How popular is the baby name Beaver 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 Beaver.

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Popularity of the baby name Beaver


Posts that mention the name Beaver

Where did the baby name Chuckie come from in the late 1940s?

Title of the TV soap opera "The Guiding Light" (1952-2009)
“The Guiding Light”

No, I’m not talking about the evil doll. I’m talking about the baby names Chucky and Chuckie, which both emerged in the U.S. baby name data in the late 1940s:

Boys named ChuckieBoys named Chucky
19521620
19512317
1950711
19496*10
1948.5*
1947..
*Debut

Why?

Because, around this time, a baby/young boy named Chuckie was being featured on the popular radio soap opera The Guiding Light.

In 1948, the soap began to focus on the Bauer family, particularly Meta (pronounced MAY-tah) Bauer. That year, Meta conceived a child out of wedlock with Ted White.

After she gave birth to a baby boy (either in late 1948 or early 1949) she gave him up for adoption. The adoptive parents chose to name him Charles after the pastor who’d helped arrange the adoption.

During 1949, but both Meta and Ted decided they wanted the baby back, so young Chuckie became the object of two separate custody lawsuits (one filed by Meta, the other by Ted). Chuckie was given back to Meta, so Ted decided then to marry her (early 1950) solely in order to have access to his son. But the marriage didn’t work, Meta left, and she initiated yet another custody battle for Chuckie.

By mid-1950 Chuckie was somehow old enough to be taking boxing lessons (Ted’s idea) and ended up with a severe head injury. He slipped into a coma for a few weeks, then died in September. (Days later, Meta shot and killed Ted.)

Chuckie’s tragic death likely accounts for the higher usage of Chuckie in 1951.

But both names see their highest usage in 1961 specifically:

Boys named ChuckieBoys named Chucky
19622331
196145*36*
19602631
*Peak usage

This looks to be due to a different Chuckie entirely — a mischievous blonde boy named Chuckie who was the focus of a Leave It to Beaver episode called “Chuckie’s New Shoes” that aired in December of 1960.

Do you like the name Chuckie? Would you use it as a legal name, or do you prefer it as a nickname for Charles?

Source: About GL: Who’s Who in Springfield | Meta Bauer | Guiding Light

Where did the baby name Geddy come from?

Geddy Lee of the band Rush (in 2004)
Geddy Lee of Rush

Last weekend, the Toronto Zoo announced that its three capybara pups would be named Geddy, Alex, and Neil in honor of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart — the three members of Canadian progressive rock band Rush (known for songs like “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight”).

This reminded me that, in the late 1970s and early ’80s — when Rush was a fixture on the U.S. Billboard charts — the name Geddy started appearing in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1984: 9 baby boys named Geddy
  • 1983: unlisted
  • 1982: 14 baby boys named Geddy
  • 1981: unlisted
  • 1980: unlisted
  • 1979: 5 baby boys named Geddy [debut]
  • 1978: unlisted

Vocalist Geddy Lee was born Gary Lee in Toronto in 1953 to parents Morris and Manya Weinrib, Holocaust survivors from Poland. Here’s how the name “Gary” morphed into the name “Geddy”:

“Okay, it’s like the same story of Leave it to Beaver. The story goes: my mother is Polish and she has a very thick accent. When I was about twelve years old, I had a friend who, whenever he heard my mother pronounce my name, he thought she was calling me, ‘Geddy.’ He started calling me ‘Geddy,’ and eventually, all of my friends started calling me ‘Geddy,’ and eventually my mother started to call me ‘Geddy,’ for real. And eventually, I changed my name legally to ‘Geddy,’ so that’s the story and that’s my name, Geddy.”

If you were having a son, and you had to name him either Gary or Geddy, which would you choose? Why?

Update, Feb. 2024: Here’s a paragraph from the prologue of Geddy Lee’s memoir My Effin’ Life (which was published late last year):

You probably know me as Geddy Lee, but my birthname was Gershon Eliezer Weinrib, after my maternal grandfather who was murdered in the Holocaust. As per tradition, my mom, her sister and her brother all named their first-born male children in his honour; my two cousins and I, all of us born within a couple of years of one another, were given that same first name, Gershon.

The name on his birth certificate, however, is Gary Lee Weinrib — the “English equivalent” of his Jewish name.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Geddy Lee Milan 2004 (public domain) by Enrico Frangi

What turned Beaver into a baby name in the late 1950s?

The character Beaver Cleaver from the TV series "Leave It to Beaver" (1957-1963).
Beaver Cleaver from “Leave It to Beaver

April 7th is International Beaver Day, so today is a weirdly appropriate day to check out the baby name Beaver, which debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1959:

  • 1965: unlisted
  • 1964: 9 baby boys named Beaver
  • 1963: 5 baby boys named Beaver
  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: unlisted
  • 1960: unlisted
  • 1959: 5 baby boys named Beaver [debut]
  • 1958: unlisted
  • 1957: unlisted

Why?

Gee whiz, Wally, the answer is Leave It to Beaver, the iconic TV sitcom that aired from 1957 to 1963.

The central character of the series (which had nothing to do with actual beavers) was a boy named Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver. Beaver was the youngest member of an idealized, post-war family of four living in a fictional suburban community.

As with Rambo and several other pop culture-inspired baby names, “Beaver” had been in use as a first name in the U.S. long before 1959. (In fact, one of the co-creators of the show discovered the name while serving in the Merchant Marine during WWII. One of his shipmates was named Beaver.) Leave It to Beaver simply boosted the visibility/usage of the name enough for it to finally appear on the SSA’s annual baby name list, which doesn’t include names bestowed fewer than five times per year.

So how did a boy named Theodore acquire a nickname like Beaver? When Beaver was born, his older brother Wally couldn’t pronounce “Theodore” correctly. The result was “Tweeter.” From there, the word somehow morphed into “Beaver.”

The nickname was finally explained during the last episode of the series. Jerry Mathers, the actor who played Beaver, thought the explanation was “lame.” Perhaps…but this explicit focus on Beaver’s nickname during the mid-1963 finale may have been what caused the usage of Beaver to peak in 1964.

The name Wally was also used more often during the late ’50s and early ’60s. So was the name of Beaver’s father, Ward, but not the name of his mother, June.

What do you think of the baby name Beaver? Is it better or worse than Bimbo? How about Twig (another sitcom nickname from the 1950s)?

P.S. At least one U.S.-born Beaver got the middle name Cleaver. This real-life Beaver Cleaver was born in 1965.

Sources: International Beaver Day – BWW, Leave It to Beaver – Wikipedia, Leave It to Beaver FAQ, Jerry Mathers how the name “Beaver” on “Leave It to Beaver” came about [vid]

Image: Screenshot of Leave It to Beaver