March Name Sightings

It’s the last day of the month…time for a rare name round-up! Below you’ll see the rarest names I spotted in my community this March. The children’s names really shine like the sun, though that honor also goes to Helia further below…excuse the pun.

Children/Pre-teens:

• Hill (b) – just 5 boys were named Hill in 2016. A rather unusual geographic name which I’ve only previously seen as a surname. There’s always the off-chance that it could be short for Hilary, but that died out as a men’s name in the 1990s.
• Anoushka – 12 girls in 2016. This name was mildly trendy a decade ago, peaking at 58 girls in 2008.  Anoushka is sometimes treated as a variant of a Russian nickname for Anna, though one of its most famous bearers (Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Ravi Shankar) is decidedly not Russian. I don’t think the Anoushka I encountered is either…I’m wondering if there’s another language source for the name.
  
• Tryphena – 5 girls in 2016. Tryphena is an extremely rare Biblical Greek name!
  

Other sightings:

• Helia – 6 girls in 2016. Helia is the feminine form of Helios, which is the name of the ancient Greek sun god.
  
• Dellabell (deceased) – Dellabell has never appeared in SSA birth data, though if you add an ‘e’ to the end I can see where it could fit in with current naming trends. Della was popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, is on the rise again, and was given to 247 girls in 2016.
  
• Miroslav (middle-aged) – 8 boys in 2016. Miroslav is a classic, medieval Slavic name that is still popular (though falling) in the Czech Republic. The feminine form Miroslava is slightly more popular in the U.S.; 16 girls were given the name in 2016.
  
• Eryck – unusual spelling of Eric, didn’t chart in 2016 (last time was 2015). However, Deryck and Maveryck both appeared in the data.
• Alleyne – Wow, it last charted in 1939! I can’t tell if this is meant as a variant of Ellen or an older feminine form of Alan.
  
• Tierney – 62 girls in 2016. The given name Tierney came about in the 1950s, and it’s still occasionally used. Tierney peaked in 1993, when it was given to 172 girls.
  

Thoughts? Favorites? Have you spotted any rare and awesome names this month? Let me know!

Previous rare name round-ups in 2018:

• February Name Sightings
• January Name Spotting