How popular is the baby name Merrily 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 Merrily.

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Popularity of the baby name Merrily


Posts that mention the name Merrily

How did “Battlestar Galactica” influence baby names in the late 1970s?

The TV show "Battlestar Galactica" (1978-1979)

Today, Battlestar Galactica is a sci-fi media franchise. But the original TV series wasn’t terribly successful — it aired on ABC for a single season (September of 1978 to April of 1979) before being canceled.

Still, the initial show managed to have an impact on American baby names. Here are the names that Battlestar Galactica characters managed to influence in the late 1970s:

  • Adama — from Commander Adama (played by Lorne Greene of Bonanza fame). The name Adama debuted (for boys) in 1978.
  • Apollo — from Captain Apollo, the son of Commander Adama. The name Apollo saw a rise in usage in 1978, and then-peak usage in 1979. (That peak was eclipsed in 2002 after speed skater Apolo Ohno became famous.)
  • Athena and Maren — from the daughter of Commander Adama, Lieutenant Athena (played by Maren Jensen). The name Athena saw a spike in usage 1979, and Maren nearly tripled in usage the same year.
  • Cassiopeia — from the character Cassiopeia, who was a “socialator” (a.k.a. prostitute). The name Cassiopeia debuted in 1979.
  • Starbuck — from Lieutenant Starbuck. The name Starbuck was a one-hit wonder in 1979. Both the name of the Lieutanant and the name of the famous coffee chain were inspired by the Moby Dick character Starbuck.
  • Tigh — from Colonel Tigh (played by Terry Carter, whose stage name was inspired in part by the comic strip Terry & the Pirates). The name Tigh debuted in 1979, and the spelling Tighe saw peak usage the same year.
The character Colonel Tigh from the TV series "Battlestar Galactica" (1978-1979).

Would you consider using any of the names above?

Source: Battlestar Galactica – IMDb

What turned Taffy into a baby name in 1943?

The character Taffy Tucker from the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates" (1934-1973)
Taffy Tucker

Taffy isn’t just a type of candy — it’s also a name, and it debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1943:

  • 1947: 12 baby girls named Taffy
  • 1946: 6 baby girls named Taffy
  • 1945: unlisted
  • 1944: 5 baby girls named Taffy
  • 1943: 6 baby girls named Taffy [debut]
  • 1942: unlisted
  • 1941: unlisted

Why?

Because of Taffy Tucker, a new character introduced in the Terry and the Pirates comic strip during 1942.

Titular character Terry Lee joined the military in 1942, and there he met new people, including Taffy Tucker, an Army nurse, and Flip Corkin, an Army flight instructor (who was also Taffy’s boyfriend).

Taffy Tucker was a “spunky, dedicated nurse, hardworking and tireless, cheerful and caring and always feminine.”

At one point in the storyline, Taffy was kidnapped by a Japanese agent. She was beaten and left for dead in the interior of China. Thankfully, she was eventually rescued by Terry and Flip.

It took cartoonist Milton Caniff about three months to create the character:

[He] spent several days just worrying about a name for Taffy. Since he visualized her as a pert, snub-nosed girl from Georgia, he wanted a name with a typically Old South sound. He finally settled on Guinevere Marianne Tucker, nicknamed Taffy because of her candy-colored hair. She had to be short, because she was scheduled to fall in love with Flip Corkin, who is short, and she had to be blond [sic] for contrast with Flip, who is dark.

Caniff had modeled Taffy after a photo of real-life WWII military nurse Bernice Taylor of Kansas.

What do you think of Taffy as a baby name?

P.S. The name Taffy got a slight boost around 1949 thanks to the film The Doctor and the Girl, in which the young Dr. Corday has a love interest named Evelyn “Taffy” Heldon who operates a taffy machine in a candy store.

P.P.S. Other Terry and the Pirates-inspired baby names include Normandie, Merrily, and Raven.

Sources:

Image: Cover of Terry and the Pirates trade paperback #18 (published by Flying Buttress)

What popularized the baby name Raven?

The death of character Raven Sherman in the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates" (in 1941)
Raven Sherman in “Terry and the Pirates

The name Raven has been given to babies of both genders for decades, but I find its female usage particularly interesting because girl-name Raven has gotten three distinct boosts from popular culture so far.

