California's trendiest baby names in 2024
The latest: The Social Security Administration recently dropped its list of the most popular baby names in 2024.
Liam was the top boy name in California, with 2,716 newborns given the name.
Mia earned the No. 1 spot for girls, accounting for 1,986 babies, after briefly losing the crown to Olivia last year.
The intrigue: The most distinctively California names — more common here than nationally — all have Latin roots or Spanish origins.
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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Margo Hall, first woman principal at Leon High, leaves vibrant legacy
Margo Hall, the energetic Latin teacher to Tallahassee, and the first ever woman principal at Leon High School died Aug. 1 at age 84. Hall taught Latin at Godby, Lincoln, Leon and Trinity Catholic, and was principal at Leon from 2001-2005. A vivacious phenomenon, Hall was many times an educational award-winner, as well as wife, mother, and scholastic inspiration to a generation of Tallahassee young people. Michael Hall, her youngest son, spoke with the Tallahassee Democrat from his home in California about the legacy his mother left, and about the many students who unexpectedly found life lessons that he himself carries forward in Hall's disciplined yet passionate love of Latin. 'My mother was an engine of action,' he said. 'She has always been my hero, my idol. She had a mantra that she lived by and imparted. It goes: ' 'Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.' ' Hall says he doesn't believe she ever let go of that dedication. Margaret O'Conner Hall was born in Jacksonville. Along with her mother, an anesthesiologist, and father, a psychiatrist and surgeon, and three little brothers, the family moved to Chattahoochee. Hall attended a Catholic girl's school in Louisiana, and went on to Barry College in Miami Shores, where on a full scholarship she majored in English, Latin, and history, graduating summa cum laude, as president of her class. Hall went on to earn her Master's degree from Florida State University in Latin, and to wed a young Air Force captain. Moving to four different states and beginning their family, Hall lived the life of a devoted wife and mother until the family's return to Tallahassee in 1971. And then, using her 'Latin' credentials, Hall began what would become a 44-year commitment to essentially every high school in the city of Tallahassee, where she went from teaching Latin part-time to becoming Dean of Students, Assistant Principal, Principal, Leon County Interim Executive Director for Special Programs, and finally, becoming one of the driving forces for and the Assistant Principal of St. John Paul II High School. In her early days in Tallahassee, always committed to her growing family, Hall taught Latin students at Godby High School for 10 years, then part-time at Godby and Lincoln High School at the same time. From 1980 until 1994, she became Leon High's full-time Latin teacher, tutoring at Trinity Catholic School on the side. She remained at Leon to become the Dean of Students in 1994, then Lincoln's Assistant Principal in 1997 for the next four years. Hall returned to Leon High as Principal from 2001-2005, then after serving with the County, she worked as Assistant Principal until her retirement in 2015 at St. John Paul II High School. Suggesting some of the spontaneity and personality that drew people to Hall, a colleague and admirer had written in a recommendation letter that: 'Margo sparkles. She is so full of vitality, of energy, of enthusiasm that one cannot help but feel that way too. When Margo steps into a classroom, it immediately becomes a more interesting place to be.' And the plaudits and responsibilities began to accumulate: Outstanding Teacher from Florida, The Education Committee of the States, 1987; Florida Teacher of the Year Finalist, Florida Foreign Language Association, 1989; sponsor of the student Latin club, Rebus Ghestis. Chairman, Leon County Language Teachers Association. She became President of the Junior League; was on the Governor's Council for Juvenile Justice; a member of the Tallahassee Garden Club, on the Boards of Blessed Sacrament and St. Thomas Moore congregations; a Board Member of Goodwood Museum; and on Board of Directors of the Tallahassee Junior Museum. Her son, Michael, who had her as his Latin teacher when he attended Leon High, said, 'I had to be kept in line, it's true, but her work ethic and study habits transferred to me.' He would go on to spend several years teaching Latin at Maclay School. Yet what he remembers most is Margo's brilliant smile, her generous heart, and the little details of her life after retirement in 2018: 'It was fun watching her devour her historical fiction,' he said. 'How she loved the beach and traveling in the mountains, wandering old pottery shops, and soft music.' And he suspects there are hundreds of former students who may love those things too, but who are also fascinated by languages and who always turn their work in early — all as a result of a semester spent with Margo Hall. A rosary service is planned for 1-1:30 p.m. Aug. 23 with a funeral mass to follow at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Margo Hall, former Leon principal and Latin teacher, dies at 84 Solve the daily Crossword
USA Today
4 days ago
- USA Today
Top 5 Social Security questions most Americans get wrong
How many can you answer correctly? If you're retired or nearing retirement, you probably know some people claiming Social Security benefits, and you might also have a sense of how the program works. You pay into it your entire career, and then when you're older, you start collecting checks for the rest of your life. The finer points of the program are often fuzzier, though. A recent AARP survey revealed dangerous knowledge gaps that could lead some people to make poor decisions about when to apply — or whether to apply at all. Correcting these misconceptions, including the five listed below, is key if you hope to get the most out of the program. 1. What's the earliest age you can claim benefits? Only 40% of those surveyed knew that the earliest you can claim Social Security is age 62 — and even this is a bit of an oversimplification. You have to be 62 for the entire month to be eligible, and in the Social Security Administration's eyes, your birth month only counts if you were born on the first or second. If not, you don't qualify until the month after your birth month. It's also important to note that claiming at 62 is considered claiming early because you're under your full retirement age (FRA) — more on that below. This means you could face an early claiming benefit reduction of up to 30% for signing up then. However, it could still be the right choice for you if you have no other way to cover your living expenses or if you have a short life expectancy. 2. What's the age that maximizes your monthly benefit? Even fewer people know how long they have to wait to maximize their monthly benefit claim. Only a quarter of respondents correctly chose age 70 as the age when you qualify for your largest monthly benefits. Most people guessed younger than this. This is dangerous because you might short-change yourself by claiming earlier, believing you couldn't grow your checks by waiting longer. Thinking you have to wait past 70 to qualify for your maximum checks could prove even more costly. Your benefits don't grow any more once you reach 70, so you should definitely sign up by then at the latest. Otherwise, you're just costing yourself money. 3. What is your full retirement age (FRA)? Your FRA is the age when you qualify for your full Social Security benefit based on your work history. If you claim in the month you reach your FRA, you don't face any early claiming penalties, and you also don't get any delayed retirement credits that boost your benefit. More than one-third of survey respondents believed that FRA is 65, while another quarter said they didn't know. The 65 guess doesn't come out of nowhere. FRA used to be 65 for many years. But in the 1980s, the government made changes to the program to avoid insolvency, including raising the FRA for younger adults. If you were born in 1960 or later, your FRA is 67. However, some older adults have slightly younger FRAs. 4. Can you claim Social Security benefits on an ex-partner's work record? When asked about whether a divorced person could claim Social Security benefits on their ex's work record after a 10-year marriage, half of the respondents either answered incorrectly or didn't know. The truth is that you can, but the 10-year marriage is key. People who get divorced before crossing the 10-year mark are not eligible to claim benefits on their ex's work record. You also aren't eligible to do this if you remarry. However, in this scenario, you could become eligible based on your new spouse's work record. If your spouse remarries but you don't, this doesn't affect your eligibility for an ex-spousal benefit. Claiming on your ex's work record will not prevent their new spouse from receiving checks either. 5. Will you get back the money you lost to the Social Security earnings test? The Social Security earnings test applies to those claiming checks before their FRA while they're still working. If you're under your FRA for all of 2025, you lose $1 for every $2 you earn over $23,400. If you'll reach your FRA this year, you lose $1 for every $3 you earn over $62,160, if you earn this much before your birthday. Few survey respondents understood that this loss, while potentially problematic in the short term, isn't forever. When you reach your FRA, the Social Security Administration increases your checks to make up for the amount it kept from you before. If any of the answers above surprised you, it might be time to rethink your Social Security claiming strategy. You may prefer to claim at a different time to get more money or avoid the earnings test, for example. If you have any questions about how the above rules apply to your specific situation, you can always contact the Social Security Administration for more information. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The Motley Fool is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news, analysis and commentary designed to help people take control of their financial lives. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY. The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook Offer from the Motley Fool: If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets"could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. One easy trick could pay you as much as $23,760 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. JoinStock Advisorto learn more about these strategies. 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Atlantic
4 days ago
- Atlantic
The Centuries-Old Quest for 'Genius'
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. 'When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder,' J. Brownlee Brown wrote in 1864. His Atlantic article had a simple headline: 'Genius.' Only seven years after the founding of this magazine, its writers were already addressing one of the greatest questions of the 19th century: How should we define genius, that everyday word we use to denote the extraordinary? Brown's two geniuses are largely forgotten today. Morphy was a chess wizard from New Orleans who grew tired of the game and gave up playing seriously at just 22. He reportedly died in his bath at age 47. Zerah Colburn's story is even more tragic: As a child, he wasn't thought to be particularly gifted until his father overheard him repeating multiplication tables after only a few weeks' schooling. The little boy from Vermont was then dragged around Europe as a 'mental calculator,' ruling on whether large numbers were primes or not, and sent to an expensive school thanks to the patronage of an earl. But like many child prodigies, his adult life was a comparative disappointment. He died of tuberculosis at 34. While researching my new book, The Genius Myth, I spent a lot of time exploring how we tell stories of exceptional achievement, and what the changing definition of genius reveals about the history of Western thought. The word itself comes from Latin, where it was used to mean a person's spirit—the inner essence that gave them their unique characteristics. 