Bottom of the Barrel: Devaeh

In 2010, 10 American girls were given the name Devaeh.

With the always-controversial Nevaeh gaining in popularity with each passing year (#25 nationally in 2010), it was just a matter of time until we started seeing elaborations on the Nevaeh theme. As surely as Madison has given us Addison and Madelyn has sparked the popularity of Adelyn, Nevaeh has begun to spawn its own family of spin-offs.

Yet, the Nevaeh spin-off is a strange concept, since the whole point of Nevaeh is that it is "heaven" spelled backwards. Alternative spellings have been on the rise, with the curious Neveah (haeven spelled backwards?) popular enough to make the Top 1,000 every year since 2006. 

The 2010 expanded SSA list gives us several Nevaeh-inspired names, including Devaeh. It's clear that this name, with its odd -aeh ending, was created by switching out Nevaeh's initial phoneme. Unfortunately, changing one letter transforms the spelled-backwards message from "heaven" to "heaved."

Bottom of the Barrel profiles unusual names from the bottom of the expanded SSA list (5-10 uses in the previous year).