Popular names for newborns come and go, particularly for girls, and they also run in cycles. Babycenter.com said that 10 years ago, the most popular names were Emily and Jacob. According to the Social Security Administration, in 2012 it was Sophia and Jacob.
But other circumstances can come into play. For example, according to Alabama news site AL.com, the name Mercedes surged in popularity for newborn girls in Alabama after Mercedes-Benz announced that it would build a plant in the state in September 1993. The following year, 31 infant girls were named Mercedes, according to an AL.com database of baby names used in Alabama from 1910 to 2012.
AL.com said that's the most of any year for the name Mercedes since it first appeared in 1988 among baby names used in the state. In recent years, parents have chosen that name for only about 10 girls a year.
The website also noted that Mercedes-Benz is credited with “birthing Alabama's auto industry,” since it was the first foreign automaker to build an assembly plant in the state. Production began in January 1997 with the first-generation ML-Class SUV. Honda, Hyundai and Toyota have since followed the German company’s lead, but AL.com reported that its database “shows no parents have been daring enough to name their child after the other three automakers with a major presence in the state." However, names with fewer than five instances per year are not listed, so it's quite possible some poor kid is named Hyundai.
There's no way to know for sure whether the German automaker’s presence in the state influenced parents to name their daughters Mercedes, especially since the name is a traditional girl's name in the Latino community, meaning “mercies.” Mercedes-Benz took its name from the daughter of an Austrian businessman who bought cars from one of the companies that preceded Mercedes in its present form.
Auto-related names are nothing new. Plenty of auto enthusiasts have named their kids – both boys and girls – Shelby. One example is Lauren Fix, aka “The Car Coach,” whose daughter Shelby Fix is the “Teen Car Coach.”
AL.com said that Ford emerged as a boy's name in Alabama during the 1920s and then waned before making a comeback in 2007. The website added there “has been a handful of Chevys … during the past decade,” as well as girls named Lexus and Porsche and boys named Bentley.
So far no one has named a baby Tesla that we know of – or Model S.
[Source: AL.com; Photo: Flickr/Bran Van Damme]
Source: MSN
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