How popular is the baby name Floyd in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Floyd.
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A few months ago, while perusing the records for real-life instances of the unusual name “Gloomy,” I happened to spot a 3-year-old Georgia boy listed as “Gloomy Gus Edwards” on the 1920 U.S. Census.
Turns out that wasn’t his real name — the 1930 U.S. Census reveals that he was simply a Floyd — but spotting him did make me curious about the origin of the phrase.
“Gloomy Gus” — defined by dictionaries as a someone with a sullen outlook or demeanor — can be traced back to a character in the comic strip Happy Hooligan (1900-1932). Happy and Gloomy were brothers.
Of course, after learning this, I had to check for people named Happy Hooligan. And you know what? I discovered two. One was another census find, so it may not have been legit, but the other came from a birth record, which is more promising. Happy Hooligan Johnson was born in Tennessee in 1909:
Happy and Gloomy also had a third brother — the snobbish Montmorency. I wasn’t able to find any 20th-century Americans with the name “Montmorency,” though.
Swedish immigration to the United States was heaviest during the last decades of the 19th century, and records show that dozens of U.S. baby boys were given the Swedish name Ingemar during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
But because the number of Ingemars born per year was low, and also because the SSA’s data from that period is incomplete, the name Ingemar didn’t surface in the data until decades later:
1961: 6 baby boys named Ingemar
1960: 7 baby boys named Ingemar
1959: 8 baby boys named Ingemar [debut]
1958: unlisted
1957: unlisted
Why?
Because of Swedish boxer Ingemar “Ingo” Johansson, who unexpectedly defeated Floyd Patterson in June of 1959 to become the world heavyweight boxing champion.
The win was followed by TV and film appearances, but Ingo’s boxing success was short-lived. He lost the title back to Patterson in 1960, and wasn’t able to regain it in their third matchup in 1961. (These were the only two losses of Johansson’s professional career.)
The name Ingemar can be traced back to two Germanic elements, the first referring to either the ancient god Ing (a.k.a. Yngvi) or to the Ingaevones (an ancient tribal group), the second meaning “famous.”
Ingemar’s then-fiancée Birgit Lundgren was also in the spotlight around this time. She was a contestant on a June 1959 episode of What’s My Line? (her line: newspaper correspondent) and appeared with Ingemar on the June 1959 cover of Life. Accordingly, the name Birgit saw peak usage in 1960:
1962: 10 baby girls named Birgit
1961: 19 baby girls named Birgit
1960: 25 baby girls named Birgit [peak]
1959: 12 baby girls named Birgit
1958: unlisted [fewer than 5 occurrences]
Coincidentally, the name Brigitte saw peak usage the same year, thanks to French actress Brigitte Bardot, who’d become famous stateside upon the 1957 U.S. release of And God Created Woman. So “Birgit” may have gotten an boost from “Brigitte” as well.
What do you think of the names Ingemar and Birgit? Would you use either one?
“Everly” is hot…”Beverly” is not. It’s a one-letter difference between fashionable and fusty.
If you’re sensitive to style, you’ll prefer Everly. It fits with today’s trends far better than Beverly does.
But if you’re someone who isn’t concerned about style, or prefers to go against style, then you may not automatically go for Everly. In fact, you may be more attracted to Beverly because it’s the choice that most modern parents would avoid.
If you’ve ever thought about intentionally giving your baby a dated name (like Debbie, Grover, Marcia, or Vernon) for the sake of uniqueness within his/her peer group — if you have no problem sacrificing style for distinctiveness — then this list is for you.
Years ago, the concept of “contrarian” baby names came up in the comments of a post about Lois. Ever since then, creating a collection of uncool/contrarian baby names has been on my to-do list.
Finally, last month, I experimented with various formulas for pulling unstylish baby names out of the SSA dataset. Keeping the great-grandparent rule in mind, I aimed for names that would have been fashionable among the grandparents of today’s babies. The names below are the best results I got.
Interestingly, thirteen of the names above — Bobbie, Cary, Dale, Jackie, Jimmie, Jody, Kerry, Kim, Lynn, Robin, Sandy, Tracey, Tracy — managed to make both lists.
Now some questions for you…
Do you like any of these names? Would you be willing to use any of them on a modern-day baby? Why or why not?
Country singer Dolly Parton was born to parents Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton in Tennessee 1946. She was the fourth of a dozen children: six boys and six girls. The names of all twelve, in order, are:
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