Bea writes:<\/p>\n
I have been mulling over the name Hooper for the last little while and wondering if it is a name people would consider. \u00a0It has so many things that are trending for it right now. \u00a0It is a surname, which is ever popular right now. \u00a0It also comes from the big book of medieval professions and matches names like Tanner and Cooper. \u00a0It has also got the “er” ending. \u00a0It has so many things going for it, but could it really catch on? \u00a0I have a feeling that “Hooper Pooper” would taunt the child too much to make anyone consider it. \u00a0I can’t decide if I like it or if I would even consider it for one my own boys. \u00a0What do you think?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I was very surprised to go to the Social Security Administration data base and not find the name Hooper AT ALL in the 2011 stats. (Names are only in the data base if they’re given to at least 5 girls or at least 5 boys, so this means Hooper was used 0-4 times.) Cooper, for comparison, was given to 5,140 new baby boys and 106 new baby girls in 2011. <\/p>\n
In 2010, there were 5 new baby boys named Hooper. In 2009, it’s not in the data base. In 2008, there were 6 new baby boys named Hooper. Why so low?<\/p>\n
I could see people being turned away by the Hooper\/pooper rhyme—but the name Cooper has the exact same issue and is nevertheless fairly common: #82 in 2011.<\/p>\n
Could it be that Hooper has too strong an association with…basketball hoops? Or with Hoosiers? But it seems like those could just as easily be positive as negative, and Cooper has a similar association with chicken coops.<\/p>\n
Or is it that it sounds too much like the word whoop? Maybe it’s Cooper’s strong leading consonant sound that makes it more useable.<\/p>\n
My primary association with Hooper is Mr. Hooper’s store on Sesame Street. For me, it’s a strong positive association.<\/p>\n
Let’s have a poll over to the right to see what everyone else thinks. [Poll closed; see results below.]<\/p>\n
Poll results for “What do you think of the name Hooper?”<\/b> (423 votes total):<\/p>\n
I love it! I’d want to use it! – 3 votes (1%)
I like it! I’d want to consider it! – 16 votes (4%)
I like it for someone else’s baby – 82 votes (19%)
No particular opinion – 28 votes (7%)
Slight dislike – 150 votes (35%)
Strong dislike – 144 votes (34%)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bea writes: I have been mulling over the name Hooper for the last little while and wondering if it is a name people would consider. \u00a0It has so many things that are trending for it right now. \u00a0It is a surname, which is ever popular right now. \u00a0It also comes from the big book of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-to-consider"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1A7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}