A recent USA Today article has highlighted a new governmental policy mandating that transgender employees of both the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health employ the name that appears on their birth certificate.
About Names: Dr. Cleveland Evans on the name “Luke”
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his May 4th column, he discusses the name “Luke”.
Since 1979 fans of “Star Wars” have celebrated May 4, punning “May the fourth” with catch phrase “May the Force be with you.” Though it’s now usually called “Star Wars Day,” earlier it was often “Luke Skywalker Day” after the young hero (played by Mark Hamill) who battles the evil empire in a galaxy far, far away.
Luke’s the English form of Greek Loukas, meaning “man from Lucania.” Lucania was a region in-between the “toe” and “boot” of the Italian peninsula. “Lucania” derives from an ancient Oscan word for “light” or “sunrise”, being east of the original Oscan homeland.
Saint Luke, a physician who traveled with the Apostle Paul, wrote both the New Testament’s Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. 28 churches in medieval England were dedicated to him, and in 1379 the name Luke ranked 34th for Englishmen.
The 1850 United States census found 4,552 Lukes, while the 1851 British census found 7,639, when the two countries had similar total populations. Some American Protestants may have avoided Luke because it was well-used by Catholic immigrants. 16.6% of 1850’s Lukes were Irish-born.
When Social Security’s yearly baby name lists start in 1880, Luke ranked 252nd. Its use slowly fell, bottoming out at 597th in 1942.
Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name “Luke”!
About Names: Dr. Cleveland Evans on the Top Baby Names of 2024
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his May 18th column, he discusses the top baby names of 2024.
Sophia, Liam, and Noah continued their reign as top baby names in 2024, while the Hawaiian derived “Ailany” had one of the biggest and most mysterious booms ever.
On May 9, the Social Security Administration released the United States’ top baby names of 2024.
On SSA’s lists, Liam and Olivia have been No. 1 since 2019.
SSA counts every spelling separately. I add together spellings pronounced the same, creating lists I think show popularity more accurately.
When alternative spellings like Jaxon were added, Jackson was first on my list from 2013 through 2020. Jackson’s now swiftly declining, ranking only fifth in 2024. Liam, Noah, and Oliver are the top three on both my “combined spellings” list and Social Security’s single spelling version.
Liam rose 6.7% and Noah 7.4% last year, despite the total number of births only increasing 0.3%.
Noah’s an international star. Latest figures show it’s No. 1 in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and both French and English speaking Canada. Noah is also among the top ten in Austria, Denmark, England, France, Ireland, Lithuania, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. One wonders if young parents are unconsciously preparing sons to deal with climate change caused floods.
The latter seven of my 2024 boys top ten were Mateo, Jackson, Luca, Lucas, Elijah, Theodore and James. Theodore rose 8.5% to replace Aiden. Aiden, No. 1 between 2006 and 2012, dropped to 13th.
Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the top baby names of 2024!
About Names: Dr. Cleveland Evans on the name “June”
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his June 1st column, he discusses the name “June”.
“June is bustin’ out all over,” and rising as a baby name, too.
June’s derived from Latin Junius, originally the fourth and later the sixth month on the Roman calendar. It’s named after Juno, Rome’s patron goddess. Juno probably meant “young one,” related to the word “junior.” Rare English surname June is from French “jeune (young).”
The index to 1850’s census includes 57 male and 661 female Junes. Most of the former were probably either instances of the rare surname being turned into a given name, or of June used as a nickname for Junius, a Roman clan name brought back during the early 19th century Classical Revival. 688 men were listed as Junius in 1850.
Most of the female Junes in 1850’s index are probably mistakes. It’s difficult to distinguish June from Jane or Irene in old handwriting, and the great majority of 1850’s Junes turn out to really be Jane or Irene when other records are consulted.
Some 19th century slaveholders named slaves of both sexes after months. The oldest woman I’ve found in the 1850 census really named June was June McAfee, a Black woman in Jeffersonville, Indiana, born in Virginia in 1773. In 1870, the first census after emancipation, 437 of the 713 male Junes and 466 of the 1,933 female Junes were Black.
