It looks like baby name August is increasing the power of the stars.
On Saturday, Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, announced that they had named their newborn son August Philip Hawke Brooksbank. On Tuesday, singer and actor Mandy Moore and her musician husband Taylor Goldsmith revealed that they chose the same name for their baby, August Harrison Goldsmith.
His name choices reflect the increase in popularity that August has experienced during this century. The Social Security Administration’s list of baby names reveals that August has gone from number 673 in 2004 to number 167 in 2019 (the most recent year of available data).
“August is a name that combines deep history, it’s an ancient Roman name, with a modern, non-traditional male image,” Pamela Redmond Satran, co-founder of the popular baby name website Nameberry, told HuffPost. “While it’s not really gender neutral, it’s sometimes used for girls.”
In 2019, babies named August totaled 2,366, up from 2,283 in 2018 and 2,056 in 2017. The name even appeared on the list of 1,000 best baby names for the first time in 2018 at number 898 (with 298 registered) and then at number 844 in 2019 (with 317 in the books).
August is one of the favorites of the vintage. It reached its popularity in 1901 at number 141 and then steadily dropped from the list in the following decades to the lowest place at number 930 in 1983. Satran noted that 1983 is the time when many of the parents were born. current.
“Normally, people don’t choose names of their own generation or certainly not that of their parents, but will look back four generations or 100 years,” he said. “In 1920, August was located near where it is currently in popularity, around number 200.”
Famous Augusts past and present include playwrights August Wilson and August Strindberg, musician August Alsina and academic August Coppola, brother of Francis Ford Coppola and father of Nicolas Cage.
Brooksbank and Goldsmith babies join a fairly long list of famous descendants named August. Dave Matthews, Mariska Hargitay, June Diane Raphael, Lena Olin, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ralphie May named their children August (or Auguste in the case of Olin). Garth Brooks has a daughter named August, as does actor “Office” Oscar Nunez.
Other pop culture moments for the name include the 2007 film “August Rush” and Taylor Swift’s song “August” from her surprise album “Folklore” of 2020.
“So many celebrities along with other parents have chosen August because he manages to be new and old at the same time, breaking with conventional male names like William and James, but also being deeply rooted,” Satran said. “It’s kind of a name“ Make your cake and eat it too ”… Plus, August has a big meaning, literally,“ great! “
Moore’s baby announcement indicated that she and Goldsmith are calling their son “Gus.” June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer also call their son August “Gus.” Gus was quite popular as a full name for boys from the early 20th century until he left the list of the top 1,000 in the late 1970s. It reappeared in 2018 at number 998, but not the following year. Only 195 babies were named Gus in 2019.
“Parents like Gus as a rhythm-changing nickname, but they suspect it’s a full name,” said Laura Wattenberg, founder of namerology.com and author of “The Baby Name Wizard”.” he told HuffPost. “This has helped fuel the rise of August. August has also been on the rise in England, but is still much less common than in the United States. An English Gus is more likely to come from the full name Angus “.
Another fairly common nickname for August is “Auggie”, which is what the characters of Cory and Topanga Matthews called their son August in the sitcom “Girl Meets World”. Also, the main character in RJ Palacio’s popular novel “Wonder” is August “Auggie” Pullman.
Similar names like Augusta, Augustus, and Augustine have had varied trips to the United States. The path of Augustus has been similar to the popularity of Augustus – early twentieth century, followed by decline and then revitalization in recent decades. The latest SSA data places Augustus at number 467 for the boys.
After dropping the list of the top 1,000 in the late 1980s, Augustine reappeared in 2013 and, more recently, reached number 731 for boys. Augusta’s name was left out of the girls ’list in 1945 and has remained in decline, with only 49 babies receiving that name in 2019.
With these latest bursts of popularity, August seems to be the most popular name in the United States, ahead of June (No. 201 for girls, with 1,505 registered for babies in 2019) and April (No. 493 for girls). to girls, with 633 registered in 2019). And, as the latest celebrities who have chosen the name have shown, you don’t have to deny August to be named August.