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The story behind the name
Two of the worst events of 2017 involved the name Harvey, the storm and accused sexual harasser Weinstein. And that's not good for the baby name Harvey's future.
Harvey previously had a respectable run as a Top 100 name in the U.S. in the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century, after which it began to get a bit of a nerdy rep.
Harvey, which was brought to England by the Normans and is a version of the French name Herve, has some noteworthy references, such as a blind sixth century saint who was said to be a monk and minstrel able to talk to animals. Later Harveys include industrialist Firestone, martyred San Francisco public figure Milk, comics legend Pekar, and performers Keitel, Korman and Fierstein. Harvey was the name of an invisible man-sized rabbit who could only be seen by Jimmy Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd in a popular 1950 movie, and was the name of the main character in Rudyard Kipling's novel Captains Courageous. But with all that, horrendous storm Harvey and horrendous abuser Weinstein will inevitably have hugely negative effects on the name.
