Re:16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese pe...
by tvanantwerp on Wednesday September 07, 2016 @10:25AM
(#12443621)
Nothing wrong with the name Eugene, but it isn't as popular in the West anymore. According to the Social Security Administration, it peaked in popularity among American men at 20th most popular from 1927 to 1929. In 2015, it was 822nd most popular.
Re:16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese pe...
by paradite on Wednesday September 07, 2016 @10:32AM
(#12443698)
Google ngram suggests that the name's popularity is relatively stable, no drastic changes:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st...
It is declining fast in American English:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st...
However, not the case in British English:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st...
It may sound stupid or funny to the native speakers, but there is nothing wrong with the names per se, after all. With so many languages that are not English, there are bound to be many weird English names. I personally like the "ridiculous" names because they are adding something interesting to long list of boring "proper names".
Also, Eugene is a pretty common name here in Singapore, where English is the official instructional language for schools.