'Every man, says the oracle, has his daemon, whom he is bound to obey; those who implicitly follow that guidance are the prophetic souls, the favorites of the gods,' Frederic Henry Hodge wrote in The Atlantic in 1868. 'It is this involuntary, incalculable force that constitutes what we call genius.' Well into the 20th century, The Atlantic used this older definition, writing about people who possessed a genius, rather than those who were one. Individuals whom this magazine has described as being or having a genius include Richard Strauss, Leo Tolstoy, George Gershwin, Cormac McCarthy, Alice Munro, and Edith Wharton, that last accolade having been delivered by Gore Vidal. Oh, plus the 23-year-old hockey player Bobby Orr, the children's cartoon Rugrats, and the shopping channel QVC. This proclamation makes for great copy, because it is deeply subjective. Christopher Hitchens was prepared to call the poet Ezra Pound a genius, but not the acclaimed mystery author Dorothy L. Sayers, whose work he dismissed as 'dismal pulp.' (I know whose work I would rather read.) In 1902, a female writer for this magazine airily declared that there were no great women writers to compare with Juvenal, Euripides, and Milton. 'George Eliot had a vein of excellent humor, but she never shares it with her heroes,' argued Ellen Duvall, adding that Jane Austen's male heroes were 'as solemn as Minerva's owl.' The science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Something similar is true of geniuses. An earlier age would have attributed Paul Morphy and Zerah Colburn's gifts to divine providence, but in the more secular 19th-century America, another explanation was needed. 'We seek in vain for the secret of this mastery,' wrote Brown of his subjects. 'It is private,—as deeply hidden from those who have as from those who have it not.' For the genius-hunters, one encouraging source for exceptional talent was inheritance. At the time Brown was writing about Morphy and Colburn, academics throughout the Western world were wrestling with the theory of evolution by natural selection, proposed by Charles Darwin only six years earlier. The study of what would later be called genetics promised new methods of understanding genius, that quicksilver quality that seemed so resistant to explanation. The first edition of Hereditary Genius, by Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton, was published in America in 1870. Galton's work aimed to classify all men into lettered bands, depending on their mental faculties and lifetime achievements. The Atlantic reviewed Hereditary Genius that year, noting that the difference between the men in the upper part of Galton's highest band and those in his lowest band 'represents the difference between Shakespeare and the most degraded idiot mentioned in medical literature.' This was a coldly rational view of genius—more scientific in appearance, but also less humane. Galton went on to coin the term eugenics. His unpublished utopian novel, The Eugenic College of Kantsaywhere, imagined a world where people were allowed to marry only after extensive tests of their fitness to reproduce, and where those who failed were shipped off to labor colonies. Thanks to the popularity of eugenics at the time, what started as an attempt to identify geniuses eventually led the U.S. Supreme Court to justify the forced sterilization of the 'feeble minded' in Buck v. Bell in 1927. Thousands of Americans were subsequently denied the right to have children—an idea that also took hold in Nazi Germany, where an estimated 400,000 people were sterilized under the Hitler regime in the name of 'racial hygiene.' From the start, Galton's ideas about genius were presented in explicitly racial terms: He believed that Europeans were intellectually superior to Africans, and that ancient Athenians were superior to both. The Atlantic, a proudly abolitionist magazine, ran an article that contested this bigotry. In 1893, Havelock Ellis argued that many in the contemporary canon of geniuses had mixed ancestry, from what he called the 'negro blood' that was 'easy to trace in the face of Alexandre Dumas, in certain respects, to the Iroquois blood in Flaubert.' The popular novelist Olive Schreiner's heritage was 'German, English, and Jewish,' Ellis observed, while Thomas Hardy believed his paternal great-grandmother to have been Irish. (Neither Jews nor Irish people would have been considered white, according to popular beliefs of the time.) Today, most modern geneticists acknowledge that intelligence is partially heritable—it can be passed down by parents—but that does not account for the making of a genius. 'We can no more produce a whole race of Newtons and Shakespeares than we can produce perpetual motion,' the anonymous author of the Hereditary Genius review wrote in 1870. A 'genius' can pass on some of their genes, but not their personality—nor the social conditions in which their success happened. That matters. While talking about my book, I've found that acknowledging the role of luck in success makes some people nervous. They think that any discussion of broader historical forces is a covert attempt to debunk or downplay the importance of individual talent or hard work. But even 19th-century Atlantic writers could see the importance of good timing. 'A given genius may come either too early or too late,' William James wrote in 1880. 'Cromwell and Napoleon need their revolutions, Grant his civil war. An Ajax gets no fame in the day of telescopic-sighted rifles.' As we get closer to the present, a note of sarcasm creeps into the word's usage: In the 2000s, the writer Megan McArdle used the recurrent headline 'Sheer Genius' for columns on businesses making terrible errors. But she was far from the first Atlantic writer to use the word sardonically. One of my favorite essays on genius from the archives is a satirical squib from 1900, which masquerades as an ad for a Genius Discovery Company. 'This country needs more geniuses,' the anonymous author wrote. 'Everybody knows it. Everybody admits it. Everybody laments it.' The article urged any reader who wondered whether they might be a genius to write in, enclosing a five-dollar fee, 'and we will tell you the truth by return mail.'
