How popular is the baby name Pansy 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 Pansy.

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Popularity of the baby name Pansy


Posts that mention the name Pansy

Where did the baby name Patsyann come from in 1933?

The compound name Patsyann (Patsy Ann) was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data, making its single appearance during the 1930s:

  • 1935: unlisted
  • 1934: unlisted
  • 1933: 7 baby girls named Patsyann [debut]
  • 1932: unlisted
  • 1931: unlisted

What put it there? I think the influence was the mystery tale Outrageous Fortune by British author Patricia Wentworth. The story was serialized in many U.S. newspapers in the autumn of 1933.

The mystery involved a shipwrecked man with amnesia. A woman named Nesta* claimed the man was her husband…but really she thought he might know the location of a certain priceless emerald necklace. In the meanwhile, the man’s cousin, a woman named Caroline, tracked him down and tried to help him recover his memory.

The protagonist was clearly Caroline, but Caroline’s roommate Patsy Ann “provide[d] an innocent diversion to the main story with her romantic life.”

In the UK the same year, Outrageous Fortune was published in book form, but under the title Seven Green Stones. Another difference between was Patsy Ann’s name: Pansy Ann in the UK. Perhaps the name had been changed from “Pansy” to “Patsy” for American readers because Patsy sounded trendier than Pansy in the U.S. at the time. The slang meaning of pansy, though relatively new in the ’30s, might have been a factor as well.

(If “Patsy Ann” sounds familiar to longtime readers, I blogged about Patsy Ann, the famous dog from Alaska, a couple of years ago.)

Sources: Patricia Wentworth – Wikipedia, Outrageous Fortune by Patricia Wentworth – Northern Reader, Pansy – Online Etymology Dictionary

*The name Nesta got a boost in 1934.

The Lee family of Hawaii

Louis Lee was born in 1921 to Chinese parents living in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was one of 13 children* and became multi-lingual while working at the family grocery store in Chinatown. His language skills came in handy later on, when he got a job as a Pan Am customer service representative.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Louis and his wife Lucille had a total of eight children, six boys and two girls. I don’t know the birth order, so I’ll list their names alphabetically:

  • Dean
  • Licius
  • Louann
  • Maycevene
  • Philmund
  • Rytwin
  • Taoward
  • Worldster (who became an ophthalmologist)

Here are the name explanations I’ve found so far: Maycevene was born on May 7th (1946), Rytwin’s name was based on the phrase “right will win,” Taoward’s name was based on the phrase “going toward a goal,” and Worldster was born in late 1943 when the book One World by Wendell Willkie was popular.

*Louis’s siblings were named Anna, Daisy, Edith, Elizabeth, Elsie, Grace, James, Joseph, Lillian, Pansy, Violet, and William.

Sources:

What popularized the baby name Tara?

Tara, the plantation from the movie "Gone with the Wind" (1939).
Tara, the plantation from “Gone with the Wind

The heroine of the book Gone with the Wind (1936), Katie Scarlett O’Hara, was originally called Pansy O’Hara.

And that’s not the only name change that author Margaret Mitchell made before her book was published.

She also changed the name of Scarlett’s stately home, originally called Fontenoy Hall, to Tara — after Ireland’s Hill of Tara.

What happened to the baby name Tara after the movie version of Gone with the Wind came out in 1939? It immediately debuted on the baby name charts:

  • 1941: 14 baby girls named Tara
  • 1940: 13 baby girls named Tara
  • 1939: 7 baby girls named Tara [debut]
  • 1938: unlisted
  • 1937: unlisted

Usage continued to rise through the ’40s and ’50s. And, thanks to television, it was given two big boosts in the late ’60s and early ’70s — one from The Avengers character Tara King (on the show from 1968 to 1969), the other from soap opera All My Children character Tara Martin (introduced in 1970).

