How popular is the baby name Irving 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 Irving.

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Popularity of the baby name Irving


Posts that mention the name Irving

North Carolina family with 16 children

kinderfest

Jonathan Jasper “Jack” Sullivan married Bertha Phillips in early 1909. The North Carolina farm couple went on to have sixteen children — nine sons and seven daughters. Their names, in order, were…

  1. Cretta (born in 1910)
  2. Leland (1912)
  3. Rosa (1913)
  4. Woodrow (1916)
  5. Wilmar (1918)
  6. Joseph (1919)
  7. Dorothy (1921)
  8. Virginia (1923)
  9. Irving (1924)
  10. Blanche (1925)
  11. C.D. (1927)
  12. Geraldine (1928)
  13. Marverine (1930)
  14. Billy (1932)
  15. Tom (1934)
  16. Gene (1938)

Here’s more about Gene’s name:

Gene Autry Sullivan, the youngest of the children and the one who organizes the [family] reunion each year, said he was told he was named after legendary cowboy movie star Gene Autry “because his parents had run out of names by then.”

(The Sierra post includes a photo of Gene Autry.)

Source: Barnes, Keith. “The Sullivan family’s 16 children.” Wilson Times [North Carolina] 29 Aug. 2018.

What turned Sayonara into a baby name in 1958?

The characters Lloyd Gruver and Hana-ogi from the movie "Sayonara" (1957).
Lloyd and Hana-ogi from “Sayonara“

We’re all familiar with sayonara, the Japanese word for “goodbye.”

But did you know that Sayonara was also a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data in the 1950s?

  • 1960: unlisted
  • 1959: unlisted
  • 1958: 6 baby girls named Sayonara
  • 1957: unlisted
  • 1956: unlisted

The James Michener novel Sayonara came out in 1953. Set during the Korean War, it told the story of U.S. airman Lloyd Gruver, stationed in Japan, who fell in love with a Japanese entertainer called Hana-ogi. (Her namesake is a historical courtesan; hana means “flower” and ogi means “fan”).

Originally, the book was going to be adapted into a stage production à la Michener’s South Pacific. With a musical in mind, Irving Berlin wrote a song called “Sayonara.”

Instead, the story was turned into a movie (starring Marlon Brando and Miiko Taka) a few years later, and so Irving Berlin’s song ended up on the soundtrack.

Both Sayonara the movie and “Sayonara” the song came out in late 1957. The film made a bigger splash than the song did, so it may have had more of an influence on baby names.

In March of 1958 the film won four Oscars, including one each for supporting actors Red Buttons (who played Joe Kelly) and Miyoshi Umeki (who played Katsumi).

Actress Miyoshi Umeki in the movie "Sayonara" (1957).
Miyoshi Umeki in “Sayonara“

Miyoshi Umeki, both an actress and a singer, was the first Asian performer to win an Academy Award. Her win drew attention to the Japanese name Miyoshi, which debuted in the data as well in 1958:

  • 1963: 8 baby girls named Miyoshi
  • 1962: 7 baby girls named Miyoshi
  • 1959: 8 baby girls named Miyoshi
  • 1958: 20 baby girls named Miyoshi [debut]
  • 1957: unlisted
  • 1956: unlisted

A few months later, Umeki appeared on the TV game show “What’s My Line?” Here’s how she signed her name:

Miyoshi Umeki's signature from the TV show "What's My Line?" (May, 1958)
Miyoshi Umeki’s signature

Miyoshi was Umeki’s birth name, but at the start of her singing career in Japan, she used the stage name Nancy Umeki. She reverted to her Japanese name upon relocating to America, ironically.

Sources: Sayonara (1957) – Notes – TCM, Fame may be fleeting, but warm memories of Miyoshi Umeki live on – Japan Times, Sayonara (1957) – IMDb

New York family with 24 children

kinderfest

In 1946, the National Father’s Day Committee declared 63-year-old New Yorker George N. Davis the father with the largest family in the United States.