The first non-Black female June I’m sure of was Ohio-born June Rose Colby (1856-1941). Her parents Lewis and Celestia liked creative botanical names. Her older sister and brother were Vine and Branch. Her first name was inspired by her June 4 birthday.
In 1886, June Rose Colby became the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in English literature at the University of Michigan. After 1892, she was a professor at Illinois State Normal University, and became a leader of Illinois’ women’s suffrage movement.
Though Colby published several books on literature, she didn’t help the name June spread since she used “J. Rose Colby” professionally.
Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name “June”!
Name News: The Ultimate NHL Team Name Rankings
A recent poll of almost 10,000 people has ranked the names of NHL teams (that’s ice-hockey, for those of you who, like me, are not North American!). Leading the poll were the San Jose Sharks and trailing behind, in 32nd place, were Minnesota Wild.
Read more about this story, and the full ranking, here.
Announcement: Best Article of the Year 2024 in Names: A Journal of Onomastics
Siyue Li (Zhejiang University, CHINA)
Le Cheng (Zhejiang University, CHINA)
Chunyu Kit (City University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG)
Each calendar year, the members of the NAMES Editorial Board review the articles that appeared in the previous volume to determine the winners of the Best Article of the Year. All article publications are judged across the following three criteria: (1) creativity and originality; (2) potential scholarly contribution to onomastics; and (3) writing style and organization.
The article that was selected as the top publication for 2024 was contributed by a scientific team of three researchers: Siyue Li (Zhejiang University, CHINA), Chunyu Kit (City University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG), and Le Cheng (Zhejiang University, CHINA). Their article is entitled “Unveiling the Landscape of Onomastics from 1972 to 2022: A Bibliometric Analysis” appears in NAMES vol 72, no 3. As the title implies, the investigation provides an intriguing diachronic look at the publication trends in onomastic research over the past 6 decades. This innovative and insightful piece investigation can be read for free.
Interested readers are also invited to visit the NAMES website where all publications featured in NAMES are available to the general public.
CSSN-SCO Conference (May 31 May) + Annual Business Meeting (June 7 June)
The countdown to Congress 2025 is on! We’re just 19 days away from kicking offtheannual conference of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names (CSSN). CSSN has accepted 17 engaging presentations covering a wide range of onomastics topics over the two conference days (see programme attached). Join us on May 31 and June 1 online or at George Brown College, Toronto. To register, please visit the Congress registration page.
The annual business meeting of the CSSN-SCO will be held on Saturday, June 7, 2025, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) on Zoom. The agenda and the Zoom link for the meeting will be sent out at least one week prior to the meeting.
Call for Papers: “The social life of names and naming practices in migration contexts” (Paris, 20-21 November 2025)
From the organizers:
Names, whether they refer to people, places, businesses, languages etc., are not mere labels disconnected from a social fabric, they are “a repository of accumulated meanings, practices, and beliefs, a powerful linguistic means of asserting identity (or defining someone else) and inhabiting a social world” (Rymes 1999: 165).… Read More
Name News: Why ‘American’ True Crime?
A recent Vox article explores why so many US true crime shows include ‘American’ in their title. Our very own Laurel Sutton suggests its both an attempt to emphasise the distinctively American nature of the crimes under discussion, but also to draw on the deliberatly large audience for whom ‘American’ means different things.
You can read more on this story here.
“What’s in a Name,” a Radio Show on Personal Names from 1A and NPR Station WAMU
“Hello, My Name Is:” (Photo by Travis Wise, CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
.jpg){kind=link}
Prof. I.M. Nick, a past ANS President and current Editor-In-Chief of Names: A Journal of Onomastics, appeared on the NPR program 1A from Washington, DC station WAMU last Wednesday. The show, titled “What’s in a Name”, asked two important questions about the personal names that we use: “what role do names play in society today? And how should we think about what we call each other going forward?” Listen to the full show, including Prof. Nick’s interview, online over at the1A.org.