How popular is the baby name Carol 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 Carol.
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The intriguing name Tonga debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1953:
1955: unlisted
1954: unlisted
1953: 7 baby girls named Tonga [debut]
1952: unlisted
1951: unlisted
I don’t think the Polynesian country had anything to do with it. Instead, I’m thinking that it may have come from the the early science-fiction TV series Space Patrol. It began as a Los Angeles-only show in early 1950, but by early 1951 it was being syndicated nationally both on TV and on radio (thanks to being picked up by the ABC network).
Set a thousand years in the future, the show featured members of the Space Patrol crew endeavoring to fight against the bad guys of the solar system. The two female crew members were named Tonga (played by Nina Bara) and Carol (Virginia Hewitt). Tonga’s character began as a criminal, but by the time the show had a national audience, she had undergone a “Brainograph” treatment and joined up with the good guys.
The name Tonga may have been given a boost in 1953 specifically thanks to LIFE magazine drawing attention to the show in a 1952 feature article (“Space Patrol Conquers Kids,” Sept. 1952)…or maybe it simply showed up because Space Patrol‘s audience was still growing at that time.
But the name dropped out of the data the very next year — possibly because actress Nina Bara was released from the show in late 1953, so the character Tonga didn’t appear in the show very frequently after that.
All this said…I should also mention that the name Tanya and its variants were on the rise during the 1950s, and that “Tonga” ended up being used as a variant of Tanya on occasion (likely by way of Tanja). So that’s another possible reason for the debut.
Do you like Tonga as a baby name? If so, how would you pronounce it?
Sources:
Dixon, Wheeler Winston. “Tomorrowland TV: The Space Opera and Early Science Fiction Television,” The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, edited by J. P. Telotte, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008, pp. 93-110.
Ever wonder why the baby name Carole — already on the rise in the 1930s and early ’40s — saw such a big jump in usage in 1942 specifically?
Here’s the data:
1944: 6,270 baby girls named Carole
1943: 6,506 baby girls named Carole
1942: 8,409 baby girls named Carole [peak usage]
1941: 4,964 baby girls named Carole
1940: 4,788 baby girls named Carole
And here’s the popularity graph for Carole, which clearly shows the spike:
Around that time, there were two famous movie actresses named Carole: Carole Lombard and Carole Landis.
Lombard was the funny one — the “world’s champion attractive screwball,” according to Life magazine — while Landis was more of a traditional Hollywood starlet.
The main cause of that 1942 spike was no doubt the sudden death of Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid actress of her time. She had finished a successful War Bonds promotion tour in the Midwest in mid-January and was flying back to California when her plane crashed into the side of the Mount Potosi in Nevada (near Las Vegas). All 22 people on board were killed.
Was it just an accident? Or, given that the U.S. had been attacked at Pearl Harbor just a month earlier, was it something even darker? Had Lombard, the war-effort activist, been sabotaged by German spies?
But we can’t discount the influence of Landis entirely. It just so happens that, the same year, we see the surname Landis bubble up for the first time in the girls’ data:
Girls named Landis
Boys named Landis
1945
5 baby girls
28 baby boys
1944
.
13 baby boys
1943
6 baby girls
22 baby boys
1942
5 baby girls*
13 baby boys
1942
.
20 baby boys
*Debut
Sadly, Carole Landis died later the same decade of an apparent suicide.
So…how did each actress get her stage name?
Lombard, born Carol Jane Peters in 1908, chose “Carole” at the suggestion of a numerologist and “Lombard” because it was the surname of a friend.
Landis, born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in 1919, “clearly borrowed from Carole Lombard, the first Hollywood star to spell her name that way.” She said she found “Landis” in the San Francisco telephone directory.
What are your thoughts on the name Carole? Would you use it?
P.S. One of those 1942 Caroles was Carole Jones, later known as actress Carol Lynley. And a 1943 Carole was Carole Penny Marshall, later known as actress/director Penny Marshall.
Sources:
Busch, Noel F. “A Loud Cheer for the Screwball Girl.” Life 17 Oct. 1938: 48-50, 62-64.
Gans, Eric Lawrence. Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2008.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 4, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 4-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “fours” in numerology?
Turning names into numbers
Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.
First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.
For instance, the letters in the name Willow correspond to the numbers 23, 9, 12, 12, 15, and 23. The sum of these numbers is 94. The digits of 94 added together equal 13, and the digits of 13 added together equal 4 — the numerological value of Willow.
Baby names with a value of 4
Below you’ll find the most popular 4-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.
4 via 13
The letters in the following baby names add up to 13, which reduces to four (1+3=4).
Girl names (4 via 13)
Boy names (4 via 13)
Cai, Eh, Cia, Gea, Aabha
Cade, Cai, Cj, Eh, Jc
4 via 22
The letters in the following baby names add up to 22, which reduces to four (2+2=4).
Girl names (4 via 22)
Boy names (4 via 22)
Kaia, Lia, Ila, Giada, Ali, Aicha
Ali, Lee, Dale, Akai, Hadi, Mace, Dael, Bane
4 via 31
The letters in the following baby names add up to 31, which reduces to four (3+1=4).
Morrison, Courtney, Kristofer, Christofer, Quintus
Number 4: Significance and associations
What does the number four mean in numerology?
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number four. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 4 being described as “hardworking,” “practical,” “stable,” “trustworthy,” and “detail-oriented.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 4:
Seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter)
Cardinal directions (north, south, east, west)
States of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma)
Original Greek classical elements (water, earth, air, fire)
A couple of months ago, we looked at a long, year-by-year list of the top baby name rises. A month after that, we saw the corresponding list of top drops.
On that second post, Frank B. left a comment in which he asked about absolute rises and drops — because the lists only covered relative movement within the data. So I thought two more posts were in order: top raw-number rises, and top raw-number drops.
We’ll start with the rises again. Just keep in mind that the SSA numbers don’t become very accurate until the mid-to-late 20th century, so many of the numbers below don’t quite reflect reality.
Here’s the format: Girl names are on the left, boy names are on the right, and the numbers represent single-year rises in usage. From 1880 to 1881, for instance, the usage of the girl name Ethel increased by 155 babies and the usage of the boy name Chester increased by 106 babies.
Some of these names I’ve written about already, and others I plan to write about in the future. If you can give explanations for any of those others right now, though, feel free! Just leave a comment…
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