How popular is the baby name Dana 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 Dana.
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In the early 1880s, Laura was a top-20 name in the United States. From the mid-1880s onward, though, the name slowly sank in popularity. It even slipped out of the top 100 for a decade.
But then, in 1945, Laura suddenly changed directions and started rising:
1947: 5,051 baby girls named Laura [rank: 74th]
1946: 4,478 baby girls named Laura [rank: 75th]
1945: 3,589 baby girls named Laura [rank: 77th]
1944: 2,243 baby girls named Laura [rank: 119th]
1943: 2,391 baby girls named Laura [rank: 117th]
What happened in the mid-1940s to change the fate of Laura?
The one-two punch of the 1944 film noir Laura and — probably more importantly — the 1945 hit song “Laura,” which was created from the film’s theme song.
The movie starred Gene Tierney as the title character, Laura Hunt, who was believed to have been murdered for most of the film. The police detective looking into the murder, Mark McPherson (played by Dana Andrews), slowly became obsessed with Laura over the course of the investigation.
The film’s theme song, composed by David Raksin, lent “a haunted, nostalgic, regretful cast to everything it play[ed] under,” according to Roger Ebert. Here’s what it sounds like:
After the film was released, lyricist Johnny Mercer was asked to add words to the tune. His lyrics described Laura “through a series of elusive attributes: a face in the misty light, footsteps down the hall, a floating laugh, and as a woman on a passing train.”
Once there were words, various singers began recording and releasing their own versions of “Laura.” Five of these renditions reached top-10 status on the pop charts during 1945; the one sung by Woodrow “Woody” Herman (below) ended up selling more than a million copies.
The song has since become a jazz standard.
Fifteen years later, in the summer of 1960, the teenage tragedy song “Tell Laura I Love Her” by Ray Peterson reached #7 on Billboard‘s Hot 100. This second Laura-song gave the name an extra boost from 1959 to 1960.
And did you notice that intriguing dip in usage from 1965 to 1967? There’s a reason for that, too, but I’ll save the explanation for tomorrow’s post…
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 2, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 2-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “twos” 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 Aurora correspond to the numbers 1, 21, 18, 15, 18, and 1. The sum of these numbers is 74. The digits of 74 added together equal 11, and the digits of 11 added together equal 2 — the numerological value of Aurora.
Baby names with a value of 2
Below you’ll find the most popular 2-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.
2 via 11
The letters in the following baby names add up to 11, which reduces to two (1+1=2).
Girl names (2 via 11)
Boy names (2 via 11)
Adea, Fe, Aia
Aj, Ja, Cabe
2 via 20
The letters in the following baby names add up to 20, which reduces to two (2+0=2).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number two. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 2 being described as “diplomatic,” “cooperative,” “peaceful,” “gentle,” and “understanding.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 2:
Hands
Feet
Eyes
Ears
Lungs
Chopsticks
Knitting needles
Complementary pairings (e.g., pen and paper, bow and arrow, peanut butter and jelly)
Dualities (e.g., day and night, yin and yang, war and peace)
Boxing (2 competitors; 2 fists)
Partner dancing
DNA double helix
What does the number 2 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?
P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.
“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?
Years ago I posted about Livonia, a baby both born on and named after a Pullman car. Recently I wondered: What other Pullman car names would have made good baby names?
So I downloaded a big spreadsheet of over 12,000 Pullman car names from The Pullman Project and was slightly surprised to see that thousands of them could have been baby names, if we allow for the splitting of compound car names (like Fort Miley, Glen Norman, Meredith College, and West Willow).
Here are a handful of examples. On the left are relatively common/familiar names, and on the right are some unexpected choices.
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