The baby name Scout followed fellow To Kill a Mockingbird names Harper and Atticus up the popularity charts.
Thanks to Caylee for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
THE MEANING OF THE NAME SCOUT
In French, écouter means to listen. An earlier form of the verb was spelled escouter, with the same meaning. It came from the Latin word ausculare, to listen to.
Sometime in the 1300s, the older version of the French word gave us the verb to scout – to observe or explore, or to seek information.
Eventually, the verb became a noun for someone who was exploring in search of new information. There’s a brief period during the eighteenth century when a similar word, borrowed from Scandinavian, meant to mock or taunt. But that has faded, and it’s the earlier sense that prevails.
SCOUT’S HONOR
British army officer Robert Baden-Powell penned Scouting for Boys way back in 1906. He’d written on the topic for a military audience previously, but this took things in a different direction. On publication in 1908, it became a sensation. While Baden-Powell imagined that organizations would incorporate the outdoorsy principles into their existing programs, the opposite happened.
Boys clamored for their own scouting-specific groups. It grew quickly, and spread world-wide. Initially, the sister organization was known as Girl Guides, but that changed to Girl Scouts in the US in 1912. Now scouting is a catch-all term for many similar organizations, and scout is used as a unisex term.
Since the earliest days, members promised to conform to the ideals of their organization, beginning with the phrase, “On my honor …” The phrase “scout’s honor” transforms the capable, outdoorsy baby name Scout into something of a virtue name.
LITERARY NAME: SCOUT IN TKAM
The world met Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, in 1960. She narrates a story from her childhood, featuring her father, attorney Atticus Finch. It’s all about race and justice in her small Southern town during the Depression. To Kill a Mockingbird resonated in 1960 America, becoming an instant bestseller.
The novel won a Pulitzer Prize the following year. By 1962, we had a big screen version of the story, with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. Peck won a Best Actor Oscar for the role.
It’s often cited as groundwork for the modern civil rights movement.
The novel gives no direct explanation for the character’s nickname. A handful of Scouts – at least some female – appear in earlier US Census Records, so Harper Lee didn’t pull it out of thin air.
But most of all it fits. The narrator observes the events of her childhood, and reports back, many years later. She’s brave and independent, too, qualities we expect of a Scout.
CELEBRITY INFLUENCE
But that’s the early 1960s.
Decades passed. And then, seemingly out of the blue, 12 girls and 9 boys received the name in 1992.
Chalk it up to celebrity influence. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, at the height of their Hollywood A-list fame, named their second daughter Scout LaRue Willis in 1991. They’d name her older sister Rumer, after the poet. So it tracks that they’d use something unisex and gutsy for their second child, too.
That sparked just enough interest in the name to see it go from unheard-of to very rare.
THE BIG READ and TKAM
Something else happened in the 1990s, and proved far more influential than a single celebrity birth announcement.
First, Harper Lee’s enduring story turned thirty, and was adapted as a stage play. Since 1990, it’s been performed annually in Harper Lee’s hometown, Monroeville, Alabama.
Then the book turned forty, just as interest was growing in One Book, One Community programs. The idea? Get hundreds – maybe thousands – of residents to all read the same book together, and then to discuss it. Elegant and powerful, successful in tiny towns and sprawling metropolises. And the overwhelming favorite title for such endeavors?
To Kill a Mockingbird, read by well over six dozen communities over the last twenty years.
No surprise, then, that lots of us report it’s our favorite book. And as the programs gained steam in the early 2000s, the names all twitched, rising in use slightly – and then slightly more still.
HOW POPULAR IS THE NAME SCOUT?
As of the May 2023 popularity update, 336 girls and 140 boys received the name, representing a drop from 2022, but mostly a slow and steady climb from 1992 onward.
It ranks #821 for girls as of 2023, but fails to rank for boys as of this writing.
CAPABLE and DARING
The baby name Scout feels like a perfect choice for our age.
It’s literary, unisex, and feels both capable and caring, honorable and adventurous. And while noun names can seem aggressively modern, the baby name Scout takes on an almost traditional feel, since the book came out way back in 1960. (And the movie is in black and white, after all!)
If you prefer names that feel modern but not too new, with a hint of virtue but also an outdoorsy vibe, Scout might be the perfect name.
What do you think of the baby name Scout?
First published on July 24, 2019, this post was revised on August 15, 2024.
I have a Fiona Scout and it really suits her- feminine yet spunky! I love Scout!
I named my daughter scout. She is 2.5 years old now. I get so many compliments on her name. She is a sassy spunky little thing like the character in To Kill a Mockingbird.
We’re now trying to name here sibling due in less than a month.
This worked great as a nickname for a cute and tomboyish little girl, who was far too independent-minded and fiery for her prim and proper given name. Would I use it? As a nickname maybe.