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Given Its Track Record, This Baby Name Might Get You an Athlete Plus, similar sporty-sounding options for an alternate to this Knickname.
Maybe were showing our New York pride, but this weeks featured baby name has certainly put us in an empire state of mind: Jalen.has been on our minds all week ...
and for good reason.
In just five games, the South Jersey point guard became a basketball legend.
Brunson isnt the only Jalen to excel at the game, however.
Curiously enough, the name is inextricably linked to the sport.The name was unknown until the legendary fab five freshmen, featuring Jalen Rose, led the University of Michigan to the NCAA basketball finals in 1991, says Laura Wattenberg, a baby name researcher and creator of.
Roses name struck a chord with parents, leading to a generation of young Jalens including Jalen Brunson, born in 1996.
In 2021, ESPN reported that Jeanne Rose created the name for her son by combining his fathers name James with his uncles name Leonard.If she wouldve named me James or Jason, that wouldnt have hit the same.
So shes the creator, and Im the vessel that gets to carry it out, Jalen Rose told ESPN.
After his moms death from lung cancer, Rose found that she had handwritten a list of all the professional athletes with the same name.I knew it was something that she realized had become bigger than her and clearly way larger than me, Jalen Rose said in the 2021 interview.
Its something now that really is going to be what defines her legacy and mine.
Something that has zero to do with the score of any game that I ever played.
tallied up the Jalens in the NBA.And there were a lot of them.
In addition to Brunson, these similarly-named players have hit their stride on the court:I really love just Jay, she tells TODAY.com.Its simple, straight, feels like a cool classic.
She lists other names that encompass the same sporty feel as Jalen: Case, Carter, Cole, Chance, Jason, Tyson, Corey, Cameron, Tristan and Devin.
Slagen has actually been on the court with Brunson.
As a college student, she was a manager for the University of Virginia mens basketball team.Rick Brunson was on staff, and his son, then 12-year-old Jalen Brunson, would shoot around at practices and games.Theres a long history of star athletes inspiring baby name trends, says name expert Wattenberg.
She points to names like Jordan and Kobe spiking in search trends when superstars Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant made a splash.
In the case of the name Jalen, Wattenberg thinks its fresh appeal originally captured the attention of parents who were hungry for new name ideas ...
but they may also be celebrating a memory.She says, When fans of a team commemorate a championship with a baby name, its not so much a fashion statement as a memento of a shared moment of joy.
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It may be unique, trendy, newsworthy, classic or just ...
fun! But there will always be a fascinating story behind it.Rosie Colosi lives in New Jersey and is a reporter for TODAY Parents.
She has bylines in The Atlantic, The Week, MSNBC, and PureWow, and she has written 33 nonfiction children's books for Scholastic, Klutz, and Nat Geo Kids.
Once upon a time, she played Mrs.
Claus in"The Rockettes' Radio City Christmas Spectacular," but now she mostly sings songs from"Annie" to her two daughters ...
while they beg her to play Kidz Bop.
Courtesy Mikayla Toney/ Jessica Weeks.