Thursday, June 17, 2010

Researching Amelia

Steve and I knew we loved the name Amelia long before we actually had an Amelia.

When Steve pulled off his sweet and elaborate marriage proposal, we were on Amelia Island in sunny Florida. And my paternal grandmother, whom I was only able to know until I was about 6 years old, was also an Amelia. The name also qualified as one that would be unique enough, but not so unique that we had to endure comments from others.

We quibbled over boy names for a long time once I was pregnant. To this day, we still do not have a boy name we can agree upon. So it was quite a relief when the ultrasound tech said those magic words, "it's a girl!". Immediately, she went from an unknown little bean to our Amelia.

I know I looked up the meaning of her name back then, but today I felt like looking at it again. Baby Center's "Baby Names Finder" provides some fun information about names.

Here are some fun facts about the oh-so-fabulous name AMELIA:

Latin origin.

It means "industrious" (definitely true for my Amelia!).

In 1881, Amelia was at it's peak. There were 2,377 babies per million given this name.

Around 1904, probably close to when my grandma Amelia had been born, the name was on the decline. It hit a low in 1969, with only 263 babies per million given the name Amelia.

Now the name is on the rise again. In 2008, Amelia's birth year, Amelia was ranked #68 in popularity for baby girl names. In 20090, that rose even higher to #55.

Currently 2,311 babies per million are named Amelia.

And of course, the most famous Amelia was Ms. Amelia Earhart. Born July 24, 1897, she lived 40 exciting, "rough and tumble" years before disappearing on a flight in 1937. She was an aviation pioneer, and quite a spunky lady.

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