A Name for Every Year

I found a fun game that other are playing, in which you take your first name and middle name and find its popularity equivalent in other years. So, for example, my name ‘Chelsea’ was #24 in the year of my birth, and my middle name ‘Carol’ was ranked #349. So I look up the #24 and #349 ranked names in other years to come up with what my name might have been in other decades. It ended up being pretty interesting and some of the combos are so laughable.
In the year I was born, I might have been Eric Jordan. Okay, not bad! Eric is a great boys name, so I’d be alright bearing that name.

Recent decades:

2016 Lily Adrianna & Sebastian Arlo (I like this boy combination!)
2010 Leah Emilia & Samuel Enrique
2000 Destiny Kayleigh & Dylan Kody  (D.K & D.K?!?)
1980 Jamie Jackie Anthony Ben

Some of my favorites – my bias for vintage names is showing here:
Henry Marcus (1933), Gerald Harrison (1932), Catherine Bernadette(1923), Grace Imogene & Carl Frederic(1912), Hazel Alyce & Louis Armand (1909), Louise Alvina(1906)

There were some funny combinations and interesting coincidences that happened this way as well:

• Carol Candace(1961), Louise Lou(1924), Carl Columbus(1901), Frances Fanny(1899) The alliteration (and repetition) of these combos!
• Ralph Bud(1911) sounds very casual.
• Clara Era(1904), Cora Leora(1886) is very sing-songy.
• Ida Blanch & Raymond Myron (1896) made me smile because Ida & Myron are family names of mine that I never see anymore. 🙂
• Fay came up as a middle name for both girls(1944) and boys(1902) in this experiment.
• I found some surname-style names a couple of times in the combos: Weldon, Odell, Burton, Harrison, Monroe, Elliott, & Emmet all made an appearance.

Southern Names from the 20th Century : Part 1

My sister lives in a small town down South, where she occasionally works at the courthouse filing land deeds. Most recently, she and her colleague have been sorting through paperwork from the 1920s and 1960s, and as they go through the files, they find some interesting names. Thankfully, they have been writing down some of their favorite names they come across.

Clell
Hattie
Wray
Agnes
Georgia
Ponder
Lucille
Mannie
Ethel
Floyd
Linnie
Kermit
Earl
Frances
Faye
Fuller
Fayrene
Minnie
Bertie
Derk
Orville
Claude
Harrell
Pangle
Kemp
Nell
Imogen
Ellaree

We often think that everyone in the past had familiar, classic names, but this list really proves otherwise! Some of my favorites from this list are Imogren, Faye, Frances, Linnie, and Wray.

Interestingly enough, it seems that people have been giving shortnames as fullnames for longer than we think, as the parents felt no need to use more formal names for Bertie and Hattie. Some of these names, such as Ellaree and Floyd, seem like they’d fit in perfectly with some of the modern names we’re hearing today. Then other names, like Clell, Pangle, and Ponder, were entirely unheard of to me.

It’s interesting to dive in and discover some old names. It’s really a nice reminder that sometimes you can find interesting, unique names simply by looking through history.