The first boost happened in 1941, when Raven debuted as a girl name in the data. (It had already popped up a few times as a boy name.)

Girls named RavenBoys named Raven
194357
194255
19416*.
1940..
*Debut

In October of that year, in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates by Milton Caniff, a female character named Raven Sherman died in a dramatic and memorable sequence.

Raven, “a WASP clearly modeled on Katharine Hepburn” according to one source, was an American heiress who was working at a camp for war refugees in China. She was pushed off a moving truck, died of her injuries, and was buried on an isolated Chinese hillside. “Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters.”

(Terry and the Pirates also influenced the names Normandie and Merrily.)

The second pop culture boost happened in the 1970s:

Girls named RavenBoys named Raven
1978342 [rank: 533rd]25
1977299 [rank: 579th]20
197610010
1975179
19741512

In 1976, the soap opera The Edge of Night introduced a female character named Raven Swift (first played by Juanin Clay, then played by Sharon Gabet). She was described as “the show’s delightful young vixen-heroine” in The Soap Opera Encyclopedia. The character remained on the show until it was canceled in 1984.

(The soap also influenced the names Teal and Laurieann.)

And the most recent (and biggest) pop culture boost happened in the early 1990s:

Girls named RavenBoys named Raven
19922,016 [rank: 152nd]89
19912,026 [rank: 150th]53
19901,758 [rank: 166th]62
1989476 [rank: 495th]27
1988327 [rank: 612th]19

It went on to peak at 139th in 1993.

The reason? Actress Raven-Symoné, who first found fame as a four year old when she started playing Olivia (Denise’s step-daughter) on the The Cosby Show in 1989. The compound name Ravensymone debuted in the data in 1990, and the spelling variant Ravensimone followed in 1991. (Her Disney Channel show That’s So Raven didn’t come along until much later.)

What are your thoughts on the name Raven? Would you use it?

Sources:

Where did the baby name Normandie come from in 1935?

The character Normandie Drake from the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates" (1934-1973)
Normandie Drake

The name Normandie first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1935. Over the next few years, the name popped in and out of the data rather curiously:

  • 1945: unlisted
  • 1944: 9 baby girls named Normandie
  • 1943: 9 baby girls named Normandie
  • 1942: 14 baby girls named Normandie
  • 1941: unlisted
  • 1940: unlisted
  • 1939: unlisted
  • 1938: unlisted
  • 1937: 11 baby girls named Normandie
  • 1936: unlisted
  • 1935: 7 baby girls named Normandie [debut]
  • 1934: unlisted

Where did it come from? And what accounts for that pattern of usage?

The answer is Normandie Drake, a recurring character in the action-adventure comic strip Terry and the Pirates, which was created by cartoonist Milton Caniff and published in the newspapers from 1934 to 1973.

Normandie was introduced in the strip in January of 1935. She wasn’t featured in every storyline, though — and her comings and goings in the strip correspond with the fluctuating usage of the name.

In 1942, for instance, she reappeared after an absence…and so did the name! Not only that, but she brought along her young daughter Merrily, and the baby name Merrily promptly skyrocketed into the girls’ top 1,000:

  • 1944: 71 baby girls named Merrily
  • 1943: 120 baby girls named Merrily [rank: 914th]
  • 1942: 201 baby girls named Merrily [rank: 698th]
  • 1941: 13 baby girls named Merrily [rank: 513th]
  • 1940: unlisted

(Milton Caniff had named and modeled Merrily after Mary Lee Engli, the daughter of fellow cartoonist Frank Engli.)

The baby names Merrilee and Merrilie were also affected.

A 1945 magazine interview with Caniff included a photo of two little girls named Merrily after the character. It also mentioned young girls named Normandie and April after the Terry characters Normandie Drake and April Kane.

What are your thoughts on the name Normandie?

Sources:

  • Hayward, Jennifer. Consuming Pleasures: Active Audiences and Serial Fictions from Dickens to Soap Opera. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1997.
  • Milton Caniff Collection Guide – OhioLink
  • “Special Tribute to Milton Caniff.” The Magazine of Sigma Chi February-March 1945: 90.
  • Terry and the Pirates – Wikipedia

Image: Cover of Terry and the Pirates trade paperback #4 (published by Flying Buttress)