Expert guides, trends, and data-driven analysis on baby and pet names.
Broadway-derived names underperform film-derived names by an order of magnitude. Wicked Part I will lift Cynthia, Ariana, and Gracie. Elphaba and Glinda will stay footnotes.
Pet names attached to fictional characters work because the characters stay still. Mufasa is no longer staying still. Owners didn't consent to the prequel.
We have data on names that rise after political wins. We have very little on names that travel with political losses. The category deserves attention.
Quincy Jones died at 91. His name's peak in Black American naming matches his cultural peak almost exactly. Almost no one has written it down.
Freddie Freeman hit the World Series' first walk-off grand slam. The name 'Freddie' has been falling for 90 years. The reasons aren't time-related.
When a famous Liam dies young, parents of 30,000 living American Liams have a private decision to make. The decision is not in any naming book.
A year after Saltburn, Felix is at its highest American ranking in 80 years. Parents are betting that 'lucky' will outlast a fictional bathtub.
Two weeks after Helene struck, displaced shelter animals are arriving in Virginia and Maryland. Adopters are giving them names that record the disaster.
Mateo, Luna, Mia, Sofia: the Spanish-coded names dominating American charts share a survival trait. They pronounce the same way under English mishandling.
Olivia Munn announced her daughter Méi June via surrogate. Reddit called it clumsy. The name actually does the inheritance work Munn's body could not.
A Thai pygmy hippo named for a meatball became the world's most-photographed animal in September. American shelters are watching whether non-English names finally cross over.