Harlem

Where Harlem comes from

Harlem hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

Along the way
  1. 1975
    First appearance
    #5,464 among boys, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 2002
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 2020
    Peak, #905
    248 babies named Harlem — more than any year before or since.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes

No widely known Harlem turns up in the encyclopedias yet — the name is still all theirs to make famous.

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.