While we point and laugh at Kanye West and Kim Kardashian for naming their child North West, it turns out that names decided by directions have been popping up quite a bit since 1790.
A new study by FindMyPast.com has found that thousands upon thousands of parents have named their children after a cardinal direction. Those names are combined to form different names with common choices being North and West .
Sixty-two children have been named since the 1836 when North K. West was born in Franklin, Venango, Pennsylvania.
Here are the number of children who have received cardinal directions for names since the 1790s:
- North: 3,479 as of July 2013
- West: 25,993
- East: 639
- South: 833
Despite more than 30,000 children being given cardinal directions for names, the North West choice by Kanye West and Kim Kardashian caused a worldwide trending topic to be featured on Twitter.
FindMyPast.com discovered the directional names for children by examining publicly available census records, church records, baptism records, death records, immigration records, military service records, and various other sources of information.
Based on the websites due diligence, it appears that direction names are used by different wealth classes and types of people all over the United States.
Hollywood celebrities are often chastised for choosing names for their children that will bring them some level of publicity. In this case, it appears that Kanye and Kim simply chose a widely used name that, despite never being adopted by the masses, has been used throughout the history of America.
So will Kanye West and Kim Kardashian end up regretting the name North West? I recently covered a study which showed that one in 10 parents hate the names they gave to their children
Do you think the name North West is a bad name on par with Pilot Inspektor and Apple? Or has the media blown the name choice out of proportion?
