th century, and in Ireland seems to have been used as a female name, although it wasn’t common (today Ailbhe is a popular name for girls in Ireland). However in England the name was mostly masculine, suggesting that there the surname was the primary influence.

The name Elvis went on to become most commonly used in the United States, and was usually a boy’s name. Despite the feminine origin of the surname, it probably sounded like male names such as Alvis and Alvin, giving it a masculine feel.

In Australian records Elvis was nearly always given to girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which makes sense considering our strong Irish heritage. It also fit in with turn-of-the-century name trends for girls, such as Alva and Elva. Once Elvis Presley became famous in the 1950s, the name virtually disappeared from records as a girl’s name.

In the US, the name Elvis has charted on and off in the Top 1000 for boys since the late 19th century, becoming more established there around 1910. Before Elvis Presley became famous, its highest peak was #584 in 1919, and it was #900 in 1935, the year Elvis Presley was born.

The name Elvis went off the charts around the time Elvis Presley began his career in 1954, but returned in 1955, so the star did affect the name’s popularity. Elvis peaked in 1957 at #312, the year after Presley released number one hits such as Heartbreak Hotel and made his film debut in Love Me Tender – female fans screamed with excitement non-stop during the movie, even though it had quite a serious plot and a sad ending.

The name Elvis last charted in the US Top 1000 in 2011. Last year in the US there were 180 baby boys given the name Elvis, and numbers are fairly stable.

In the UK, the name Elvis has charted since the 1990s, and the name made the Top 1000 in the early 2000s, peaking at #761 in 2003, and again in 2008 when it made #943. It rose steeply last year, and was back on the Top 1000 at #873.

In Australia, Elvis is not a common name, but I generally see two or three examples of it as a baby name per year – enough to convince me it isn’t a rare name either, and probably has a similar popularity to the UK. A famous Australian with the name is former mixed martial artist Elvis Sinosic.

Elvis has two other musical namesakes. One is British star Elvis Costello, who was born Declan MacManus, and the other is American folk singer Elvis Perkins, the son of actor Anthony Perkins (Elvis Perkins was born the year before Elvis Presley died). Costello’s manager chose the stage name Elvis in reference to Presley, while Anthony Perkins was an Elvis fan.

Elvis, if you forget about its most famous namesake for a moment, sounds like a vintage name ready for revival, complete with fashionable V. And yet it never can be separated from Mr Elvis Aaron Presley. The name will always conjure images of white satin bodysuits covered in rhinestones, brilliantined dark hair, and a heart-stopping smile.

Even though Elvis is not a rare or unusual name, it’s still something of a bold choice as it’s likely to elicit some strong opinions. But you’ll have to tell the naysayers you’d like a little less conversation about it, because you can’t help falling in love with the name Elvis. It’s a truly royal name because it belongs to the one and only king, baby!

POLL RESULTS
Elvis received an approval rating of 42%. 35% of people thought the name was too closely associated with Elvis Presley, although 9% thought it was either handsome or cute. Only one person thought the name Elvis sounded redneck.

(Picture shows Elvis impersonators at the Parkes Elvis Festival, with the Observatory in the background)

Famous Names: Tully and Yasi

07 Saturday Jan 2012

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This blog entry was first posted on January 7 2012, and revised and republished on August 31 2016.

TULLY
On January 3, the town of Tully in Queensland celebrated the upgrade of its famous Golden Gumboot, which was damaged by Cyclone Yasi nearly a year ago. The tourist attraction is a 7.9 metre (26 feet) high gumboot, painted gold, built to commemorate the town’s 1950 highest recorded annual rainfall level of 7.9 metres (310 inches), earning Tully the distinction of being Australia’s wettest town.

When the Golden Gumboot was re-opened, it had received a fresh coat of paint and a new viewing platform. Fittingly, it rained heavily throughout the ceremony.

The town of Tully is named after the nearby Tully River, which received its name from Surveyor-General William Alcock Tully. William Tully was originally from Dublin, and arrived in Hobart as religious instructor on a convict ship in 1850 before embarking on a career of conscientious public service.

Tully is an Anglicised form of an Irish surname, originally MacTully, and having a host of variants, which is often derived from tuile, the Gaelic word for “flood”. Another theory is that it has been mistranslated from toile, meaning “will” (as in the will to keep going). However, some Tullys are so convinced of the first interpretation that they have hyper-Anglicised their surname to Flood.

The meaning of “flood” is very appropriate for the name of a river, and a town famous for its sogginess. In Game of Thrones, the Tully family is one of the Great Houses and as it is the principal house in the Riverlands and their ancestral home is Riverrun, perhaps George R.R. Martin also had the Irish surname and meaning in mind.

Tully has been used as a personal name since the late 18th century. Although the name can be found in early records from Ireland, it seems to have been more frequently used in the United States.

One inspiration for it may have been the Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, who wrote patriotic pamphlets under the pen name Tully – in his case, a reference to the Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose name was occasionally Anglicised to Tully. The Tullia took their surname from the legendary Roman king Servius Tullius; the name is so ancient we do not know its meaning.

Tully has never been a common name. Last year in the US there were 8 boys named Tully with no girls listed with the name since 2013. In the UK the name has been in sporadic use, and in 2014 there were 4 baby boys named Tully. No girls are listed as having been given the name since 2009.

