Name In Coffin: Gertrude

Gertrude is a female name of old german origin that means "strength of a spear". Gertrude is the name of a saint, Saint Gertrude The Great, who is pictured above - she wrote a book called The Revelations of Saint Gertrude, which talked about the revelations she received from Jesus. Obviously it has some more modern bearers, actress Gertrude Lawrence and writer Gertrude Stein for example. In literature, we have Queen Gertrude from Hamlet, who was Hamlet's mother and also the queen of Denmark.

Gertrude is a name that a lot of us have on our family tree, as it was extremely common 100 years ago or so. These days, it would be an odd experience to meet a toddler carrying this name. Let's see the SSA graph:

Name In Coffin: Adolph

The name Adolph is of old german origin, and it means "noble wolf" or "majestic wolf". It is the name of a saint, and also a german and swedish royal name. A famous bearer is filmmaker Adolph Zukor, pictured above, who founded Paramount Pictures back in 1912.

Contrary to popular belief, the name had been downtrending long before World War II first started. Although that war may be to blame for the name's terrible numbers today, with a very low chance of making a comeback. Adolf Hitler is still well known man today, and since WWII is a prominent subject in every history class (and will most likely remain one), his name is certainly going to stick around. Yes, he spells it differently, but Adolf is just a variant spelling of Adolph, and pronounced the exact same way.

Name In Coffin: Fanny

Fanny, as a name, is a nickname form of Frances, and means "from France". As with many nicknames used as full names, some are everlasting, such as Charlie or Lily, others fall from grace. Fanny falls into the latter category, which might be surprising for some since nicknames such as Danny are still in vogue. However, it's not so much it's sound that has become outdated, it's the meaning the name has in slang talk that has probably sealed it's fate as a coffin baby name.

"Fanny", as most of you know, means your backside aka your butt. Probably not the best meaning to name a girl these days. Even worse, go to the UK or Australia, and "fanny" over there means the female sexual organ aka vagina. Heck even fanny packs are seen as unfashionable and outdated these days.

Name In Coffin: Madison

This name, like it's ending suggests, means "son of" - in this particular case, "son of Maud or son of Matthew". Any name that ends in "son" has a masculine meaning, but it seems these days that isn't important when naming a daughter. Madison has become the iconic "son" name for girls, and made the "son" ending a trend that seems to be getting more and more popular these days.

So what started this trend on girls? A movie. In 1984, a film starting Tom Hanks called "Splash" starred a mermaid who happened to adopt this name when walking through Madison Avenue in New York. It just goes to show you anything can change your perception on a name, and even make it skyrocket in popularity out of the blue. But sadly, just like with most male names that get adopted by girls, this name started to sink for boys and exited the chart soon after.

So let's see how Madison performed for boys:

Name In Coffin: Courtney

Courtney is a name of English origin meaning "domain of Curtis". However, it first came to England from France (Normandy), and was spelt Courtenay, back in the Middle Ages.

Courtney was of male origin, but has since several decade ago become unisex. Right now, with so many female celebrities named after it, like Courtney Thorne-Smith, Courteney Cox, Courtney Love and Kourtney Kardashian, it probably won't be turning blue anytime soon. The most popular male sponsor of the name might be artist Courtney Taylor-Taylor.


Here is how Courtney has performed for boys:

Name In Coffin: Lynn

The name Lynn is of English origin and it means "waterfall, pool". Lynn was commonly used as a male name in the early 20th century, before it became feminised. Today it's also losing ground on the girls side, in fact, the name was last seen on the girl rank back in 1996, so why not bring it back to the boys side? If girls steal, so can boys.

Anyway, here is the popularity of the name Lynn for boys: