Melbourne

Where Melbourne comes from

Melbourne 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.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1856
    Melbourne MacDowell born
    American actor
  2. 1878
    Melbourne Inman born
    English snooker and billiards player
  3. 1890
    First appearance
    #994 among boys, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  4. 1901
    Peak, #943
    6 babies named Melbourne — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1902
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births.
In the dictionary

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

Namesakes
  • Melbourne Inman · English snooker and billiards player, 1878–1951
  • Melbourne MacDowell · American actor, 1856–1941
  • Melbourne H. Ford · American politician, 1849–1891

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.