It’s All In a Name – Americas

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Each Mother’s Day in the United States, the Commissioner of Social Security publishes the most popular baby names based on all social security card applications for children born the previous year. The latest available lists of the top ten boys’ and girls’ names, relating to the year 2005, are as follows:

Links:

Most popular baby names in the USA click here
Trends in popularity of baby names in the USA click here

Several points can be made about these lists. Firstly, it is a stable pair of lists. Jacob has been top of the male list since 1999, while Emily has been the most popular female name since 1996. Secondly, for all the ethnic diversity of the USA, both these lists are remarkably Anglo-Saxon. None of the boys’ names would be out of place in the UK and, of the girls’ names, only Madison, Ashley and Ava would look odd in Britain. Thirdly, there some distinct similarities between the most popular names in the USA and the UK. Five of the top ten American boys’ names and four of the top ten American girls’ names are in the top 20 for UK names of the appropriate gender. In the United States, two of the top three boys’ names begin with ‘J’, while this is the case for three of the top six boys’ names in Britain. Emily is the top girls’ name in the USA and it is the fifth most popular girls’ name in Britain.

Most of what has been written in this essay about the use of English first names in England applies to the use of ‘English’ names in the United States. However, the United States was built on immigrants, so one sees a fantastic range of names there, drawn from a wide variety of European traditions, as is evident if one looks at the credit list of any American television programme or movie.

Furthermore Americans have a wonderful facility for invention of first names:

• They convert pet names into proper names – such as Bubba, Bud, Buster, Chuck, Clint, Ginger, Hank, Jimbo, Red, Rocky, Rusty, Tex and Woody for boys and Baby, Barbie, Becky, Betsy, Bobbi, Buffy, Candi, Cissy, Debra, Dolly, Fanny, Flo, Frankie, Jas, Jo, Joni, Josie, Liza, Mamie, Minnie, Sindy, Susie, Terri and Tina for girls.

• They invent new spellings – so Charlotte becomes Sharlotte, Katherine becomes Kathryn, Candice becomes Kandes, Carolyn becomes Karolyn, Giselle becomes Jizelle. They run two names together (especially girls’ names) – such as Billie-Jean, Billie-Jo, Bobbi-Ann, Bobbi-Lee, Brooklyn, Danessa, Emilyann, Emmalee, Jaydee, Jenelle, Jonelle, Kaycee, Krystalee, Marilee, Marybeth, Maryellen, Maryjo, Marylou, Nichelle, Rayleen, Reanne, Rosalyn, Ruthann, Sherylyn, Terriann, and so on and so on.

• They take surnames (especially of the famous) and make them first names – such as Wesley, Washington, Lincoln, Franklin, Woodrow, Clinton. Indeed there is a particular tradition in the South – and most especially Virginia – to take the surname of a distinguished member of the family from several generations back and turn it into a current first non-gender specific name (one example I came across was Tinsley for a girl).

• Often they simply invent new names. For instance, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice derives her first name from the musical term ‘con dolcezza’ which mean ‘to play with sweetness’. Invention of names seems particularly common among African-Americans, so one such family I met recently called their children Shanese, Shapell and Kyron. My favourite American name is that of the actor Rip Torn. Then there is the Duggar family in Little Rock, Arkansas that have now had their 16th child, all of whom have names beginning with ‘J’: Joshua, twins John and Janna, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, twins Jeremiah and Jedidiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, and Johannah.

Link: Duggar family site click here

Not all children are thrilled with their parents’ inventiveness when they grow up. Spare a thought for the actors River, Rain, Liberty and Summer Phoenix. On the other hand, the actress Barbara Hershey was not content with her original name and, for a couple of years, adopted the name Seagull.

Link: Think! Baby Names click here

As in Britain, in most cases people in the USA have two first names but, whereas in Britain the second name is rarely used or even alluded to, in the States it often features, usually in the form of an initial – as in George W Bush. A common form of familiarity is to use simply the initials of the first two names rather than the names themselves – as in the character ‘J.R.’ (John Ross Ewing) in the television series “Dallas” or the Press Secretary ‘C.J.’ (Claudia Jean Cregg) in the television series “The West Wing” or the superhero’s girlfriend ‘M.J.’ (Mary Jane Watson) in the film “Spiderman”.

