How popular is the baby name Gaynell 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 Gaynell.
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While doing research on Gaynell Tinsley, I came across the following name story:
Jacob Calvin Kinchen had a lot to consider when it came time, on June 7, 1938, to name his first child, starting with the fact that he had never really liked his own first name. […] Perhaps that would have been enough to push any less of a football man toward the choice of a safe name that would always be comfortable for his child. But Jake could not help himself. He had been captain of his high school football team, the Albany Panthers, 1934 district champions in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, and he had become a coach at nearby Live Oak High School. […] Only a man with such passion for sport could possibly look beyond his own discomfort with the seemingly benign name of Jacob and name his son…Gaynell.
Gaynell Kinchen “despised the childhood razzing that came with such an unusual name,” though, so in high school he started going by “Gus” — just like his namesake, Gaynell Tinsley.
Also like Tinsley, Kinchen played football at LSU. And so did two of his own sons, Todd and Brian — both of whom went on to play in the NFL. In fact, Brian Kinchen snapped the game-winning field goal for the New England Patriots during Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004.
What turned Gaynell into a boy name for just a bit?
The Louisiana usage points me to Gaynell Tinsley, who played football at Louisiana State University for three seasons (1934-1936). “The star end led the Tigers to their first two SEC titles and played in two Sugar Bowls.” He was also selected for the All-America Team twice (in 1935 and 1936).
In 1937, he was drafted by the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL. His professional career lasted only three seasons, but during that time he was selected for the All-Pro Team twice (in 1937 and 1938) and set/tied several single-season records.
Though he went by the nickname “Gus,” the newspapers only referred to him as Gaynell during the 1930s. (Years later, when he was LSU’s head coach, the papers used his nickname more often.)
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader looking for lists of old-fashioned double names. She was aiming for names like Thelma Dean, Eula Mae, and Gaynell — names that would have sounded trendy in the early 1900s. She also mentioned that she’d started a list of her own.
So I began scouring the interwebs. I tracked down lists of old-fashioned names, and lists of double names…but I couldn’t find a decent list of double names that were also old-fashioned.
I loved the idea of such a list, though, so I suggested that we work together to create one. She generously sent me the pairings she’d collected so far, and I used several different records databases to find many more.
I restricted my search to names given to girls born in the U.S. from 1890 to 1930. I also stuck to double names that I found written as single names, because it’s very likely that these pairings were used together in real life (i.e., that they were true double names and not merely first-middle pairings).
Pairings that seemed too timeless, like Maria Mae and Julia Rose, were omitted. I also took out many of the pairings that feature now-trendy names — think Ella, Emma, and Lucy — because they just don’t sound old-fashioned anymore (though they would have a few decades ago).
The result isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a decent sampling of real-life, old-fashioned double names. I’ve organized them by second name, and I also added links to popularity graphs for names that were in the SSA data during the correct time period (early 1900s).
I spotted plenty of other combinations that just didn’t happen to be written as single names in the records, so here’s a handy dandy little table to cover some of the other existing combinations…
Though most of the baby names in the SSA’s annual datasets are repeats, each dataset does contain a handful of brand-new names.
Below are the most popular debut names for every single year on record, after the first.
Why bother with an analysis like this? Because debut names often have cool stories behind them, and high-hitting debuts are especially likely to have intriguing explanations tied to historical people/events. So this is more than a list of names — it’s also a list of stories.
Here’s the format: “Girl name(s), number of baby girls; Boy name(s), number of baby boys.” Keep in mind that the raw numbers aren’t too trustworthy for about the first six decades, though. (More on that in a minute.)
I’ve already written about some of the names above, and I plan to write about all the others as well…eventually. In the meanwhile, if you want to beat me to it and leave a comment about why Maverick hit in 1957, or why Moesha hit in 1996, feel free!
Source: U.S. SSA
Image: Adapted from LotusBud0048a (public domain) by Frank “Fg2” Gualtieri
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