Brighten

Where Brighten comes from

Brighten hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

Along the way
  1. 2003
    First appearance
    #8,643 among boys, 7 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 2010
    Peak, #5,741
    15 babies named Brighten — more than any year before or since.
  3. 2011
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births.
  4. 2021
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes

We look up famous namesakes for names that have made the top 1,000. Brighten hasn't yet.

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.