American men are much given to naming their sons identically to themselves. The father and son are then distinguished by suffixing the former’s name with Senior (abbreviated to Sr) and suffixing the son’s name with Junior (abbreviated to Jr) – so my American pen friend is Charles B Urnick Jr. This same naming can go on for several generations – so we had the philanthropist John D Rockefeller III or we even have Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (the full name of the actor Tom Cruise). An American friend of mine told me about a boy who lived in her street whom they called Brack Grantham. His full name was Braxton Bragg Grantham V which would suggest that his family had been naming sons after the Confederate Civil War general since about the end of that war.

In the USA, the top ten surnames are all clearly of British origin: Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown, Davis, Miller, Wilson, Moore, Taylor (respectively). However, the top 40 names include a number of Spanish family names: Garcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, Hernandez, Lopez, Gonzalez (again respectively).

African-Americans tend to choose different first names from their white compatriots and have developed a wide choice of colourful appellations. Someone called Leroy, for instance, is almost certainly black (although the name is rarely chosen these days). However, for most African-Americans, their surnames are a permanent reminder of the slavery which disfigured the United States for so long. They have last names which bear no relation to the family’s origin on the African continent and instead have been taken from a white slave owner or some other local source.

Links:

Male African-American names click here
Female African-American names click here

There are not many Native American people left in the United States, but those that remain can call upon names of around 250 original languages. Many Native American names have traditionally been taken from nature and from the perspective of being part of nature, such as Achachak (Algonquian for ‘spirit’), Gomda (meaning ‘wind’ in Kiowa), and Tawa (meaning ‘sun’ in Hopi).

Other names, like those in Africa, come from events or conditions at the time of the child’s birth, such as Ahanu (meaning ‘he laughs’ in the Massachusett language), Palliton (meaning ‘he has spoiled it’ from the Delaware), Ahyoka (meaning ‘she bought happiness’ in Cherokee), and Winona (meaning ‘first born daughter’ in Santee Sioux). Other names are vocabulary names, such as Atepa (meaning ‘tent’ in Choctaw), Iiniwa (meaning ‘bison’ from the Blackfoot), Mina (meaning ‘knife’ in Lakota), and Yansa (meaning ‘buffalo’ in Cherokee). Still other names are beautifully illustrative, such as Lise (meaning ‘salmon’s head coming out of the water’ in Miwok), Nindakando (meaning ‘I watch and lie in ambush’ from the Ojibwa), and Teluhci (meaning ‘bear making dust as it runs’ from Moquelumnan).

Links:

Native American names (1) click here
Native American names (2) click here (Link no longer available on this site)

Hawaii is part of the United States, but the naming practices on the islands are totally different from that of the mainland USA. Most names are not particular to one gender and often one name is added to another to create long, polysyllabic names. Most Hawaiian names come from objects of beauty, such as Mamo (yellow flower) and Wainani (beautiful water), and many start with the letter ‘K’, such as Kamakani (the wind) and Kalei (the garland).

Link:

Hawaiian first names click here

In much of Latin America, the use of family names has been influenced historically by the colonial powers Spain and Portugal. In Andean countries, slaves were obliged to use their master´s surname as their own patronimic: Juan Blanco de Almeida or Pedro Martin de Betancourt. This ordinance was abolished with the termination of slavery. In most Latin American countries, especially Middle and Northern South America, the use of both father´s and mother´s surnames after the common name (for instance, Teresa Pérez Camacho) had been a standard arrangement (but not a formal requirement) in the former times of conquest and colonisation (1500-1800) in order to differentiate from the few family names (surnames/apellidos) of a relatively small immigrant population (until 1650, mostly from Spain and Portugal).

People in Argentina love giving family and friends nicknames. Take the most famous Argentinian of them all, the revolutionary ‘Che’ Guevara. His real name was Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna. In early manhood, he was called ‘Fuser’ which comes from ‘furibundo Serna’ (‘furious Serna’) due his enraged way of playing rugby. Later he was called ‘Che’ which is a commonly used word in Argentina meaning something like ‘buddy’, ‘dude’ or ‘man’.