Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 940 of The Daily Dirt.

1. There is arguably no better indicator of a cultural landscape than the first names that occupy it.

“(First) names have become more diverse and personalized over the years,” says Kushal Tantry — speaking of interesting first names — who is the CEO of ourpublicrecords.org.

Ourpublicrecords.org recently analyzed data involving 10,000 names given to U.S. babies, which Tantry said showed “fascinating insight in the attitudes of parents when it comes to naming babies,” plus how “traditional naming practices still hold significance for many families”.

The ourpublicrecords.org results revealed that Illinois’s most popular male name for a baby since 1992 is Noah, while Olivia is the most popular female name. The following are currently the most popular baby names in Illinois:

Boys                    

• 1. Noah                
• 2. Liam                 
• 3. Oliver               
•  4. Mateo              
• 5. Theodore          
• 6. Benjamin         
•  7. Henry               
•  8. James              
• 9. William              
• 10. Sebastian

  Girls

• 1. Olivia
• 2. Sophia
• 3. Emma
• 4. Charlotte
• 5. Amelia
• 6. Mia
• 7. Isabella
• 8.Ava
• 9. Camila
• 10. Sofia

Tantry says it is no accident there is an interesting mix of newer-type names and those with more of a traditional feel.

“Zendaya is a great example of a unique name (that is becoming more popular, though it did not make the top 10), thanks to cultural inspiration,” Tantry said. “Georgina is an older, more traditional name (that also did make the top 10) that has also greatly increased in popularity, showing how names never really go extinct and how most names will see fluctuations in popularity over time.”

For the record, ourpublicrecords.org said that on a national level the most popular male baby name right now is Liam, with Noah ranking second. On the distaff side, Olivia is also the most popular female name nationally.

2. Did you know (Part 7) …

That in 1980 David Bowie was performing in “The Elephant Man” on Broadway, and in the front row there were three empty seats. Two of those seats belonged to Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Lennon had been shot and killed on the streets of New York the night before. The third empty seat belonged to Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon. 

That former “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson played bass guitar on the Divinyls’ 1990 song “I Touch Myself”.

That the Monty Python movie “The Holy Grail” was funded by George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Pink Floyd.

3. More potential nicknames are surfacing for the NHL team that is relocating from Arizona to Utah. Here’s the latest:

Utah Latter-Day Skates: This one is gold, whether you may be Mormon or not.

Utah Jambalaya: Remember when Utah stole the New Orleans Jazz NBA team? Now it can steal something else from New Orleans for this nickname. Of course, neither nickname makes any sense in Utah, which is the beauty of it all.

Utah Jazz Hands: Jazz Hands! It’s been a while since this term has been mainstream. But it might just work, since the hockey team would be a partner to the Utah Jazz NBA club.

Utah Pyramids: OK, it seems Utah is the home to multi-level marketing firms (and pyramid schemes), so … maybe we don’t really need to celebrate that.

Steve Thought O’ The Day – It’s comforting to know that Chuck Norris can speak every language, including dolphin.

Steve Eighigner writes daily for Muddy River News. What about the Utah Johnnies?

The emergence of two broods of periodical cicadas in Illinois this spring will be an event that has not occurred since 1803 and will not happen again until 2245.

What does this rare event mean for Peoria-area farmers?

Cicadas 2024: What animals eat cicadas?

Do cicadas destroy crops?

The short answer is, not much.

“Periodical cicadas don’t pose a risk to any of the major crops in Illinois,” said Illinois State Entomologist Christopher Dietrich. “They are restricted to areas with mature natural forest, and they don’t move around much so we’ll see few, if any, in areas dominated by row crops.”

The Peoria area’s corn and soybeans are safe from a dual emergence of the Northern Illinois Brood and the Great Southern Brood. But the billions of insects whose song will begin to fill Illinois evenings later this month can still pose an agricultural threat statewide.

Do cicadas destroy trees?

University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator Ken Johnson wrote female cicadas will cut open tree branches, resulting in a scar that can be several inches long. While the damage will not kill mature, healthy trees; it can kill small trees and shrubs.

“Newly-planted small trees and shrubs may have trunk diameters small enough for female cicadas to lay their eggs in,” Johnson wrote. “If this happens, the trees can be killed. These smaller plants also have fewer branches on them, and egg-laying can cause significant damage to the trees.”

What do cicadas eat? Trillions of cicadas loom in the United States. What do cicadas eat above ground?

The female cicada’s affinity for trees means the primary risk is to commercial tree fruit growers. Richard Tanner, the father of Tanner’s Orchard owner Craig Tanner, still helps out at the Speer, Ill., farm, and said 3,000 new trees were planted there last spring. To make up losses from last year, Tanner’s also plans to replant trees this spring.

“Due to the warm and dry conditions of spring 2023, we lost about 15% of the trees and will be replanting them,” Tanner said.

How to protect young trees from cicadas

The Illinois Department of Agriculture said the best way to protect small trees from cicada damage is to surround the trunks with screening, which will curtail egg-laying. IDA said commercially available pesticides don’t work on cicadas and could negatively affect pets and wildlife that feed on them.

University of Illinois Extension assistant professor Kacie Athey wrote late in April that the best protection for vulnerable trees is protective fine-meshed netting. However, for growers with large numbers of fruit trees, there are insecticides available only to commercial fruit producers.

Athey provided a spraying guide for commercial growers, including a list of available insecticides and efficacy ratings for each. Of the eight products listed, five had ratings of “Unknown.” Asana XL and Danitol 2.4EC received scores of “Excellent,” and Athey gave Sevin XLR Plus a rating of “Good.”