General

Where General comes from

General hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it 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. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #291 among boys — 32 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1885
    Peak, #277
    36 babies named General — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1897
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #459.
  4. 1916
    General Soedirman born
    first Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian armed forces
  5. 1941
    General Johnson born
    American singer-songwriter
In the dictionary

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

Namesakes
  • General Soedirman · first Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian armed forces, 1916–1950
  • General Johnson · American singer-songwriter, 1941–2010
  • General Baker · American trade unionist, 1941–2014
  • General Knas · Swedish singer, born 1978

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.