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.  Read more...