In Australia I have seen a roughly equal number of boys and girls with this name, and the name may be more evenly unisex here than elsewhere. One boost to the name for girls is women’s basketball champion Tully Bevilaqua, and after the attractive but controversial Tully Smyth competed on Big Brother in 2013, I heard many Australian parents refer to Tully as a “girl’s name”. Perhaps more importantly, it fits with the Australian trend for female names with a T-L pattern, such as Talia, Tilly, and Tallina.

YASI
The town of Tully was one of the worst affected by Cyclone Yasi, which hit the coast of northern Queensland early in the morning on February 3 2011. The town suffered extensive damage to its main street, and the area’s banana crops were completely flattened. Because Cyclone Yasi originated in Fiji, it was a Fijian cyclone forecaster called Misaeli Funaki who chose its name.

If you think naming a baby is difficult, spare a thought for the meteorologists who name cyclones. The cyclone had to start with Y, and nobody could think of an appropriate name for either gender.

So Mr Funaki suggested Yasi, which is the Fijian word for “sandalwood”. It didn’t have a history as a personal name in Fiji, but with no other candidates, his nomination was accepted by the ruling UN body. And so a new name was created.

Sandalwood is a tree with fragrant wood native to Asia and the Pacific. Australia has a sandalwood industry; the tree’s oil is used to make incense, soaps and cosmetics. Its antibacterial properties make it excellent as a skin cleanser, and Australian Aborigines eat its fruit as a bush food. Sandalwood is also used in the rituals of several eastern religions.

Yasi is neither used for boys or girls in Fiji. The cyclone forecasters were looking for a male name when they chose it, but they often resort to unisex names, and probably meant Yasi to be one. It’s commonly said to rhyme with Darcy, but seems to be more correctly pronounced YAH-zee.

During Cyclone Yasi, one doctor was apparently very keen for all babies born during the cyclone to be named Yasi, but there is no record of anyone following his advice. However you can find people around the world with the name Yasi, mostly female – perhaps a short form of names such Yasmin.

These are two short unisex names important to Australia’s history, especially connected with Queensland, rain, and storms. Tully is uncommon, but not unheard of, while Yasi is a true rarity, but not unusable.

POLL RESULTS
Tully received a very good approval rating of 70%. 46% of people thought it was a good name, while not one person hated it. Yasi was far less popular, with an approval rating of 22%. 53% of people weren’t keen on the name, and only one person loved it.

(Photo shows the Golden Gumboot in Tully, Queensland)

 

Famous Name: Douglas

03 Saturday Dec 2011

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This blog post was first published on December 3 2011, and substantially revised and reposted on December 10 2015.

Famous Namesake
Yesterday marked one hundred years since the Australasian Antarctic Expedition set sail from Hobart in the SY Aurora on December 2, 1911. It arrived at an unexplored region of Antarctica on January 8, 1912, and set up base camp. The site proved to be unrelentingly windy, with constant blizzards that made things hellish for the intrepid explorers.

Douglas Mawson was one of the leaders on the expedition. A geologist and lecturer from the University of Adelaide, he had been asked to join Robert Scott’s British expedition to find the South Pole (Scott was famously beaten to the punch by Norwegian Roald Amundsen). Mawson turned him down, as he thought it would be better to take his own team, and lead an expedition to the unexplored bits of Antarctica, which was most of it.

Douglas was part of a three-man sledging team called the Far-Eastern Party, which included Belgrave Ninnis, the son of a British arctic explorer, and Swiss mountaineer Xavier Mertz.

The group was making excellent progress when Ninnis fell into a snow-covered crevasse that the other two men crossed without incident; he took with him six huskies, a tent, most of the food and other essential supplies, and was never seen again. The glacier they were traversing is now called Ninnis Glacier in his honour.

Mawson and Mertz continued their frozen nightmare, forced to eat their huskies to supplement their scant rations. Although both men were unwell, Mertz became seriously ill and died in less than a week. It is thought that he may have died of an overdose of Vitamin A from eating husky liver, which Mawson solicitously fed him, in the fond belief that he was giving Mertz the best of the provisions.

Other theories are that Mertz died from hypothermia, from the shock of eating meat after being a vegetarian, or from the psychological stresses of the journey – especially the death of Ninnis, as the two men had been exceptionally good friends.

In the days before he died, Mertz became weak, exhausted, dizzy and delirious, even biting off the tip of one of his own fingers. He had dysentery, nausea, and stomach pain; his skin peeled away and his hair fell out – not surprisingly, another of his symptoms was depression. Whatever he died from, his demise caused him terrible suffering.

Douglas Mawson sledged the last 100 miles alone, falling into a crevasse on the way and having to climb out using the harness, only to see the boat he was to have returned on disappearing over the horizon. He had to spend another year in Antarctica.

Douglas was knighted in 1914 and The American Geographical Society awarded him a medal in 1916. The work he did was ground-breaking, and led to Australia getting its own portion of Antarctica, from where we still do important research.

For decades Sir Douglas Mawson was regarded unquestioningly as a hero, and his image is on the snow-white Australian $100 note. More recently his part in the expedition has been scrutinised, and attracted criticism. However there is no doubting his strength, courage, and determination to survive against all odds. He is remembered as an enthusiastic and kind man who never boasted of his remarkable exploits.

