109 parents named their babies Tesla in 2018

A playground scene: “Tesla, honey, please stop licking the slide.”

That’s right, 109 babies born in the United States were named Tesla in 2018, down from 143 in 2017. The Social Security Administration’s annual data dump of baby names happened on Friday, giving numbers nerds and bored weekend writers (*raises hand*) the chance to look for interesting gems amongst the Liams, Emmas, and 2,545 girls named Arya.

The name Tesla — far more popular for girls than boys — started gaining popularity in the early 2010s. According to baby name site Nameberry, Tesla is of “Slavic, Serbian, Croatian origin meaning ‘from Thessaly.'” Of course, it’s also the name of Elon Musk’s electric car brand and the surname of inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, for whom the auto and energy company was named after. 

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Other car-inspired names that made the list in 2018: Chevy (176 babies), Mercedes (236 babies), Lexus (40 babies), Audi (18 babies), Ford (419 babies), Bentley (3,393 babies), Dodge (15 babies), and one little Pontiac Aztek. That last one isn’t true — for privacy reasons, the SSA only includes names given at least five times in the year.

There were also 551 little Edisons born in 2018, so that’s a bonus baby name fact for you.

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