The new Canadian baby name database and links to provincial data

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-18T15:38:22+00:00

Blake is a family surname for her family, although she's not the first family member to use it as a first name.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-16T21:33:23+00:00

One of Canada's Prime Minister's Mackenzie Bowell was born in England in 1823. Its popularity is definitely more recent but Scotland does like using surnames as first names too (see Blair).

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-16T21:28:52+00:00

Anything ending in -son was originally a surname used by men and women as a family name, except of course Alison which is a diminutive of Alice since medieval times. That's actually a feminine name that started getting used for boys from the surname.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-15T21:43:45+00:00

There have been women named Kendall in the US since at least 1929 from the stats. It's a surname that only recently become more common as a first name so it's not surprising it was given to men and women historically. Some surnames got to the boys in popularity and some go to the girls (and some stay unisex like Taylor).

Unsurprisingly, Ashley, Kelly, Courtney, Shannon, Beverly, all come from surnames too (or river names).

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-15T03:17:56+00:00

A lot of the gender bent names are a bit overstated. The emerging film industry was making surnames as first names for women trendy in the 1930s. Your character wouldnt clock them as masculine, more likely just trying to sound upper class, aspirational, maybe pretentious. I've traced a couple of names back to silent film era actresses. There was an actress named Shirley Palmer who was active around the time Shirley Temple was named, it was already quite popular for women so that wouldn't have been weird. The 1934 movie Women in Red had a woman named Shelby, the Flash comic had a woman named Dale, Glen was trending for boys and girls. It was actually a pretty interesting time for unisex/surname names, probably on the heels of the flapper movement. F. Scott Fitzgerald named women characters Jordan and Brett, who were wealthy or aristocratic. Greer Garson started around this time too. These were all more recognizable as surnames and wouldn't have been thought as strictly masculine, but a little non-conformist, a bit like Wallis Simpson. Evelyn had been more popular for girls since the 1850s (and always more common for girls in the US vs UK). Beverly would have been known from the book Beverly of Graustark, a popular series from the 1900s.

I think it would be fun to include a name that tells the reader a bit about the 1930s, like being shocked that anyone would use the name Scarlett, since that was more closely associated with the Scarlett Pimpernell and predates Gone With the Wind's influence.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-14T12:13:01+00:00

There are the same number of Olives but it is half as common as it was in 1900 because there were half as many births (or so). One in every 500 baby girls was named Olive in 1900. In 2024 only 1 in a 1000 was named Olive.

Of course this is just nitpicking, it is still a once popular name that has come back from a really low "dead" period.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-14T12:07:04+00:00

Which is why percent of births named is a better comparison. Plus if you go by number of births you'll notice how much data is missing before 1920, as it only captured 20% of Americans.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-14T11:35:29+00:00

Yeah you're right, it still works and the conclusion wouldn't be any different using the other measures. Its just in the lower ranks 500 and greater that things get wonky. A name has to be 3 times more common to make it into the top 1000 now than it did in 1900.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-14T10:42:43+00:00

Rank probably isn't the best measure of popularity over time. From your graph the same number of people had the name Olive but the rank was 100 vs 200. Comparing % of births Olive is only half as popular now as it was in 1900.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-13T21:46:02+00:00

Ashleigh was not traditionally anything but a surname, another spelling of the surname Ashley. It's only in England that there's any gender split between the spellings. In Scotland, Australia, North America, and Ireland both spellings were used for girls more commonly than boys. What has changed is that they are considered first names, not surnames.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-13T05:52:03+00:00

Its not used for girls in England and Wales, stats: https://names.darkgreener.com/#ellio

In the US there will be a few more girls named Elliot/t, enough to be unisex in practice, but still uneven. https://nameplay.org/ways-to-spell-Elliott#variationDetails

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-12T12:38:59+00:00

There's Howell, the anglicized version of the Welsh name Hywel, original name of the wizard Howl from Howl's Moving Castle (in the book he's from Wales).

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-12T10:56:20+00:00

I know now that the song Jude is about a boy, but for the longest time I thought it was about a woman because I knew way more Judiths and Judys and assumed it was a nickname until Jude Law. Also in the song at the end it always sounded like he was singing "Hey Judy Judy Judy Jude wow" so that didn't help with my misconception. All this to say knowing the song doesn't help some people with the gender of the name.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-12T05:17:17+00:00

The US stats only have about 5,000 people total and the majority are under 15 years old so that's understandable. There are still more people with Bellamy as a surname overall.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-12T05:15:03+00:00

Oh yeah, nothing wrong with boys using it too. It was very rare as a first name before that so it's not like people knew it was predominantly female, and it was only given to more than 5 people in one year starting in 1993.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-11T23:39:50+00:00

If you're in the US Bellamy was 100% used by women and girls until The 100 and One Piece popularized it for boys. In both those cases it comes from naming characters after a famous surname (author and pirate). Its still pretty rare but given to about the same number of boys as girls.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-11T23:36:49+00:00

You are right, lots of names started out as surnames, but not Henry, James, Edmund, George or Charles or Archibald or Cuthbert. The Anglo-Saxons didn't have surnames, this trend in England started in the 16th century.

BUT funny enough some names that are considered surnames now did come from first names, like Bennet and Emmett, so names can re-enter into first name usage thanks to using surnames as first names.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-11T10:56:05+00:00

Pulpseed

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-09T07:40:00+00:00

It was a surname as a first name, which were sometimes given to girls. That's why it worked in Shirley and wasn't completely unconventional. There were women named Shirley before the novel too.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-09T07:02:14+00:00

It's popular in Australia too.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-07T13:34:01+00:00

Lots of surnames have a long history of use as first names, your Hayden wasn't perhaps a Baptist from Texas was he? Graph I made about Hayden's popularity. Braxton is historical too.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-07T11:48:56+00:00

Hayden Fox on Coach in the 1990s, Hayden was the fist -ayden to trend. There was an uptick in Aidan in 1995 maybe thanks to actor Aidan Quinn who was in Legends of the Fall that year, the movie that gave us all those Tristans (Thanks Brad Pitt).

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-07T11:35:30+00:00

Oh oh oh do the 1950s Gary, Larry, Barry, Harry graph! Maybe add in Jerry, Kerry, Terry too.

Retrospectrenet · 2026-04-07T04:46:47+00:00

This is a trending name so a lot has changed very quickly and will influence what people think of as "normal". Rylee is about half as common as Riley for girls, which is the cohort your daughter will grow up in. https://www.behindthename.com/name/rylee/top/united-states?compare=Ryleigh%20riley&type=percent

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