Name Information
Douglas is an Anglicisation of Scottish surname Dubhghlas meaning “dark river”. It originally belonged to the Douglas Water, which is a river in South Lanarkshire in southern Scotland. On its shores is a village named Douglas after the river, and the Douglas family took the village’s name as their surname when they moved here in the 12th century.

The Clan Douglas was one of the most powerful families of Scotland in the Middle Ages, often holding the real power behind the throne. The heads of the House of Douglas held the titles of the Earl of Douglas and the Earl of Angus, sometimes known as the Black Douglas and the Red Douglas. Their family estate was Castle Douglas, which Sir Walter Scott fictionalised as Castle Dangerous in his novel of the same name.

The Douglases are said to be descended from a Flemish knight, and fought with William Wallace and Rober the Bruce in the Wars of Independence. Sir James Douglas was the first to be labelled the Black Douglas by the English for what they considered his dark deeds: it was a title taken up with pride. The Douglases intermarried with the House of Stuart, gaining a royal connection.

The Douglases became so powerful they were seen as a threat. In 1440 the teenaged William Douglas, the 16th Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother were invited to dine with the ten-year-old King James I of Scotland. While they ate, a black bull’s head – symbol of death – was placed before the young earl. The Douglas boys were then dragged outside, given a mock trial and beheaded, so Clan Douglas lay siege to Edinburgh Castle. Called the Black Dinner, it is the inspiration for the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones.

Douglas has been used as a personal name at least since the 16th century, and seemingly originates in England rather than Scotland. It was originally a unisex name, given equally to boys and girls, and by the 17th century was primarily a female name. A famous example is Douglas Sheffield, Baroness Sheffield, who had an affair with Robert Dudley, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, and had a son by him. In the 18th century Douglas became more common for males than females, so this is an example of a name that went from the girls to the boys.

The name is a traditional one in the Hamilton family, which married into the Douglases in the 17th century; although the Hamiltons’ surname is now Hamilton-Douglas, they are actually Douglases by descent. The head of Clan Douglas today is the Duke of Hamilton, Alexander Douglas Douglas-Hamilton.

Douglas was #59 in the 1900s, and peaked in the 1920s at #28, during the career peak of actor Douglas Fairbanks, known as The King of Hollywood in that era. It remained on the Top 100 until the 1970s, and disappeared from the charts in 2010, although returning the following year. It is apparently now in rare use.

In the US Douglas has always been on the Top 1000. It was on the Top 100 from the end of the 1920s to the end of the 1980s. It peaked in 1942 at #23 – two wartime namesakes are General Douglas Macarthur, and Douglas Fairbanks son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, who became a highly decorated naval officer. It is currently #598 and falling.

In the UK, Douglas was on the Top 100 from the 1880s to the 1970s, peaking in the 1920s. Although it got as low as 508 in 2008, it has been climbing ever since, and is now #276. A current famous namesake is the handsome British actor Douglas Booth.

Douglas is a strong and rugged sounding classic name that is no longer in fashion, but still in use. British trends suggest that it is due for a comeback, and thanks to Douglas Booth, perhaps we can once again see Douglas as a romantic, dashing name, as it was in the 1920s because of Douglas Fairbanks. The nickname Doug seems very dated, but Dougie is cute, and even Gus seems possible.

POLL RESULTS
Douglas received an approval rating of 49%. 22% of people thought it wasn’t ready for a comeback, and 15% saw it as dorky and nerdy, although 17% saw it as strong and rugged. In contrast, 10% of people thought it was ready for a comeback, and saw it as a hip choice most parents weren’t clued into yet.

Famous Names: Barack

19 Saturday Nov 2011

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This blog post was first published on November 19 2011, and substantially rewritten and re-posted on November 19 2015.

Famous Namesake
This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty, the military alliance which binds Australia to the United States. Partly to commemorate this occasion, the President of the United States, Mr Barack Obama, made a brief two-day stopover trip to Australia on his way to Bali. He is the fifth American president to visit Australia since Lyndon Johnson arrived in 1966.

Spending two days in Canberra and Darwin, capital cities of our two Territories, he made an address to Parliament, laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and paid his respects to the 89 US sailors who perished aboard the USS Peary after being bombed by the Japanese in Darwin Harbour in 1942. It was also announced that a US military base would be stationed in Darwin.

Handsome and charismatic, with a constant friendly smile, the President could not help but make himself popular. Mr Obama has the charm and good manners that we tend to think of as very American, and he made lots of pleasant jokes about Australian slang and the Australian accent, while expressing his fondness for the nation and its people (and no fondness at all for Vegemite, which is an acquired taste).

While in Canberra, he made a visit to a high school and hugged an excited young girl. “He’s so kind … and warm,” she exclaimed. That’s how Barack Obama came across – kind, warm, genuine, funny, and very charming.

Note: President Obama made another visit to Australia in 2014, when he attended the G-20 summit in Brisbane. He gave a speech to students at the University of Queensland, which received thunderous applause from a young audience unused to hearing political leaders talk about climate change and gender equality.