  • 1973: 6,706 baby girls named Tara (rank: 37th)
  • 1972: 7,230 baby girls named Tara (rank: 38th)
  • 1971: 6,327 baby girls named Tara (rank: 50th)
  • 1970: 5,334 baby girls named Tara (rank: 69th)
  • 1969: 3,519 baby girls named Tara (rank: 107th)
  • 1968: 2,184 baby girls named Tara (rank: 147th)
  • 1967: 1,290 baby girls named Tara (rank: 229th)

Tara landed inside the top 40 six different times during the 1970s, far surpassing the popularity of Scarlett, which couldn’t even make the top 1,000 that decade.

But, as with all fads, after the rise comes the fall. Tara was out of the top 100 by the early ’90s. It ranked 775th in 2010, and could drop out of the top 1,000 entirely within the next few years.

Source: Walker, Marianne. Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind. Atlanta, Georgia: Peachtree Publishers, 2011.

What popularized the baby name Scarlett?

The character Scarlett O'Hara (played by Vivien Leigh) from the movie "Gone with the Wind" (1939).
Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone with the Wind” (1939)

The baby name Scarlett is currently within spitting distance of the top 100, thanks in large part to actress Scarlett Johansson.

What put it on the map originally, though, was Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind (1936).

Did you know that Katie Scarlett O’Hara was nearly named Pansy? It’s true. Scarlett might never have become a baby name at all had Margaret Mitchell not decided, months after her book was accepted for publication, to change the character’s name from Pansy to Scarlett. She explained:

The name Scarlett was chosen six months after my book was sold….I submitted nearly a hundred names to my publishers and they chose Scarlett,–I may add it was my choice too.

Other names under consideration were Robin, Kells, Storm and Angel.

What made her settle on Scarlett?

As to why I chose the name of Scarlett — first, because I came across the name of Katie Scarlett so often in Irish literature and so I made it Gerald’s Mother’s maiden name. Second, while I of course knew of the Scarlett family on our Georgia Coast, I could find no record of any family named Scarlett in Clayton County between the years 1859 and 1873.

The surname originally denoted a maker or seller of a bright (often red-colored) woolen cloth called scarlet.

How many babies were named Scarlett following the book’s publication?

  • 1939: 7 baby girls named Scarlett
  • 1938: 6 baby girls named Scarlett
  • 1937: 7 baby girls named Scarlett [debut]
  • 1936: unlisted
  • 1935: unlisted

Of course, the film version of Gone with the Wind, released at the very end of 1939, is what really gave the name a boost:

  • 1945: 34 baby girls named Scarlett
  • 1944: 45 baby girls named Scarlett
  • 1943: 68 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 964th)
  • 1942: 76 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 901st)
  • 1941: 77 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 828th)
  • 1940: 59 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 943rd)

In the movie, Scarlett was played by actress Vivien Leigh. (The name Vivien saw a spike in usage in 1940 as well.)

The name Scarlett slowly picked up steam over the following decades and, by the end of the century, several hundred baby girls were being named Scarlett every year.

When Scarlett Johansson emerged on the scene in the early 2000s, usage of the name and its variants (Scarlet, Scarlette, Scarleth, Escarlet, Escarleth, Escarlett) increased at a much faster rate:

  • 2010: 2,716 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 115th)
  • 2009: 1,921 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 170th)
  • 2008: 1,621 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 211th)
  • 2007: 1,583 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 218th)
  • 2006: 1,116 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 297th)
  • 2005: 733 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 423rd)
  • 2004: 538 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 528th)
  • 2003: 327 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 759th)
  • 2002: 290 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 806th)
  • 2001: 237 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 938th)
  • 2000: 227 baby girls named Scarlett (rank: 942nd)

Do you think any of the other names Mitchell considered — Pansy, Robin, Kells, Storm, Angel — would have made a better character name? Do you think any of them could have caught on as a baby name the way Scarlett did?

Sources:

  • Bates, Karen Grigsby. “Shrewd, Selfish Scarlett: A Complicated Heroine.” NPR 28 Jan. 2008.
  • Walker, Marianne. Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind. Atlanta, Georgia: Peachtree Publishers, 2011.

Other Gone with the Wind posts: Tara, Suellen, Carreen, Melanie