My great-great-grandfather’s name is popular again

A former cat of mine was named Silas after my great-great-grandfather, Silas Buck Goss. My oldest ancestor photo is a portrait of Silas with a gray beard and a white shirt, black jacket, and cravat. 

Silas is significant in family history because he and his wife, Hannah Abbott Goss, relocated the Gosses from New England to the Midwest. I wasn’t paying tribute to Silas, however, when I named my cat after him. I just liked the name — for a pet.

It comes as a surprise that contemporary Americans like the name for their human offspring. According to Nameberry, Silas was the fourth most popular baby boy’s name for first half of 2023.

After being popular in my great-great-grandfather’s time, the name Silas nearly disappeared. By the 1960s fewer than 1 in 1,000 boys born in the United States were given the name. Then it started to crawl back up, steeply ascending after the turn of the century. 

Perhaps it was a wizard named Silas in the Harry Potter series that turned many parents on to Silas. A name’s popularity often can be traced to a real or fictional famous person. It’s hard to account, though, for why Silas keeps rising in popularity except that parents must like the name.

On websites inviting comments about names, Silas is described as “old-fashioned but cool,” “ages well,” “strong yet sensitive,” and “artsy vibe.” Some people like that the name belonged to a Biblical character, but that reason should result in more consistent popularity.

“Social scientists and historians have been puzzling over [the rise and fall of a name’s popularity] for decades, and the short-but-unsatisfying answer is that no one truly knows,” says JSTOR. “But there are some intriguing clues.” Popular culture and politics (think about the babies named “Reagan” after a certain president) have influence. “[I]t appears that some popularity is driven by sheer prosody,” the article concludes. “Parents all suddenly glom onto a name simply because, at that moment in time, it just sounds interesting.”

Have you ever looked up the prevalence of your own name? Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I disliked sharing part of my name with, it seemed, every other girl. My perception of Mary’s ubiquity wasn’t wrong. According to Wikipedia, Mary was the most popular girl’s name for eight decades until 1961, and that doesn’t count Mary combinations like mine.

A friend even called her dog Mary. About half of the dogs and cats in the United States today bear human names, attesting to their status within the family. A dog named Mary didn’t sit right with me, however, and not just because it’s the start of my name. Some names just don’t feel suited to pets. That’s why I gave two female cats ancestors’ nicknames rather than their formal names: Lizzy, not Elizabeth, and Fanny, not Frances.

A feeling is what the business of naming a pet or a child seems to come down to. Which is fine for pets who can’t complain. When you’re naming a human who may carry it for nine or more decades, it’s good to think about whether the moniker is likely to go on feeling right. I wonder about how babies named Royal and Luxury, Nameberry’s top boy’s and girl’s names so far this year, are going to feel about their names as they age.