Name Information
Barack is a Swahili variant of the Arabic word barak meaning “blessed”. The name comes from a Semitic root meaning “to kneel down”, with connotations of someone receiving a benediction while on bended knee. In Islam, the related term barakah (“blessing”) means a continuous spiritual presence and revelation providing a flow of blessings and grace to those close to God, such as saints and holy people.

The name is sometimes confused with the Hebrew name Barak, meaning “shining, lightning”. In the Old Testament, Barak was a military commander. In Arabic the equivalent word for “lightning” is buraq – you can see it in the name Al-Buraq, the mystical horse who took the prophet Muhammad on his Night Journey to the heavens on a journey between Jerusalem and Mecca and back.

The Hebrew equivalent of Barack is Baruch, meaning “blessed”. It is related to the Hebrew word berakhah, meaning “benediction, blessing”. In Judaism, berakhah is a blessing or thanksgiving given before enjoying or performing certain acts; for example, before eating: it acknowledges God as the source of all blessings. Baruch can be Latinised as the name Benedict, which is why the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who was Jewish, is often known to us as Benedict Spinoza.

As both Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages, it is easy to see how such confusion arises over similar or even identical-looking names.

By coincidence, Barak is also an Australian name. The famous Aboriginal spokesman William Barak (sometimes known as King Billy) took his surname from his tribal name of Beruk, meaning “white grub in gum tree”.

President Obama was named after his father, Barack Obama Sr, who was a senior economist in the Kenyan government during the 1960s. Mr Obama Sr was raised in a Muslim family, but was converted to Christianity at the age of six while attending a missionary school.

Apparently his original name was Baraka (from the Islamic term for spiritual blessings and grace), but he changed his name to Barack to avoid the overtly religious connotations of his name. I’m not sure how valid a conversion is in such a young child (it sounds almost coerced), but in any case it didn’t take, and Mr Obama became an atheist. His son did become a Christian, however.

The name Barack has never charted in the United States. Last year 11 babies were named Barack, a number which has decreased since 69 being born in 2009 – the year that Barack Obama Jr became President of the United States. In the year before President Obama’s presidential campaign, just 5 babies were named Barack.

Barack can only be found in British data between 2008 and 2010, peaking in 2009 at 17 births. I haven’t found any Baracks in Australian data, but based on international trends, it may have had a small spike in 2009.

Barack must be the most interesting of the American presidents’ names, and has at least busted the myth that you need a “presidential-style” name to become president of the United States (something like Ulysses or Grover, I presume).

One of its biggest issues as a baby name must be that it is so closely tied to the current US president, and may feel like a “one person name” – especially considering the name’s unique family history.

It could also be confused with similar names, and the pronunciation is something of an issue: although I understand it as buh-RAHK, I have heard it said it in a variety of ways by overseas commentators, including Burrock and Barrack. However, this is a strong handsome name with a nice meaning that will certainly stand out from the crowd.

NAME POLL RESULTS: Barack received an approval rating of 60%. 25% of people thought it was too closely tied to the American president, making it a one person name. However, 14% saw it as strong and commanding, and a further 14% thought it was a name unusual enough to stand out from the crowd. Only one person thought it was too rare, while 3% of people were put off the name because of President Obama.

(Picture shows President Obama arriving in Canberra in 2011; photo from the ABC)

Waltzing With … Daisy

16 Sunday Oct 2011

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This blog post was first published on October 16 2011, and completely rewritten on October 15 2015.   

Famous Namesake
Today it is the 152nd birthday of ethnographer Daisy Bates, who was born October 16 1859. Daisy migrated to Australia from Ireland as a young woman, and like many other immigrants, took the opportunity to reinvent herself. Her story was that she was born as Daisy O’Dwyer into a wealthy Irish Protestant family, and after being orphaned, was brought up to be a “lady” by her grandmother. Adopted by an aristocratic family, she seemed destined to lead a life of leisure, until a brush with TB sent her to Australia in order to recover her health.

In fact she was Margaret Dwyer, born into a poor Irish Catholic family, and brought up in an orphanage, where she was educated to be a governess. It may have been a sexual scandal that sent her across the world to Australia, and she seems to have been keen to seek a husband. Good looking with lovely dark eyes, a lively manner, and the gift of the gab, Daisy had little trouble attracting men, and she married three of them in rapid succession, including “Breaker” Morant (she didn’t bother getting divorced, so she was a serial bigamist). She took the surname of her second husband, Bates.

An unplanned pregnancy resulted in her son, and the process was so traumatic that she ever after had only distant relations with her husband and child. Her husband became even more estranged from her when she developed what was considered a bizarre interest in Aboriginal culture, and she finally left him to take up what was to be her life’s work.

Daisy spent forty years studying Aboriginal language, history, rituals, beliefs, and customs, and for much of that time lived in isolated areas, apparently always dressed in heavy dark Edwardian clothing. The usefulness (and even truthfulness) of her anthropological work has been much debated, but she was a pioneer in the field, being one of the first to live among the people she was studying and observe them at first hand, without trying to “educate” them or convert them to her own beliefs.

Although she was never sentimental or high-minded in any way about it (she was brutally frank that her interest in Aboriginal culture was a sport more than anything else), she did work towards Aboriginal welfare. She wrote with great feeling of their suffering at the hands of Europeans, and was able to identify that much of their misery was compounded by a lack of cultural awareness towards them.

