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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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.
