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Popularity Leaps - Eloise, Sloane, Bentley, others
There's a few name on the US 1000 list that experienced huge leaps in popularity over the last year. I identified most of them were trendy variations and a few were celebrity-inspired (Knox), but couldn't account for some of the names. Does anybody know why these may have experienced sudden leaps in popularity?Eloise (+385)
Giuliana (+329)
Sloane (+291)
Quinn (+232)Bentley (+414)
Aarav (+246)
Bode (new)

This message was edited 7/8/2011, 4:31 PM

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Since Aarav seemed to be likely to be a South Asian name, I googled it along with Bollywood, and immediately came up with many references to Aarav, the son of Akshay Kumar, who is one of the most popular Bollywood actors at the moment.So this seems to be the first example I'm aware of where a Bollywood "celebrity baby name" may have had an influence. Certainly some kids of Hollywood celebrities, such as Angelina Jolie's son Maddox and Eddie Murphy's daughter Bria, have sparked sudden surges in use of their names before, so it shouldn't be a surprise that people in the South Asian immigrant community can also be affected by similar publicity.
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But where did Akshay Kumar get Aarav from? In Sanskrit, it would mean either a cry (or related meanings), ultimately from the prefix A- implying closeness or limit, the root ru meaning to sound and cognate with the IE root in English raucous; or as a loan word, it could mean a person from Arabia. Does it instead perhaps mean a pleasing sound in some Indian language, I wonder.Or is this influenced by some other name (e.g. aurava), or from some other language altogether?
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You mean to say it is kind of a "Sanskrit way" of calling " an Arab." Funny...isn't it. I wonder if this helps you with something http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_meaning_of_the_word_'aarav'I have these thoughts of converting "California" to "Kelipoorna" (that could mean playful in Sanskrit) and stuff like that.

This message was edited 8/7/2011, 10:39 PM

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But I do not know where they got the Sanskrit meaning from. It is not in the dictionary, the halant is almost certainly incorrect, and I have never seen it used with that meaning in Sanskrit. So, I am not sure that Sanskrit meaning is correct. (Yes, changing other words to Sanskrit pronounciation is a very old habit: the Greek names of the constellations were re-pronounced in Sanskrit as I describe on my page http://tanmoy.tripod.com/naksatra.html#solar)
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Re:Guiliana and Sloane are also from popular television shows.
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Where is Sloane from?Okay, so with Google I was able to figure out that Giuliana is probably Giuliana Rancic from E News. But I can't figure out where Sloane is from. The only Sloane I can think of is from Alias, and that was on years ago (and he was quite a nasty character).
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Another possible namesake is the author Sloane Crosley who has two popular books of humorous essays: “I was told there’d be cake” and “How’d you get this number?”
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There's a decorator named Sloane on the PBS Create channel. But that's probably not where people are getting it from. lolNever heard of E News. But I've never heard of a lot of stuff because we don't have/watch cable channels.
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Re:There is a female character named Sloane on the HBO series Entourage.
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Re:I've never heard of that show before (don't have HBO), but that's probably where it's from. Strange how names catch on so quickly...
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Eloise, Quinn, BodeEloise I'd imagine is just because it fits the trend of cute old-fashioned names. I know two Eloise's under 3, and have seen it on peoples' lists, so I think it will be getting even more popular.Quinn might be because of Glee.Bode is the name of an American skiier (Bode Miller), so I guess that could be where it's from. And it just has that country-boy sort of feel and sound, which is popular.

This message was edited 7/9/2011, 4:50 AM

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I'm not a sports follower, so I wouldn't know Bode Miller. That explanation makes sense.I can believe what you say about Eloise. I like it myself. It's nice to know that an name can become popular again without celebrity / pop-cultural influence.
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That's easy!Quinn jumped because of Glee's popularity. I like Quinn for a girl, but it's a shame that it's gotten trendy.Bentley got super-trendy because of the rabid popularity of the show 16 and Pregnant, which features a baby with this name.
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Thanks. I'm not very familiar with Glee, so I didn't know there was a character named Quinn on the show. Claudia also posted about 16 and Pregnant below. I didn't think that was a very popular series, but I apparently know very little about what's on television right now.
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One of the mothers on "Teen Mom" named her baby Bentley.
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Thanks! I had only thought of the car originally. I'm surprised a name known for being on a show like that would take off nationwide like it did.
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