She helped pave the way for greater attention to Indigenous health, and was prepared to defend Aboriginal women from sexual exploitation by white males, with a gun if necessary. She could be kind and generous towards Aboriginal people, paying for their needs from her own limited funds. Most importantly, her work has been an invaluable resource for those seeking Native Title claims.

In her lifetime, Daisy Bates was famous, but also seen as a stubborn, publicity-seeking eccentric, and remains a deeply controversial figure to this day. Many of her ideas about Indigenous Australians were paternalistic – one of her books is titled My Natives and I. She also saw Aborigines as a doomed race, and had an appalling hatred of people with mixed black and white ancestry, believing them to be completely worthless.

A staunch monarchist and imperialist, and a social-climbing, gossipy old snob, she loathed feminists, socialists, Catholics, and Germans – her views, not abnormal for her time, are now so out of fashion that they have alienated many, and this has helped lead to her neglect.

An interesting question is what the Aboriginal people themselves thought of her. She claimed that they called her Kabbarli, a word that can be translated as “grandmother”, to suggest a relationship that was both affectionate and respectful. It can also be translated as “crazy old bat”.

Name Information
Daisies are members of the aster family which grows widely over the world – everywhere except the polar regions. The word daisy comes from the Old English for “day’s eye”, as the English Daisy (Bellis perennis) opens when the sun rises, and closes in the evening. An English saying is that spring has not arrived until you can set your foot on a dozen daisies, while a Celtic tradition says that daisies are formed whenever a child dies so that they might comfort their grieving parents.

A well known divination is to discover if someone truly loves you by plucking daisy petals: he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me! Daisies were the flower of the love goddesses Freya and Venus, and it may not be a coincidence that daisies and daisy chains have long been gifts between sweethearts. In Roman legend, the wood nymph Belides transformed herself into a daisy to escape the attentions of Vertumnus, the god of seasons and plants, so that daisies are associated with chastity.

A Christian legend says daisies sprung from the tears wept by Mary Magdalene when she was forgiven of her sins. In Christian iconography, daisies symbolise the Virgin Mary; they were a favourite in medieval paintings and tapestries of the Virgin. Later they were used to symbolise the Christ Child. The purity of the Virgin Mary and the passion of Venus often seem to combine in medieval literature, so that daisies were used to symbolise the “good woman” who was equally sweet and sensual.

Daisy has been used as an independent girl’s name since at least the 17th century, and became popular in the 19th, along with other floral names. It is also used as a nickname for Margaret, because the French name for the Ox-eye Daisy is the marguerite. Because of this, it was used as a royal device by Marguerite de Navarre, the sister of Francis I of France, Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI, and Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. King Louis IX of France wore a daisy engraved on his ring as a tribute to his wife, Marguerite of Provence.

Daisy was quite a popular nickname among the upper classes during the Edwardian era, as evidenced by Princess Margaret “Daisy” of Connaught, who became the queen of Sweden; society beauty Mary “Daisy”, Princess of Pless; fashion icon and heiress Marguerite “Daisy” Fellowes; and Frances “Daisy” Greville, the mistress of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), whose love for the bicycle craze of the 1890s is popularly believed to have inspired the music hall song about Daisy with a bicycle built for two.

Literary Daisys include Daisy Buchanan who arouses a life-long obsession in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and the enigmatic Annie “Daisy” Miller, from Henry James’ novella. Sweet Meg from Little Women is sometimes called Daisy, and when she has a daughter named Margaret, she is known as Daisy to differentiate her from her mother. All these fictional Daisys are American, and two more American sweethearts are Disney’s Daisy Duck and sassy Southern belle Daisy Duke, from the Dukes of Hazzard.

The name Daisy was #58 in the 1900s, and left the Top 100 in the 1920s. It dropped from the charts in the 1940s, made a minor come-back in the 1950s, then dropped out again the following decade. Daisy returned to the charts in the 1980s at #646, and climbed fairly steadily. It rejoined the Top 100 in 2013 at #90, making it one of the fastest-rising names of that year. Last year it left the national Top 100, although it still made the Top 100 in Queensland and Tasmania.

Daisy is most popular in the UK. It was in the Top 100 there from 1880 until the 1930s, then made a comeback in the 1990s, peaking in 2010 at #15. Currently it is #24. In the US, Daisy has never left the Top 1000. It was in the Top 100 from 1880 to 1908, and reached its lowest point in 1972 at #629. It is currently #180. Australia’s Daisy popularity may be closer to New Zealand, where Daisy has made the bottom of the Top 100 a few times without any signs of climbing.

Daisy is a wholesome retro name which manages to sound both pure and innocent, and cute and spunky. There is something demure about little Daisy, but also rather sexy: Venus has given her a certain sweetness that blows like a fresh spring breeze across the fields. Daisies may be common flowers, but the name Daisy is not overused, and shows no signs of shooting up in popularity. You may use Daisy as a nickname, but it is just fine as a name in its own right.

POLL RESULT
Daisy received an approval rating of 88%, making it one of the highest-rated names of 2011. 37% of people loved the name Daisy, and only one person hated it.

