The unique fruit inspired baby name soaring in popularity - would you choose it?

It seems parents have rather taken to this fruit-inspired baby girl's name in recent years...

Baby names these days can be inspired by pretty much anything, with the most popular baby names of 2023 including a mix of Disney baby names and a few baby names that have stayed popular for the last 100 years.

Fruit-inspired baby names are no new thing, thanks to celebrity baby names like Apple (daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin) and Olive (Drew Barrymore's daughter). But there's a new front-runner that's emerged and it's certainly one that goes down as a more unusual baby name nor a Royal baby name.

"Clementine is the nature-themed baby name with the biggest annual increase in popularity, going from 191 babies in 2020 to 300 in 2021," says PlayLikeMum, noting an increase of babies bearing the name up by 57.07%.

It's not exactly a new name, with famous Clementines including Sir Winston Churchill's wife and US actress Clementine Ford. American actor Ethan Hawke and his wife Ryan also named their daughter Clementine Jane Hawke, when she was born in 2008.

It's also a rather popular name in France, with actresses Clémentine Célarié and Clémentine Poidatz part of the club.

"The name Clementine comes from the synonymous fruit, a small citrus hybrid between a mandarin and a sweet orange, named after the French missionary Clément Rodier who first discovered it in Algeria in 1902," explains PlayLikeMum.

Clementine comes with a number of nicknames too - with Clem, Clemmie, Cleo, Emmy and Tina all given examples.

People on Twitter were divided by the increasingly popular name in a poll conducted in February 2023. Whilst 41.3% voted no, 39.4% were a yes and a further 19.4% were a resounding 'OMG yes'.

One Twitter user claimed the name was 'so elegant', whilst others were quick to point out where people may have heard of or been inspired by the name recently - with Clementine being a character in a popular video game.

PlayLikeMum also acknowledged the same video game as another possible influence on Clementine's surge. "In popular culture, Clementine is also the name of the primary protagonist in the highly popular Walking Dead video game series by Telltale Games, in which she is the main playable character in two of the four instalments."

Names that followed Clementine as the fastest growing nature-themed baby names included Flora, Ocean, Raven and Olive. However Lily remains the top nature-baby name at present, being chosen over 40,000 times since 2010.

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