INQUISITR.COM / Health & Lifestyle

Archie Is Now The Most Popular Baby Boy’s Name In The U.S. Thanks To The Newest Member Of The Royal Family

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 05:42 PST, Jul 9, 2019

Archie is now the most popular boy’s baby name in the United States, Yahoo Entertainment reports. Of course, you can thank American Meghan Markle and her British husband, Prince Harry, for bestowing that name on their baby boy born a couple of months ago and bringing the once-archaic name back to popularity.

Most new parents take great care in picking a name for their baby, looking toward religious texts (the Bible is a big source of kids’ names, at least, in the West), the names of family members, and people they admire. However, for as long as royalty has been a thing, parents have used the names of royalty for inspiration as well. The U.S., of course, doesn’t have a monarchy, but we do follow the goings-on of the British monarchy pretty intently, even more so since we sent one of our daughters there to marry into the family.

So perhaps not surprisingly, when Meghan and Harry chose the surprising name Archie for their little bundle of joy, it brought the name back to popularity with American parents.

Baby-naming blog Nameberry keeps track of these things, although it bears noting that their methodology appears to rely on web searches instead of actual databases of names (which can take years to compile). And it concluded that the name is now the most popular name for new baby boys in America.

At this point, a couple of relevant facts bear noting. For one thing, it’s the name “Archie” that’s now suddenly popular after dropping out of the top 1,000 in the 1980s. Its base name, Archibald, still isn’t even in the top 100. And second, Archie was making something of a comeback even before the Earl of Dumbarton was born.

As you may have guessed, that almost certainly has something to do with the popularity of the CW show Riverdale, the main character of which is named Archie. Riverdale is, of course, based on the Archie comics, which have been around for decades.

In case you were wondering, after Archie, the top five most popular boys’ names for new babies born in the U.S. are, in order, Milo, Asher, Jasper, and Silas. As for girls’ names, the top five are Isla, Olivia, Aurora, Ada, and Charlotte. Charlotte, you may have noticed, is also a royal name (Prince William and Kate Middleton’s second child and only daughter, who is fourth in line to the throne), although whether or not the name is popular in the U.S. because of Princess Charlotte is unclear.

Share this article: Archie Is Now The Most Popular Baby Boy’s Name In The U.S. Thanks To The Newest Member Of The Royal Family
royal family Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor
More from Inquisitr