(Painting is Daisy Bates at Ooldea, by Sidney Nolan, 1950)

Waltzing With … Cruz

11 Sunday Sep 2011

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This blog post was first published on September 11 2011, and substantially revised and updated on September 18 2015.

On Saturday September 17, Australia celebrates Australian Citizenship Day. The date was chosen because September 17 was the day that the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 was renamed, in 1973, The Australian Citizenship Act 1948. We have been celebrating Australian Citizenship Day since 2001, and it is organised by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Australian Citizenship Day is one to think about what unites as Australians, to take pride in our national citizenship, and to celebrate our democratic values and commitment to a fair go, equality, and respect for each other. Local councils are encouraged to hold citizenship ceremonies and affirmation ceremonies, where you affirm your loyalty to Australia, just it case it had started waning in the interim.

Citizenship Day is one to remember that we are all Australian citizens, whether you were born here 80 years ago, or just took out citizenship. It seems like a great opportunity to look at a name that has only recently come to Australia from another land, and although many names have been welcomed to our shores, this one stood out as a success.

Name Information
Cruz is a common Spanish surname which means “cross”, coming from the Latin word crucis; it originated in Castile. Many places throughout Europe got their name from a prominent cross used as a marker; perhaps for a public meeting place or a market. This is the origin of the surname, and as there are people called Cruz in Spain, there are Crosses in Britain, Groses in France, Kreuzes in Germany, and so on. In the Christian era, the name took on religious significance, and in some cases the surname Cruz might have been bestowed on someone who carried a crucifix at festivals.

Cruz has been used as a personal name in Spain since the Middle Ages. You can often find it in name combinations such as Santa Cruz (“holy cross”) or Vera Cruz (“true cross”), to underline its Christian significance. In early records, it seems to have been commonly given to babies born during the Lenten and Easter seasons. The other key date for the name is around mid-September – The Feast of the Holy Cross is on September 14.

The name was originally given mostly, but not exclusively, to girls. However overall the name has been given fairly evenly to both sexes in Spain, but with females still ahead. In Latin America, records show it as unisex, but with males slightly ahead of females. The name isn’t popular in Spanish-speaking countries, and is often seen as rather dated for either gender.

The United States is the only English-speaking country where Cruz has much of a history, thanks to its significant Hispanic population. It has been on and off the US Top 1000 since records began in 1880, and has been continually on the charts for boys since 1980. It charted as a girl’s name a few times in the years leading up to World War II. Currently Cruz is #290 in the US, and fairly stable.

In the UK, the name Cruz gained publicity after English football star David Beckham chose it for his third son. Although it is presumed the Beckhams chose a Spanish name to honour David Beckham’s football team at the time, Real Madrid, and perhaps as a nod toward the tattoo of a cross David got in 2004, (apparently for vaguely religious reasons), Cruz seems much more of an “American-style” name, like his siblings Brooklyn and Harper, than one used in Spain. The name began charting in the UK after Cruz Beckham’s birth in 2005, and it is currently #381 and rising.

In Australia, Cruz is a celebrity baby name as well, as tennis champion Lleyton Hewitt, and his wife, actress Bec Cartwright, called their son Cruz in 2008. It seems to be a name which appeals to male sportsmen, because there are several other Australian athletes with sons named Cruz. Cruz shows up a few times in Australian historical records, always on people of Hispanic heritage, and often from countries such as the Philippines or islands such as Guam. In 2012, the name Cruz was #115 in Victoria, and would have been in the Top 100 if combined with the spelling Cruze.

Apart from the obvious star-factor of the name Cruz, I think it’s doing well in Australia because it’s short, simple, sounds very boyish to our ears, and the z-ending seems to give it a little pizzazz. It’s almost a “car” name in Australia, as we have the Holden Cruze, so this connection with sports and cars probably makes it seem blokey.

Perhaps it also reminds parents of the slang words cruise and cruisey, which seem to sum up our relaxed attitude and way of life. If anyone looks up the meaning and sees that it means “cross”, it will of remind them of our own Southern Cross, twinkling down at us from the night sky, and appearing on our national flag. In other words, it seems like a name well suited to Australian conditions, and is almost verging on the patriotic.

Cruz had been inducted as a citizen of Australia, affirmed his loyalties to our way of life, and proudly hung his certificate on the wall. Welcome to Australia, mate.

POLL RESULTS
Cruz received an approval rating of 58%. 29% of people disliked it, while only 9% loved it.

Famous Name: Nancy

06 Tuesday Sep 2011

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This blog post was first published on September 6 2011, and revised and updated on September 24 2015.

Famous Namesake
On August 7 2011, Australia’s most decorated servicewoman of World War II died. Nancy Wake was born in New Zealand in 1912, and her family moved to Australia when she was a baby. Not long after, her father abandoned the family and went back to New Zealand, selling their house in the process, thus leaving his wife and six children homeless and destitute.

Life must have been tough for young Nancy, but she was clearly a born survivor. A girl of spirit, she ran away from home at the age of 16 and worked as a nurse. When an aunt left her a £200 inheritance, she travelled to New York, and then London, where she became a journalist.

During the 1930s, she settled in Paris, and worked for the Hearst newspapers as European correspondent. One of her first assignments was to interview Adolf Hitler. She also witnessed first-hand the brutal persecution of Jews by the Nazis in Vienna, and vowed that if she could ever do something about it, she would.

