Joy-Anna Duggar's Baby Name Choice is Straight Out of the 1920s

Amelia Edelman
·3 min read

So far this week, we’ve been introduced to brand-new celebrity babies with such delightfully wacky names as Buddy Dessert and Daisy Dove Bloom. Yep, those are Nikki Bella’s and Katy Perry’s/Orlando Bloom’s baby names, respectively. Oh, and then there’s Lea Michele, bringing up the rear with the least weird but still kinda weird celebrity baby name of the week, Ever Leo.

Hey, it’s been a rough year; celebs, just like us, have got to find their joy somewhere. And if it’s in naming their kids after desserts, daisies, and doves, who are we to judge? Still, there’s a place in our hearts for the time-worn, traditional baby names, and said heart-place has been warmed by Joy-Anna Duggar’s recent announcement of her daughter’s: Evelyn Mae. Beam us back to the 1920s already, because this name is a true classic. In fact, Evelyn peaked in popularity in 1921, and Mae peaked in 1918.

Duggar gave birth to little Evelyn Mae on August 21 and revealed the name August 27. She and husband Austin Forsyth are already proud parents of 2-year-old Gideon.

“Evelyn Mae Forsyth. I wanted her name to be perfect and elegant!” she wrote on Instagram along with an adorable photo of little Evelyn looking quite perfect and elegant herself. “We had a hard time deciding but after a few days finally settled on ‘Evy Mae’ and we think it fits her perfectly!”

Evelyn is a Celtic name meaning “light,” which may be a nice nod to the Duggars’ Irish heritage (on Michelle’s side; her maiden name is Ruark). But according to InTouch, the Duggar last name itself might be a variant of the French surname, Dugard. Are the Duggars French as well? This would make sense for little Evelyn, too, since the name Evelyn can also come from the Old French “aveline” meaning “hazelnut.”

Meanwhile Mae can mean “kinswoman,” “bitter,” or just plain a reference to the month of May. And hey, even if Joy-Anna and Austin did name their daughter after a bitter hazelnut, she’ll still blend in better in her kindergarten class than her birth-month buddy, Buddy Dessert.

We look forward to hearing more about the name choice, and perhaps it will spark a resurgence of more classic 1920s baby names in Celebland?

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Here are more weird and wonderful celebrity baby names we love.

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