How popular is the baby name Penny 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 Penny.
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The Grammy-winning song “Rosanna” by Los Angeles-based rock band Toto.
It was released in March of 1982 as the first single from the album Toto IV, which also featured the band’s biggest hit, “Africa.”
“Rosanna” peaked at #2 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart for five consecutive weeks during July. (The final two weeks, it was second to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.”)
Here’s the music video:
(Fun fact: The woman who played Rosanna in the video, Cynthia Rhodes, went on to play Penny in Dirty Dancing five years later.)
So what’s the story behind the song?
Toto’s David Paich said that he wrote it “about a high school love, one of my first loves.” Around the time he was writing it, another band member, Steve Porcaro, started dating actress Rosanna Arquette. Rosanna’s name happened to “fit perfectly” in the song Paich was writing, so he decided to use it.
So it’s got her name on it, but it’s really about another high school sweetheart, which is how songs happen sometimes.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Rosanna? (How would you spell it?)
From the National Park Service’s biography of 6th U.S. president John Quincy Adams:
Born on July 11, 1767 in Braintree, Massachusetts, he was the son of two fervent revolutionary patriots, John and Abigail Adams, whose ancestors had lived in New England for five generations. Abigail gave birth to her son two days before her prominent grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, died so the boy was named John Quincy Adams in his honor.
(Quincy, Massachusetts, was also named after Colonel John Quincy.)
From the humorous remarks given by U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in October of 2008:
Many of you — many of you know that I got my name Barack from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for “that one.” And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president.
(In truth, Obama’s first name a form of Barak, which means “blessing” in Arabic.)
From a 2010 article about Virginia political candidate Krystal Ball, who was asked about her name during her congressional campaign:
The answer: Her father has a doctorate in physics and did his dissertation on crystals.
So after her mother named older sisters Heidi and Holly, it was dad’s turn.
Ball said she doesn’t mind the questions, though, or the jokes.
And she’ll certainly be hoping a lot of people remember that name now that she’s running for Congress.
From Kenneth Whyte’s book Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (2017), which describes the naming of Herbert Hoover (who was born in 1874 to Quaker parents Jesse and Hulda Hoover):
Hulda had shown [her sister] Agnes a bureau drawer full of handmade clothes prepared for the baby, all of them suited for a girl, to be named Laura. Several decades later Agnes recalled that the newborn, a boy, was “round and plump and looked about very cordial at every body.”
Naming the child was a problem as Laura, obviously, would not do, and the mother had no alternative in mind. Another sister reminded Hulda of a favorite book, Pierre and His Family, a Sunday school martyrology set among the Protestant Waldenses of Piedmont. The hero of the story is a spirited boy named Hubert who is dedicated to his Bible and longs to become a pastor. Hulda’s sister remembered Hubert as Herbert, and the baby was called Herbert Clark Hoover. He shared his father’s middle name.
From Nelson Mandela’s 1994 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom:
Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla. In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means “pulling the branch of a tree”, but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be “troublemaker.” I do not believe that names are destiny or that my father somehow divined my future, but in later years, friends and relatives would ascribe to my birth name the many storms I have both caused and weathered.
From a 2022 article about British politician Penelope “Penny” Mordaunt (b. 1973):
It was a position she was well cut out for, given her strong military background — her father was a parachuter and she was a member of the Royal Navy from 2010 to 2019, making her the only woman MP currently who is a navy reservist. … (Fun fact: Penny was named after the Royal Navy frigate HMS Penelope.)
On the origin of Harry S. Truman’s given names, from the book Truman (1992) by David McCullough:
In a quandary over a middle name, [parents] Mattie and John were undecided whether to honor her father or his. In the end they compromised with the letter S. It could be taken to stand for Solomon or Shipp, but actually stood for nothing, a practice not unknown among the Scotch-Irish, even for first names. The baby’s first name was Harry, after his Uncle Harrison.
From a 2020 CNN article about how to pronounce Sen. Kamala Harris’s name:
Harris wrote in the preface of her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” “First, my name is pronounced ‘comma-la,’ like the punctuation mark. It means ‘lotus flower,’ which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture. A lotus grows underwater, its flower rising above the surface while its roots are planted firmly in the river bottom.”
From a 2019 article about how to pronounce the name of presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke:
He was named after his grandfathers. His mother Melissa O’Rourke said on the campaign trail during his U.S. Senate run that “Robert” — her father’s name — didn’t seem to fit when he was a baby.
The family has deep roots in El Paso, Texas, and “Beto” is a common shortening of the name “Roberto,” or “Robert.” If you’re wondering, it’s pronounced BEH-toe and O’Rourke is oh-RORK.
The modern name Croía is based on the Irish word croí, meaning “heart,” “core,” “sweetheart.” The recent trendiness can be attributed to Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor, who welcomed a baby girl named Croía in January of 2019.
Ever wonder why the baby name Carole — already on the rise in the 1930s and early ’40s — saw such a big jump in usage in 1942 specifically?
Here’s the data:
1944: 6,270 baby girls named Carole
1943: 6,506 baby girls named Carole
1942: 8,409 baby girls named Carole [peak usage]
1941: 4,964 baby girls named Carole
1940: 4,788 baby girls named Carole
And here’s the popularity graph for Carole, which clearly shows the spike:
Around that time, there were two famous movie actresses named Carole: Carole Lombard and Carole Landis.
Lombard was the funny one — the “world’s champion attractive screwball,” according to Life magazine — while Landis was more of a traditional Hollywood starlet.
The main cause of that 1942 spike was no doubt the sudden death of Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid actress of her time. She had finished a successful War Bonds promotion tour in the Midwest in mid-January and was flying back to California when her plane crashed into the side of the Mount Potosi in Nevada (near Las Vegas). All 22 people on board were killed.
Was it just an accident? Or, given that the U.S. had been attacked at Pearl Harbor just a month earlier, was it something even darker? Had Lombard, the war-effort activist, been sabotaged by German spies?
But we can’t discount the influence of Landis entirely. It just so happens that, the same year, we see the surname Landis bubble up for the first time in the girls’ data:
Girls named Landis
Boys named Landis
1945
5 baby girls
28 baby boys
1944
.
13 baby boys
1943
6 baby girls
22 baby boys
1942
5 baby girls*
13 baby boys
1942
.
20 baby boys
*Debut
Sadly, Carole Landis died later the same decade of an apparent suicide.
So…how did each actress get her stage name?
Lombard, born Carol Jane Peters in 1908, chose “Carole” at the suggestion of a numerologist and “Lombard” because it was the surname of a friend.
Landis, born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in 1919, “clearly borrowed from Carole Lombard, the first Hollywood star to spell her name that way.” She said she found “Landis” in the San Francisco telephone directory.
What are your thoughts on the name Carole? Would you use it?
P.S. One of those 1942 Caroles was Carole Jones, later known as actress Carol Lynley. And a 1943 Carole was Carole Penny Marshall, later known as actress/director Penny Marshall.
Sources:
Busch, Noel F. “A Loud Cheer for the Screwball Girl.” Life 17 Oct. 1938: 48-50, 62-64.
Gans, Eric Lawrence. Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2008.
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