In 1939 Nancy married Henri Fiocca, a handsome and wealthy French industrialist who she described as the love of her life. Six months later, Germany invaded France, and Henri and Nancy both joined the French Resistance. Nancy worked as a courier, smuggling food and messages to Resistance agents in Spain, and was able to assist more than a thousand escaped prisoners of war and Allied fliers out of France.

By 1942, the Gestapo had become aware of a significant Resistance agent who was proving a thorn in their side, and code-named her The White Mouse. She was #1 on the Gestapo’s “Most Wanted” list, and had a 5 million franc bounty on her head. Nancy escaped to England, where she trained as a spy in the French section of the British Special Operations Executive, who worked with local resistance groups in German-occupied territories.

She parachuted back into France in 1944 to help with D-Day preparations, and after D-Day was in charge of an army involved in combat against German troops. Never one to back down from a hard task, she once cycled 500 km in three days, crossing several German checkpoints, to find an operator to radio Britain and request new radio codes.

Attractive, vivacious and feisty, she drew admiration for being an “Australian bombshell” who was a crack shot with a cheerfully never-say-die attitude. One of her comrades, Henri Tardivat, said of her: She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men.

At the end of the war, Nancy discovered that her beloved husband Henri had been captured, tortured and executed by the Gestapo in 1943 for refusing to disclose her location. She never ceased to regret leaving France, and blamed herself for his death, believing that if she had stayed with him, he would have survived.

After the war, she was showered in international honours, including the George Medal, the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille de la Resistance, the Chevalier de Legion d’Honneur, and the US Medal of Freedom. Further honours came to her throughout her life, but none from Australia for many years. At first she refused all Australian recognition, then there was some bureaucratic tangles because technically Nancy was still a citizen of New Zealand.

Nancy probably didn’t help the process by getting unsuccessfully involved in Australian politics, and by telling them to stick their medals somewhere unmentionable. Rather belatedly, she was awarded the Companion Order of Australia in 2004; by that time she had left Australia permanently to live in London, after being widowed once more (this time after 40 years of marriage).

Nancy died three weeks away from her 99th birthday. On March 10 2013, her ashes were taken to the village of Verneix near Montluçon, in central France – the region she had used as her base while a Resistance fighter. Here the ashes were scattered in a private ceremony attended by close friends, in accordance with her wishes.

She said of herself: I hate wars and violence, but if they come, I don’t see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.

Name Information
Nancy was originally a short form of Annis, the medieval English form of Agnes, and in use since the Middle Ages. However, by the time Nancy became commonly used as an independent name in the 18th century, it was derived from Nan, a short form of Ann or Anne.

There are many famous namesakes for this name. Anne “Nancy” Regan, former US First Lady; Nancy Astor, the first female MP in the British Parliament; boot-stomping singer Nancy Sinatra; witty author Nancy Mitford; voice actress of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartright; punk lover Nancy Spungen; nobbled skater Nancy Kerrigan. It’s interesting how often famous Nancys end up being controversial in some way.

Fictional Nancys are just as strong characters as their real world counterparts. Smart girl detective Nancy Drew, an inspiration to powerful women such as Hilary Clinton. Piratical tomboy Nancy Blackett from Swallows and Amazons; her real name is Ruth, but pirates must be ruthless! Dreamworld heroine Nancy Thompson, who takes on the nightmarish Freddy Kruger. Poor degraded Nancy from Oliver Twist, who performs a noble act to save another, though it risks her own life.

Nancy is a classic name which has been almost continuously on the charts. It was #114 in the 1900s, joined the Top 100 the following decade, and peaked in the 1920s at #26. It left the Top 100 in the 1950s and has fallen gradually; currently it is around the 500s.

In the United States, Nancy was a Top 100 name in the late 19th century, and then again from the 1920s to the end of the 1970s – a very good run. It is has fallen steadily since then and is now #752. In the UK, Nancy was on the top 100 from the mid-19th century until World War II. In 1996 it was #251, and generally making upward progress. It joined the Top 100 again last year, and is currently #90. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has a daughter named Nancy, born in 2004.

Nancy is a wholesome yet spunky name which faded too quickly in Australia compared to other countries. It fits in perfectly with the current trend for cute short form names such as Maggie and Kitty, while having a clean classic feel. This is a spirited choice, suitable for those who want their daughters to be in the thick of the fight, not just waving and knitting on the sidelines.

POLL RESULT
Nancy received an approval rating of 56%. 30% of people thought the name was too dated and old-fashioned, but 16% said it was sweet and wholesome. Nobody was affected by the “nasty Nancy” label given to Nancy Spungen, but 6% were concerned about the phrase “negative Nancy”, and 4% were really bothered that “nancy” is slang for a homosexual or effeminate man.

(Image of Nancy Wake c 1945  from The Australian War Memorial, which houses the collection of all her war medals)

Waltzing With … Mary

07 Sunday Aug 2011

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A050199_246x550This blog post was first published on August 7 2011, and revised and updated on August 13 2015.

