E. writes:<\/p>\n
I would like your impartial advice on this, as a baby name advice blogger. Most people think “syrup” and I’m aware of the slavery connotations – however my daughter will be Caucasian\/Italian. We live in California, and both have college\/graduate degrees. Is Jemima a quirky biblical name or still too loaded to use?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Interesting! I’m not sure! For me it definitely has an immediate syrup\/slavery association (no biblical association even for this pastor’s daughter—Jemima had such a tiny\/brief mention), but that kind of association dims so quickly with increased usage of a name. One year it’s “NOAH?? As in, THE ARK??,” and then suddenly it’s in the Top 10.<\/p>\n
So let’s check to see what the Social Security Administration says the usage is doing:<\/p>\n
1996 – 27 baby girls named Jemima
1997 – 13
1998 – 14
1999 – 26
2000 – 22
2001 – 24
2002 – 18
2003 – 34
2004 – 32
2005 – 28
2006 – 35
2007 – 43
2008 – 33
2009 – 50
2010 – 32
2011 – 39<\/p>\nNot much, huh? Somewhat of an increase over time, but not exactly leaping up the charts.<\/p>\n
Here’s something of possible interest, however: the very similar name Jemma hadn’t been in the Top 1000 since 1879 (that’s how far the online records go back)—but it suddenly appeared in 2010 and 2011 at #854 and #832, respectively. The spelling Gemma has a similar story: nothing from 1879 through 2007—but then it appeared in 2008 at #889, and then for the next three years it LEAPED: #562 in 2009, #449 in 2010, and #356 in 2011.<\/p>\n
This suggests to me that the SOUND of the name Jemima may be ready to come into style. The associations may still be too strong—or perhaps Jemima just needs a few more years and will then suddenly leap after Gemma.<\/p>\n
What does everyone else think? Is Jemima usable now? Usable soon? Not usable in the foreseeable future? Let’s have a poll over to the right, but put the reasons for the responses in the comments section. [Poll closed; see results below.]<\/p>\n
Poll results for “The name Jemima:”<\/b> (411 votes total):<\/p>\n
I think it’s usable now! – 132 votes (32%)
I think it’ll be usable soon! – 58 votes (14%)
I don’t think it’ll be usable for a long time – 123 votes (30%)
I don’t think it’ll ever be usable – 80 votes (19%)
I can’t decide – 18 votes (4%)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"E. writes: I would like your impartial advice on this, as a baby name advice blogger. Most people think “syrup” and I’m aware of the slavery connotations – however my daughter will be Caucasian\/Italian. We live in California, and both have college\/graduate degrees. Is Jemima a quirky biblical name or still too loaded to use? […]<\/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-6143","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-1B5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143","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=6143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}