September 3, 2024

Baby Names Based on Weather and Climate

Naming your baby is often a truly special decision that will impact it for the rest of its life. That’s why many people tend to choose names that hold a deep personal meaning. It can be the name of ancestors, a special location, or even weather phenomena they resonate with.

We conducted a study to analyze such baby names based on weather and climate. Using data from the last decade, we found interesting trends about how weather conditions have influenced baby names over the years.

Overall results

Sky, the most popular name overall, is also the most preferred name for female babies.
Jet is the most preferred name for male babies.
Most weather-related names seem to be popular among female babies.
Gust is the only name with no female representation at all.
Star is the only name with no male representation at all.

Top baby name groups based on weather and climate

Rank	Name group	Total Count	Female Count	Male Count	Number of Names Included
1	Sky	67,083	57,852	9,231	39
2	Aurora	47,678	47,642	36	1
3	Hail	38,355	38,298	57	13
4	Jet	15,936	418	15,518	12
5	Rain	8,378	7,204	1,174	12
6	Sun	7,033	5,824	1,209	9
7	Storm	5,689	4,744	945	6
8	Gust	5,208	0	5,208	4
9	Halo	3,049	2,641	408	1
10	Zephyr	1,953	420	1,533	4
11	Star	1,633	1,633	0	12
12	Ice	676	642	34	8
13	Snow	625	570	55	3
14	Gale	582	17	565	2
15	Breeze	558	399	159	3

*totals of babies given names in the name groups from 2014 through 2023

Key findings

Sky

Names associated with the sky are overwhelmingly popular, with nearly 40 sky-related names given to 67,000+ babies. These include variations like Sky, Skylar, Skyla, etc.
Sky-related names show a strong preference toward females, with close to 90% of the names given to female babies.
This is the second-most common weather-related name for male babies despite having such a high female representation.

Related Article: Popular Baby Names Based on Days and Seasons

Celestial phenomena

Aurora, the second-most popular name has just a single variation in contrast to Sky in the first spot which has nearly 40 variations.
Aurora is almost exclusively used for female babies with just 0.07% of male usage.
Star is another celestial name exclusively used for females, with no male representation at all.
Star has 12 variations like Starla and Starlette yet it’s not even in the top 10 most used names.

Wind and storm

Jet, shortened from ‘jetstream’ and including its 12 variations like Jett, is among the top five most commonly given weather-related names.
Jet is predominantly used for male babies with just 3% female representation.
Storm, another popular wind-related name with variations like Stormy and Stormie, is mostly used for female babies with just 16% male usage.
Breeze, a common word, is surprisingly not used often for babies, with just about 500 instances. This is a sharp contrast to Sky - another common word - at the number one spot which has 67,000 instances.

Precipitation

Rain, one of the most common weather-related words, is also a popular choice for babies with 8,000+ uses.
Rain is mostly used for female babies but does have some male representation, which isn’t the case for many other names that lean quite heavily toward one gender.
Snow is another commonly used word but shows a surprisingly low preference for babies with just over 600 uses.
Snow is mostly used for female babies with minor male usage.
Hail, which is not a word as common as rain and snow, is surprisingly quite popular as a baby name, being the third most used weather-related name.
Hail is almost exclusively used for female babies with less than 1% male representation.

Light

Sun and related names like Sunny and Sunshine are mostly used for females but do have some male usage.
Halo is also mostly used for female babies with about 13% male representation.

Methodology

To analyze baby naming trends based on U.S. state and city names, we utilized data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) spanning the last 10 years. The SSA provides comprehensive annual reports on the most popular baby names in the United States, serving as the primary data source for this study. The dataset included names given to both male and female babies, along with their occurrence counts for each year.