The boy names list, from Aabir to Zaidan

Every year around this time, the Alberta government bestows upon its winter-weary residents a gift: every baby name in Alberta in the past year. 

I say it’s a gift because it provides a sometimes revealing, sometimes baffling and often hilarious snapshot of this province and its parents. This week, let’s look at boy names. (Sorry, that should be ‘babies assigned male at birth’ names).

There were more than six thousand different baby boy names registered last year. The top 10 list is so predictable, it’s almost set in amber: Noah, Liam, Theodore, Oliver, blah blah blah. It’s much more fun to do a deep dive into the names list. 

The disturbing trend towards naming boys after American locales continues: Abilene, Alaska, Boston (12 times!) Dallas (11 times!), Denver (11 times!) Memphis, Montana. At least there’s a little Canadian content with Jasper (69 times), and one lone Lakeland. 

I am baffled by the continuing popularity of Nixon (28 times!). If we can name our kids after one disgraced ex-U.S. president, can Trump be far behind? 

The ethnic diversity of Alberta is on full display in the baby list (22 kids named Gurbaaz; 33 named Hamza), which will be a challenge for teachers of the very near future. Imagine for a moment if  Chimebunlemenu, Chimeremeze and Chimetubemugo end up in the same class. And imagine how many times little baby Isstsiipsskinniia and Ayooluwatomiwa will have to correct people about the spelling of their names (my apologies in advance if I already did). I hope there are easy nicknames available.

Hats off, I guess, to the parents who dug deep into the history books for original names. There’s a D’Artagnan and Leviathan, a Macbeth and an Odysseus, a Poseidon and an Excalibur. 

While some parents went with length (Joseph.Tristan.Bugnet), others went the very simple route, like J., Jj, Kc and Kd. 

And then there are questions, so many questions.

Are the parents of Ajax (7 times) fans of the famous soccer club, or the cleaning product?

If you’re going to name your kid after a fast food, why pick Arby? Why not Harvey?

The parents of Divine, Lucious, Majesty, Symphony, Great, Excellent, Everest, Artist and Billionaire are apparently expecting big things from their little ones, although I’m not sure what to expect from Individual.

What happens if Riot is timid and shy?

Do the parents of Despot even know the meaning of the word?

Can Corny ever be cool? 

And just because you name your boy Maverick, as 94 people did, (or Maverik, Maverick, Mavericks and Mavrik)  doesn’t mean he will become one.

Four names stand out in the thousands of creative and sometimes ridiculous monikers. 

I know we are living in a post-gender world, but Elizabeth for a boy? Get ready for a lifetime of ridicule, Liz. I hope that the parents of little Adolph named him after a great-grandparent or something, anything other than you-know-who. And there’s a little Trudeau toddling around somewhere in Alberta, and for his sake I hope the current Mr. Trudeau is no longer in power by the time he goes to school. (Please, God, please.)

But the single weirdest name on the list has to be … Anonymous. 

Well, I suppose it’s better than Maurice, which mercifully appeared exactly zero times. 

Next week, girl names.