Weird things I've learned from searching baby name popularity

While we were searching for baby names for Trevor, I got kind of obsessed with this neat website that shows graphs of name popularity over time. The website is here and I got so hooked on it that I started searching absolutely everything that came to mind. Names I liked, names I thought were stupid, names of people I hated, names of celebrities ... no name was too silly for me to send through the statistical ringer.

All of this name research has led me to some rather interesting information that I thought you might find fun as well! For instance ...


"Meredith" used to be a boys' name

There was a battle from around 1900 until 1930, and the girls won it. 

Must be kind of a bummer to be a man named Meredith at this point. Born during the Depression, fight in WWII, and then get old only to be laughed at for having a girls' name.

Tough break.


People were actually naming their kids "Angle" for a while

Were they just misspelling "Angel" or did they really intend to name their kid "Angle"? I honestly don't know which is worse.


"Micheal" happened for a while too.

You ... you guys know it's meant to be spelled "Michael", right?

And look how high it peaked!!! .1% of all boys named Micheal?! How is that even pronounced? My brain keeps saying "Mick-heel" which sounds dumb as hell. This is not a good choice for a baby name.


"Latrina" isn't just apocryphal. It's a real name.

Ah, Latrina. Spanish for "toilet."

It's the kind of name that I wish only existed in jokes, but alas the chart does not lie. There are people out there, mostly born in the mid-1970's, named Toilet.

Toilet.


"Elmo". For real.

Now, we can't get too upset about this one, since Sesame Street didn't come on the air until 1969 and Elmo didn't join the cast until 1979. At that point, hardly any babies were given the name Elmo anymore.

Which is a shame. If Audrey had her druthers, that would totally be Trevor's name right now. At the very least, couldn't it be a middle name??

TREVOR ELMO? That's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it??!

However, we cannot in good conscience give the same sort of pass to this next name ...


"Adolf" ... even after the 1940's

Perhaps you are familiar with a man named ADOLF MOTHERF***ING HITLER??!?!?

All I can say is that I hope ALL of those bastards went to the courthouse to get their names changed the moment they turned 18. Adolf is no longer a good name. Parents should choose something different.

... not that any of us should really be too surprised. The US is full of assholes, after all.

Sigh.