ARCHELAUS
Archelaus takes a relentlessly upbeat
look at operating a small greeting card
business in Washington, DC.
ARCHELAUS
Archelaus takes a relentlessly upbeat
look at operating a small greeting card
business in Washington, DC.
Posted on Friday, October 30, 2009, at 9:19 am, by Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt.
Having written about fabric names, bird names, and animal names, I think it is time to move on to plant names. I will leave the large subgroup of flower names to a later post, likewise the fruits and vegetables.
(Note: In the discussion that follows, numbers appearing in parentheses indicate how many people with a particular name were listed in the U.S. Social Security Death Index at the time of writing.)
Holly (3,626) is the only member of the group to have achieved a solid popularity, albeit one too recent to be adequately reflected in the death statistics. Initially Holly was considered masculine, and it occasionally ranked among the top 1,000 names for boys in the 1880s and 1890s. It showed up in the top 1,000 names for girls for the first time in 1936 and has appeared there every year since 1938, reaching 48th in 1979 and again 1983.
Several other plant names have attained more modest but relatively enduring levels of popularity.
Fern (31,992) was already among the top 1,000 names for American girls by 1880 (the first year for which the Social Security Administration makes frequency data available), and it remained there until 1961, peaking at 152nd in 1916.
Ivy (11,551) has been used for both genders. It can be found among the top 1,000 names for girls for every year since 1880, except 1946. Although the name peaked in 1881 at 258th, it is now climbing again, having reached 298th in 2008. It appeared among the top 1,000 names for boys in fifty-one of the fifty-six years from 1880 to 1935.
Laurel (4,342) is another unisex name. It is found sporadically in the top 1,000 for girls from 1883 to 1913, then consistently from 1917 to 2008. It peaked at 241st in 1956 (and is currently on the verge of dropping off the list). Laurel also sometimes attained the lower reaches of the top 1,000 names for boys, placing in seventeen of the forty-eight years from 1887 to 1934.
Reed (4,163) has appeared among the top 1,000 names for boys every year since 1881, reaching 409th in 2008.
A few names have a much less consistent record. Rush (1,390) appeared in the top 1,000 for boys in twenty of the twenty-four years from 1880 to 1903. The success of the right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh has evidently not translated into a renewed popularity of the name. Linden (1,064) made the top 1,000 for boys in 1889, 1943, and 1947, while Maple (738) rose into the top 1,000 for girls in the solitary year of 1902. Willow (537) is underrepresented in the Social Security Death Index, having entered the top 1,000 for girls in 1998 (in clear response to the character “Willow Rosenberg” on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which debuted in 1997). The name reached 408th in 2008.
Here are some of the less successful plant names:
There are also a few plant-related and habitat names, the most common being Savannah (3,270), also spelled Savanna (169). Savannah ranked among the top 1,000 names for girls in sixty-eight of the seventy-five years from 1880 to 1934, and in every year since 1983, reaching 30th in 2006 and 2007. Forest (11,652) was among the top 1,000 names for boys in ninety-four of the 106 years between 1880 and 1995. It reached 223rd in 1893 and 1898. The other names in this category are much less common:
As always, the Death Index contains a few bizarre or whimsical combinations:
Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt wrote on January 29, 2010, at 4:30 pm:
Also: Greenleaf (12), although this name may typically represent homage to the famous poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92).
Maureen Armendariz wrote on August 26, 2012, at 10:55 pm:
Absolutely hilarious. Great reading. And found my baby’s name here with it’s exact ranking- thanks!
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