How popular is the baby name Mark in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Mark.
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According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the most popular baby names in the country in 2018 were Althea and Nathaniel.
Here are the Philippines’ top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2018:
Girl Names
Althea, 2,395 baby girls
Samantha, 2,165
Angel, 2,086
Angela, 1,810
Princess, 1,641
Sophia, 1,537
Sofia, 1,432
Andrea, 1,293
Nathalie, 1,285
Alexa, 1,241
Boy Names
Nathaniel, 2,455 baby boys
James, 2,242
Jacob, 2,028
Gabriel, 2,004
Joshua, 1,980
Angelo, 1,872
Nathan, 1,796
John Mark, 1,611
Christian, 1,537
Daniel, 1,498
New to the girls’ top 10 are Nathalie and Alexa. (Nathalie may have gotten a boost from the character Natalie on the Philippine TV series Wildflower.)
The boys’ top 10 includes the same ten names, but in a different order.
One fast-rising girl name outside the top 10 is Catriona, thanks to Filipino-Australian beauty queen Catriona Gray, who was crowned Miss Universe 2018.
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]
1942: 2,409 baby girls named Laura [rank: 115th]
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…
The unlikely name Dizzy was being used often enough in the 1930s to register in the U.S. baby name data for three years straight:
1938: unlisted
1937: 5 baby boys named Dizzy
1936: 6 baby boys named Dizzy
1935: 8 baby boys named Dizzy [debut]
1934: unlisted
So what’s the deal with Dizzy?
It came from professional baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean. He’s best remembered for his very successful 1934 season with the St. Louis Cardinals. It was “one of the memorable performances by any pitcher in history,” capped off by a World Series win over the Detroit Tigers. “Along with the aging Babe Ruth, “Dizzy” Dean was considered baseball’s major drawing card during the Depression years of the 1930s.”
His birth name wasn’t Dizzy, though. “Dizzy” was a nickname he’d acquired in the Army.
He was born in Arkansas with the name Jay Hanna Dean. His given names came from railroad magnate Jason “Jay” Gould (1836-1892) and Ohio politician Mark Hanna (1837-1904). But Dean gave reporters a different birth name: Jerome Herman (which was the name of a childhood friend who had died young). He also gave reporters various incorrect birthplaces and birthdates, claiming later: “I was helpin’ the writers out. Them ain’t lies; them’s scoops.”
The baby name Loleatta appeared just once in the U.S. data, in the late 1970s:
1979: unlisted
1978: unlisted
1977: 5 baby girls named Loleatta
1976: unlisted
1975: unlisted
Where did it come from?
Disco singer Loleatta Holloway (whose first name is pronounced “Lolita”). She’d been putting out music since the early ’70s, but her first big hits — “Dreamin’,” “Hit and Run,” and “Ripped Off” — each reached the #3 position on the U.S. dance charts during 1977.
She scored her first #1 dance hit a few years later with “Love Sensation” (1980), which was later memorably sampled on another #1 hit, “Good Vibrations” (1991) by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