Famous Namesake
Tomorrow is the solemnity of Saint Mary of the Cross, otherwise known as Saint Mary MacKillop. It’s a special day for Australian Catholics, because Mary MacKillop is the only Australian to have ever been canonised as a saint.

Born in 1842, she was a nun who founded the order of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, as well as several schools and welfare organisations across South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. She had a special interest in educating the poor, especially in rural areas, but the Josephites also cared for parentless and neglected children, unmarried mothers, women escaping domestic violence, the elderly, and the dying, as well as prisoners and juvenile delinquents. The Josephites did not live in convents, but amongst the community, living as they did, and sharing their hard lives. The brown habits they wore gave them the very Australian nickname, “The Brown Joeys”.

Church politics often caused her stress, including a period of a few months when she was excommunicated for speaking out against child sex abuse within the church. During this time, she lived with a Jewish family and was sheltered by Jesuit priests. There was also an ugly smear campaign against her, including accusations that she was a drunkard. In fact, in an age where pain medication options were limited, she took alcohol on doctor’s orders for severe menstrual pain that left her bedridden for days each month.

Even during her lifetime, Mary MacKillop was regarded as a saint for her holiness and charitable works, and after she died on August 8 1909, people took earth from around her grave as a relic, until her remains were placed in a vault in a memorial chapel in Sydney, paid for by an admiring Presbyterian friend.

In 1925 the long process of having Mary MacKillop declared a saint was begun; she was beatified in 1995, and canonised on October 17 2010. She is the patron saint of Australia, and of the city of Brisbane.

Whatever your beliefs, it’s hard not to admire Mary MacKillop for her altruism and determination. She was greatly beloved by the poor, and accepted by the Aboriginal community as one of themselves. She was a fiery-tempered yet affectionate Scottish redhead with big blue eyes who believed in social justice and equality for all, and whose catchphrase was, “Never see a need without doing something about it”.

Name Information
Mary has long been a favourite for girls, due to it being the name of the mother of Jesus. In fact, there are a confusing number of women named Mary in the New Testament, because it was a name used in the royal family of Judea at the time, and extremely common. Mary is an English translation of the Latin and Greek forms of the Hebrew name Miryam.

The original Miryam was the older sister of Moses and Aaron in the Old Testament. It was she who hid Moses in the bullrushes when he was a baby to save his life, and then watched the Pharaoh’s daughter discover and adopt him. She cleverly suggested to this adoptive mother that she hire Miryam’s mother as a nurse, so that Moses was raised within his own family.

As Miryam was born in Egypt, it’s been suggested that her name comes from the Egyptian word for “love” or “beloved”, or even possibly from the Egyptian name Meritamen, meaning “beloved of Amun” – Amun being the chief god of the Egyptians. So this name, now seen as very Christian, may have ancient pagan roots.

Although Mary is a traditional English name, it didn’t become widely used in Britain until after the Conquest, when the Normans introduced the idea of using names of saints as personal names; before that, they were seen as too holy for an ordinary person to bear. It was introduced in the Latin form Maria and the French form Marie; only as the Middle Ages came to an end did Mary became standard.

The name gained royal credentials, with Mary I the first woman to successfully claim the throne of England, and rule as a king as well as queen – she was known as Bloody Mary for her brutal persecution of Protestants. Several kings had queens named Mary, and Mary, Queen of Scots, was an attractive and romantic figure who earns admiration for the brave manner she faced imprisonment and execution. Queen Mary II, of William and Mary fame, was named after her. Australia has its own royal Mary – Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, born Mary Donaldson in Hobart.

Mary was the #1 name of the 1900s and 1910s, and remained in the Top 10 until the 1940s. It left the Top 50 in 1971, and the Top 100 in 1995. Since then, it has remained relatively stable, and is apparently not far out of the Top 100. That makes Mary a very safe choice – a classic name still in common and regular use without being popular.

Mary was even more popular in the US, remaining at #1 from the late 19th century to the early 1960s – a really staggering run of hypersuccess. It left the Top 10 in the 1970s, and the Top 50 in the early 2000s, dropping off the Top 100 in 2009. It is currently #120 and stable, a similar popularity to here.

In the UK, Mary was the #1 name from the middle of the 19th century to the 1920s, and remained in the Top 10 until the 1960s. It left the Top 50 during the 1970s, and was out of the Top 100 by the middle of the 1990s. Mary has fallen slightly faster in the UK than here or in the US, and is now #244, although still relatively stable. The only country where Mary is still popular is Ireland, where it is #81 and falling steadily.

Mary is gracious enough to be at ease in every level of society, as suitable for a saint or a princess as it is for a scientist or a politician, a soprano or a photographer, a sportswoman or a pilot. While it’s unlikely that your daughter will ever be a saint or a princess, it’s nice to think that if she does, her name will sound just fine with either title in front of it.

This is a timeless classic which sounds wonderful whatever your age, from wee baby Mary to great-grandma Mary. It’s short and simple without seeming cutesy or insubstantial, and is strong, wholesome, dignified, and completely unpretentious. As Australian author P.L. Travers taught us in Mary Poppins, it’s a name that carries just a hint of magic and mystery, and is practically perfect in every way!

POLL RESULT
Mary received an excellent approval rating of 85%, making it one of the highest-rated names of 2011. 34% of people loved the name Mary, and only 5% hated it.