The official number for 2004 is: four.
Four girls waited just four minutes into the New Year to become the
first babies born in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
And two of them were given names that rank among last year's most
popular.
Olivia Nicole DiMarzio -- born to Kimberly and Steven DiMarzio of North
Providence -- has a first name that ranks fourth among names given to
girls in the Ocean State in 2003, according to a check this week of
birth certificates at the state Department of Health. Grace Edie
Versaggi, born in Boston at the same time, also has a very popular name.
Had Olivia been a boy, her parents say she would have been Jacob or
Aiden -- both names rank in the top 10 for boys. The DiMarzios only
needed one girl's name because Kimberly DiMarzio had her heart set on
having an Olivia someday. In fact, the name was picked out and ready to
go 2 1/2 years ago, when Olivia's big brother, Benjamin (number 12 on
the list), was born.
The name Olivia has been climbing in popularity in recent years. In
2001, it was the seventh-most-popular name for a baby girl in Rhode
Island.
In comparing 2001 to 2003, the Top 10 list of boys' names was not as
volatile as the Top 10 girls' names. That follows a general pattern in
which boys' names tend to change little over time, while girls' names
tend to be more fashionable and trendy.
One surprise in the boys' Top 10 is John, which has dropped into a tie
for 10th place with Ethan, a new entry in the Top 10. Going back to
Colonial times, John had always been near the top of the list of most
popular boys' names in America. It was not until the 20th century that
the name's popularity began to diminish.
While the five names at the top of the boys' list did not change from
2001 to 2003 -- Matthew and Michael are at the top -- the girls' list
was not so stable. Emily and Madison are still at the top, but Hannah
and Sarah dropped lower in the Top 10, while Samantha, the
third-most-popular name in 2001, is no longer in the Top 10.
Emma, a newcomer on the list, has vaulted into third place.
IT IS EASY for names to change gender. Many examples once for boys --
Shirley, Kelly, Ashley, Leslie, Lacy -- now sound so feminine it can be
hard to imagine they ever were not girls' names.
Usually, once a name becomes a girl's name, it sticks. "Normally, once a
name becomes 90-percent female, people won't name sons that anymore,"
Cleveland Kent Evans, a psychology professor at Bellevue University in
Nebraska and a leading expert in how babies are named, said last year.
But, in a nod to the state's burgeoning Hispanic population, Rhode
Island saw five girls named Angel in 2003 and 32 boys.
In Massachusetts, Grace Versaggi entered the world at Boston's Brigham &
Women's Hospital, sharing the honors for first Bay State baby with
Danielle Faith Medeiros, who took her first breaths near the Cape, in
Wareham's Tobey Hospital.
And in Providence, the competition was intense at Women & Infants
Hospital, where medical teams were making friendly wagers on whose
patient would be the Ocean State's first newborn of 2004.
Olivia DiMarzio was not due until Jan. 6, and her mother, Kimberly, had
just gotten home in the early afternoon of Dec. 31. "I was getting the
house cleaned for New Year's," she said.
Instead, she found herself on the way to Women & Infants around 3 p.m.
And at four minutes past midnight, according the hospital's central
computer clock, Olivia made her debut-- too late to be an income-tax
deduction as her father Steven had hoped -- but soon enough to stake a
claim as Rhode Island's first baby of 2004.
But, in a nearby room, Talmena and George Forte, of East Providence,
were also greeting their bundle of joy, Lorenza Marie Forte.
Kimberly DiMarzio said her doctor said he thinks Olivia may have been
born a few seconds before Lorenza.
But birth records are kept in hours and minutes, so the girls share the
same official time of birth: 12:04 a.m.
