Cleveland Evans: Name experts pick best of 2009

Each year, those attending the annual meeting of the American Name Society vote for name of the year to have some fun and promote interest in names.

This is the second year we voted on top names in four different categories: trade names, place names, fictional names and personal names. The convention took place last week in Baltimore.

For 2009, the nominees for place name were Afghanistan, because of President Obama’s decision to send more troops there; and Salish Sea, a newly approved name for the interior ocean waters of Washington state and British Columbia, including Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia. The new name emphasizes how all these areas form one related ecosystem.

The trade name nominees for 2009 were all connected with technology. They included Bing, the new Microsoft search engine; Droid, a name for “smart phones” sold by Verizon; Kindle, name of the device for reading e-books that was a popular gift at Christmas; and Twitter, which became ubiquitous with millions of people “tweeting” about their daily lives.

Fictional name nominees for 2009 included Max, the name of the little boy in the book and film “Where the Wild Things Are,” and three TV nominees: Don Draper, a 1950s advertising man on the TV series “Mad Men”; Liz Lemon, a character on “40 Rock”; and Sheldon and Leonard, physicists on the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.” Named after the late television producer Sheldon Leonard, they reinforce the “nerdy” stereotype of the two names.

Nominees for personal name of the year included Sparrow James Midnight Richie Madden, son of rock singer Joel Madden and actress Nicole Richie, as a good example of an unusual celebrity baby name.

Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street financier who made off with millions in the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, and Tiger Woods, the professional golfer whose marital infidelities suddenly became a media frenzy, were nominated because of notoriety.

Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III, the pilot who landed a disabled aircraft on the Hudson River in January 2009 with no loss of life, was nominated for showing how even a difficult name that some might think was odd can have a heroic image.

Jackson was nominated jointly for being in the news with the death of Michael Jackson and for being one of the fastest-growing names for newborn boys.

Finally, Aiden, Caden, Jayden, Brayden, Hayden and Zayden were jointly nominated because of how these rhyming names have become extremely popular for babies at the same time. This illustrates that many parents use fashionable sounds as their major reason for choosing a baby name.

The results? First, voters decided to recognize H1N1, the name of the deadly strain of influenza, as the winner in a special “miscellaneous” category.

The four main winners were Salish Sea, Twitter, Max and Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III.

And the overall name of the year for 2009 is Salish Sea.

Which one would you have voted for?

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