Baby boy’s super name made the top 1,000 list
Kal-El isn’t the only surprise in the statistics
Naming a baby is tricky. Typically, mom or dad will suggest a name and hope it’s not shot down.
Austin Caira was watching “Smallville,” a TV show about Superman’s high school and young adult days, and took a liking to Kal-El, the man of steel’s birth name on the planet Krypton.
Austin suggested it to his pregnant wife, Angelina. Faster than a speeding bullet, she said no way would this be their son’s name.
“After a while of saying it, my wife started to like it. Then we eventually stuck with it,” Austin said, adding that he found a reference to the name also meaning voice of God.
In December, the Franklin couple’s baby was born strong and feisty. “The name just fits him perfectly,” Angelina said.
As you can guess, Kal-El was not among the most popular names for 2017 announced this month, but it did make the top 1,000 names for boys, 879th place to be exact. The search function does not allow hyphens, but Kalel is a name given to a couple hundred boys nationwide each year.
The top five boy names are Liam, Noah, William, James and Logan. That’s right, my name has clawed its way back into fourth place. James enjoyed the number one spot from 1940 to 1952, and it was second in 1954 when it was inked on my birth certificate, before falling to 19th most popular in 1999.
The top five girl names are Emma, Olivia, Ava, Isabella and Sophia. Amer-
ica loves its girl name ending in A these days. Those five names in various order have formed the top quintet for nearly a decade. Before that, Jennifer, Jessica, Ashley and Emily had a pretty good run.
Mary was the number one girl name from 1900, when the Social Security Administration’s list begins, until 1946. And then it alternates between second and first until 1965. No name, girl or boy, can touch that run, though Michael reigned for 45 years beginning in 1954. Mary has fallen to 126th most popular now; Michael is 12th.
Wisconsin’s list of top girl names substitutes Evelyn and Charlotte for Isabella and Sophia. The number one name on the Wisconsin boys list, Henry, is ranked 18th nationally.
Names come and go. Brittany, for instance, peaked at third most popular for girls in 1991, but it’s 712th now. Britney, spelled like the singer whose star dimmed with time, got a big bounce at the height of her popularity in the late 1990s and then fell past 900th place by 2010.
Our attention span can be pretty short. Elsa had its best year in 2014, the year after the snow queen of that name from the movie “Frozen” was a favorite of little girls. But that one-year bump of 240 places up to 286th quickly fizzled. The name is now at 683rd.
Melania, our first lady’s name, took a huge leap from 1,650th place in 2016 to 930th a year later. Other girl names that gained quite a bit, even though they also remain way down the list, include Ensley, Oaklynn and Dream. For boys it’s Wells, Kairo and Caspian.
Let’s watch the 2018 list to see if anyone captivated by the story of Stormy Daniels ill-advisedly picks a porn star name for a child. Stormy for a girl cracked the top 1,000 between 1991 and 1997, but never got above 800th place.
Barack, by the way, never caught on as a name for boys. Even after President Barack Obama’s two terms in the White House, it did not make the top 1,000. Donald was a hot name in 1934 when it peaked at number six. It’s been all downhill to 488th place now, though maybe it’s not too late to make the name great again.
Still in the dumper for its second century in a row: Adolf. Judas and Herod also nowhere on the radar. Giannis? Nothing yet.
A bad hurricane can do severe damage to its name. Katrina, for example, has been in freefall since the bad press of 2005, falling 700 positions to 942nd place in 2012 and then disappearing from the top 1,000 altogether.
I can’t resist checking how Laurel and Yanny are doing. If a voice inside your head is saying Laurel, it’s a name that peaked in 1956 at 241st place and now sits at 597th.
For you Yanny people, sorry but it didn’t make the list, probably because it isn’t really a name.