On the celebrity side, rapper The Game named his daughter California Dream Taylor. Sole and Ginuwine have a daughter named Dream Sarae Lumpkin. And basketball player Allen Iverson has a son named Dream Elijah.
Appropriate for a musician, the word dream is rooted in the Old English verb dremen, which means rejoice or play music, according to Etymonline. Dream can refer to dreaming while asleep but as a name may be more closely tied to a dream as a hope or wish for the future.
Dream can also mean somebody or something that’s wonderful — as in, “She’s a dream to work with” — certainly a positive association for a name.
And the word may be most resonant for Americans from the line in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “I have a dream.”
Word names of all kinds have risen dramatically in popularity over the last decade. The U.S. Top 100 includes other inspirational word names such as Genesis, Serenity and Faith for girls, along with Angel for boys. Popular word names also encompass musical names such as Aria, place names such as Brooklyn and Savannah, day names like Autumn and color/nature names like Violet, Ruby and Hazel.
In this class you might also include occupational names such as Mason, the name of Kourtney Kardashian’s son, which has climbed all the way to No. 3, and Harper, in the girls’ Top 10 partially thanks to Victoria and David Beckham. Other occupational names in the Top 100 include Skylar, Taylor and Piper for girls; Tyler, Carter, Hunter, Parker, Cooper, Tyler and Ryder for boys.
The couple did nod to tradition in giving their newborn daughter the middle name Renée, also mum’s middle name.
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE.com
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