Baby Name of the Month: Duncan

Baby Name of the Month: Duncan

Back to our regular scheduled program, September's baby name  is




Duncan 

While brands like Duncan Hines, Duncan Toys (the yoyos) and Dunkin' Doughnuts might come to mind for you.. King Duncan is my first association with the name.

First off, Duncan has a lot of history that is grand.  The first sighting of the name is around the 300's as gaelic for meaning brown warrior.  This strong meaning probably encouraged two Scottish kings to use the name.  Both Duncan I and Duncan II King of Scotts reigned in the 11th century.

The Duncan I direct successor was Macbeth.  Sounding familiar yet?  In reality there are no stories of treachery and tragedy to be told, but that wouldn't make a good Shakespeare play now would it?  Shakespeare's Macbeth adaptation was is thought to be first performed in 1611 and based on Holinshed's Chronicles (1587). The Holinshed's Chronicles are a history of England, Scotland and Ireland, although the the play is quite different than actual history, thus it being a Shakespeare tragedy and not a history.

Duncan Hines was the original Yelp.  He was an American traveling salesman and during his travels he made a guide  and rating of restaurants he came across. He published a paper back book called Adventures in Good Eating (1935), and then had a newspaper column 3 times a week.  He then joined a company that made bread and sold the rights to his name, of course that company expanded and now makes the box cake mixes we now know.

Lately in the US this name is quite unpopular, but familiar.  He is ranked 835 out of the top 1000 names and has only ever made it to 377.  This means that in 2012 there were only 259 boys named Duncan, so he is fairly rare.  Which makes me happy.

Of course since we are headed down the road to adopting probably an african american boy, a name that means dark warrior, has a strong Shakespeare connection and a connection to confectioneries (since I am an avid baker) makes perfect sense for a name for a boy.  Rich however just is "meh" on the name.