How popular is the baby name Darcel 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 Darcel.

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Popularity of the baby name Darcel


Posts that mention the name Darcel

What turned Kelly into a girl name in the 1950s?

Poster for the movie "Kelly and Me" (1957)
“Kelly and Me”

During the first half of the 20th century, the name Kelly was more of a boy name than a girl name. That is, it was given far more often to baby boys than to baby girls.

But things changed in the 1950s, when the overall usage of Kelly began to rise quickly — and rise faster for girls than for boys. The first year that more girls than boys were named Kelly was 1957:

Girls named KellyBoys named Kelly
19596,379 (rank: 74th)2,436 (rank: 142nd)
19584,471 (rank: 108th)2,299 (rank: 148th)
19571,907 (rank: 187th)1,868 (rank: 167th)
1956831 (rank: 310th)1,472 (rank: 189th)
1955540 (rank: 380th)1,251 (rank: 204th)
1954455 (rank: 406th)960 (rank: 225th)
1953226 (rank: 590th)845 (rank: 232nd)

Even though the gender switch happened in 1957, usage for boys continued to rise for several more years. Only in 1962 then did the two trajectories finally start to diverge.

So what’s behind both the popularization and feminization of the name Kelly in the 1950s? There seem to be at least three different influences (and possibly others that I haven’t discovered yet). Here’s what I’ve got so far:

  • Grace Kelly: actress, most popular around 1955/1956
  • Kelly and Me: movie, released in 1957
  • Bachelor Father: television show, aired from 1957 to 1962

I have a big post about Grace Kelly-inspired baby names scheduled for tomorrow, so for now I’ll just say that, if she was an influence here, she wouldn’t be the first famous actress to inspire parents to start using her surname as a girl name. Before her was Janet Gaynor, June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Debra Paget, Denise Darcel, Pier Angeli, etc.

The movie Kelly and Me, which co-starred Piper Laurie, is weirdly reminiscent of the 2008 movie Marley and Me. Both films feature a male dog as a main character, and both titular names saw increased usage as baby names — particularly girl names — the years the movies were released. Apparently neither the species nor the gender of the character mattered much to parents. (Here’s the popularity graph for Marley.)

The TV show Bachelor Father focused on a wealthy Beverly Hills attorney named Bentley Gregg who is raising his orphaned teenage niece, a female Kelly. The show clearly gave the name Bentley a boost in the late ’50s and early ’60s, nudging it into the top 1,000 for the first time in 1961, so no doubt it also helped American audiences see Kelly as a nice name for a daughter.

Do you like the name Kelly? Do you like it more as a girl name or as a boy name? (Or does it not matter to you?)

How did Denise Darcel influence baby names in the early 1950s?

The character Fifi Danon (played by Denise Darcel) from the movie "Westward the Women" (1951)
Danon from “Westward the Women“

In 1947, when she was in her early 20s, French-born beauty queen Denise Billecard relocated to the United States. After changing her name to the easier-to-pronounce “Denise Darcel,” she embarked upon a brief Hollywood film career.

[She] profited from Hollywood’s “ooh-la-la” conception of young, shapely French womanhood, generally inviting the adjective “sultry” and playing characters called Fifi, Gigi and Lola.

One of her first roles was in the WWII film Battleground, released in late 1949. It was a box office success, and Denise Darcel was essentially the only female in the film, making her hard to miss.

The combined influence this film and others boosted the baby name Darcel into the U.S. baby name data for the first time in 1950:

  • 1955: 59 baby girls named Darcel
  • 1954: 71 baby girls named Darcel [peak]
  • 1953: 49 baby girls named Darcel
  • 1952: 61 baby girls named Darcel
  • 1951: 32 baby girls named Darcel
  • 1950: 21 baby girls named Darcel [debut]
  • 1949: unlisted
  • 1948: unlisted

The name Darcella also debuted that year. (And the variant spellings Darcell and Darcelle appeared in 1951 in 1952, respectively.)

The name Denise also saw a considerable increase in popularity during the first half of the ’50s:

  • 1954: 13,718 baby girls named Denise [rank: 24th]
  • 1953: 11,950 baby girls named Denise [rank: 31st]
  • 1952: 11,651 baby girls named Denise [rank: 33rd]
  • 1951: 8,117 baby girls named Denise [rank: 48th]
  • 1950: 4,514 baby girls named Denise [rank: 82nd]
  • 1949: 2,236 baby girls named Denise [rank: 140th]
  • 1948: 1,930 baby girls named Denise [rank: 147th]

It reached peak usage around 1960.

And finally there’s the name Danon, which emerged in the data in 1952:

  • 1954: 6 baby girls named Danon
  • 1953: 7 baby girls named Danon
  • 1952: 7 baby girls named Danon [debut]
  • 1951: unlisted
  • 1950: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Denise Darcel’s character in the movie Westward the Women, released at the very end of 1951. The character’s name is Fifi Danon, but “Danon is never called by her first name after the introduction in the film by anyone but herself.”

Which of these three names — Darcel, Denise or Danon — do you like best for a baby girl? Why?

Sources:

P.S. Here’s a sweet (and much more recent) story involving Denise: A soldier and a French starlet rekindle lost love.