The most popular baby names in Scotland this year have been revealed. Lewis has returned to the top spot for boys, pushing last year’s winner, Jack, into second place, the Registrar General for Scotland said.
For girls, Sophie is the most popular name for the third year in a row with Emma remaining in second place. Third is Lucy and fourth is Katie.
Meanwhile, the biggest climbers in the 2007 baby name charts were Jayden for boys and Summer for girls.
The Telegraph today features an article on Mohammed’s assault on the top boy’s names in the UK. The name, when all variants are added together, is just a few hundred from top spot.
Mohammed is on course to become the most popular boys’ name in England and Wales by next year.
The high birth rate among Muslim families mean the name is set to overtake the current favourite name for baby boys, Jack.
An analysis of names compiled by the Office for National Statistics shows that when the different spelling variations of the name are added together, it is just a few hundred off the top place.
It’s interesting to consider the effect that one’s name, or label as it were, has on day to day life. Names can certainly cause people to stand out, blend in, appear masculine, feminine, intelligent, sporty or even nerdy.
The question is, do names have a more profound effect on one of the most fundamental of human pursuits - that of education? Research published last month suggests they just might.
“Using 15 years (1990–2004) of grade point averages for business school grads, they found that students whose names began with C or D earned lower GPAs than those whose names began with A or B. The Carters and Dorns performed worse than average (based on students with grade-neutral initials such as M and N); the Ashes and Bakers didn’t do significantly better than the norm. The former had such “an unconscious fondness for these letters, [they] were slightly less successful at achieving their conscious academic goals than were students with other initials.”
So according to that logic, Astara would be a great choice for those looking to seed their child’s academic prowess.
Robert Rodriguez. A fairly normal sounding name, boasting alliteration of the double-R’d kind. Not much to see here. Or so I thought…
…Until today, however, when I discovered the famed director’s love of the letter R. See below:
Rocket,
Racer,
Rebel,
Rogue,
Rhiannon.
A random list of words from the same section of the dictionary? The cast of a superhero flick? Nope - Robert Rodriguez’s kids. All I’ll say is that Rhiannon got off lightly!
A recent post over at TeamSugar features a great compilation of celebrity baby names, including some gems that I hadn’t come across before.
Pirate
Jonathan Davis, lead singer of Korn’s son
Tu Morrow
Rob Morrow’s daughter
Reign Beau
Ving Rhames’s daughter
Moxie CrimeFighter
Penn of Penn & Teller’s daughter
Jermajesty
Jermaine Jackson’s son
Satchel
Woody Allen & Mia Farrow’s son
Dweezil
Frank Zappa’s son
Milla Jovovich has updated her website with her reasoning for Ever Gabo, the name of her new baby.
“The name Ever is a Scottish boy’s name, Paul has Scottish blood in him (not to mention two tartans in his family!) so we wanted to give her a name that reflected her “celtic” roots, while her middle name Gabo -pronounced “Gabeau”- is a mixture of my parents names! The first two letters are after my mom’s first name, Galina and the last two letters are after my dad’s first name Bogie!”
Click the thumbnail below for a better view of little Ever!
I just stumbled across this great video from Chaser’s War. It presents what I think is a great idea - baby name wardens with a public presence issuing on-the-spot fines! Brilliant.