Whether or not his family really was “the largest family in the United States” at that time I don’t know, but I can tell you that he had a total of 24 children (though only 20 were still living in 1946). He had seven with his first wife, Lillian, and the rest with his second wife, Anna.

largest family 1940s
The Davis family of New York, 1946

Here are the names of all 24, in alphabetical order:

  1. Alice
  2. Anna
  3. Arthur
  4. Beulah
  5. Blanche
  6. Brayton
  7. Clark
  8. Charles (died in infancy)
  9. Derwood
  10. Emma Jean
  11. Geneva
  12. George
  13. Irving
  14. Isaac (died in infancy)
  15. Isaac
  16. Joyce Mae (died in infancy)
  17. Laura (died as an adult)
  18. Lena
  19. Lovisa
  20. Raymond
  21. Rupert
  22. Viva
  23. Wallace
  24. Winrick

According to the 1920 Census, he also had a stepdaughter named Ella.

Out of the 24 names on the list, which girl and boy names do you like best?

Source: George N. Davis, Father of the Year

P.S. Here’s a short newsreel movie [vid] about the family.

Fastest-rising girl names of all time in the U.S. baby name data

hot air balloons

Yesterday we looked at the fastest-rising boy names of all time, so today let’s look at the fastest-rising girl names.

Here are all the girl names that increased in popularity by more than 10,000 babies in a single year:

  1. Linda, +46,978 baby girls from 1946 to 1947
  2. Shirley, +19,514 baby girls from 1934 to 1935
  3. Ashley, +18,435 baby girls from 1982 to 1983
  4. Deborah, +12,954 baby girls from 1950 to 1951
  5. Mary, +12,842 baby girls from 1914 to 1915
  6. Jennifer, +12,455 baby girls from 1969 to 1970
  7. Amanda, +11,406 baby girls from 1978 to 1979
  8. Linda, +11,239 baby girls from 1945 to 1946
  9. Brittany, +10,969 baby girls from 1988 to 1989
  10. Michelle, +10,937 baby girls from 1965 to 1966
  11. Debra, +10,866 baby girls from 1950 to 1951
  12. Jennifer, +10,626 baby girls from 1970 to 1971
  13. Patricia, +10,452 baby girls from 1945 to 1946
  14. Cindy, +10,268 baby girls from 1956 to 1957
  15. Debra, +10,015 baby girls from 1952 to 1953

Linda is clearly the winner here.

Linda’s spike in 1947 is like the perfect storm of spikes. The name was already on the rise, and then the song “Linda” (1946) became a huge hit in mid-1947 — at the beginning of the post–WWII baby boom.

Several performers recorded the song, but the most successful rendition was the one sung by Buddy Clark (backed by Ray Noble’s orchestra):

If the song had been released just one year earlier — which is theoretically possible, as it was written in 1942 — the Linda spike might have been even bigger, as the largest one-year increase in births in U.S. history happened between 1945 and 1946.

The song “Linda” was created by songwriter Jack Lawrence at the request of his attorney, Lee Eastman, who wanted a song written for his 5-year-old daughter.

Being a good friend, I obliged and wrote a song for five-year-old Linda. When I made the rounds of publishers I met with frustration. Most of them like everything about the song but the name Linda. “Why Linda?” they would ask. “That’s not a popular name”. One guy said: “Call it Ida — after my mother-in-law and I’ll publish it”. I had to remind him there already was an “Ida — Sweet as Apple Cider!” Another maven suggested the name Mandy. He felt that had a more musical ring than Linda. I reminded him that Irving Berlin had thought so too, years ago he had written: “Mandy, There’s A Minister Handy”, etc.

Jack Lawrence stuck with Linda, and the song made musical (and baby name) history.

And 5-year-old Linda Eastman also made musical history, in a sense, by marrying Beatle Paul McCartney in the late 1960s.

Trivia question of the day: Only one girl name ever decreased in popularity by more than 10,000 baby girls over a one-year period. Can you guess the name?

P.S. One of the fastest-rising names of 1947, Jolinda, was no doubt riding on the coattails of Linda.

Sources: Linda – Jack Lawrence, Songwriter, List of Billboard number-one singles of 1947 – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Adapted from Turkey-2036 by Dennis Jarvis under CC BY-SA 2.0.

[Latest update: May 2023]