Nevada

Where Nevada comes from

Nevada 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. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #492 among girls — 12 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1882
    Peak, #431
    18 babies named Nevada — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1884
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #731.
  4. 1885
    Nevada Stoody Hayes born
    American socialite
  5. 1952
    Nevada Barr born
    American novelist
  6. 1991
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls 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
  • Nevada Barr · American novelist, born 1952
  • Nevada Stoody Hayes · American socialite, 1885–1941
  • Nevada Van der Veer · American contralto singer, 1884–1958

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.