While researching -ity names (like Felicity and Serenity) at one point, I happened upon the odd name Sossity, which was in the U.S. baby name data a total of twice, both times in the 1970s:
- 1977: unlisted
- 1976: 7 baby girls named Sossity
- 1975: unlisted
- 1974: unlisted
- 1973: unlisted
- 1972: 5 baby girls named Sossity [debut]
- 1971: unlisted
- 1970: unlisted
Where did it come from?
The Jethro Tull song “Sossity: You’re a Woman,” which was the last track on their third album, Benefit (1970).
As made clear by the lyrics, the fictitious female Sossity is meant to be symbolic of society at large:
Sossity: You’re a woman.
Society: You’re a woman.
According to Jethro Tull singer Ian Anderson, the song “obviously [was] written as a double-meaning where I’m notionally talking about an imaginary girl in frankly a rather thin and embarrassing pun.” He also said the song was “kind of okay musically…but lyrically I was never really comfortable with it. And it’s mainly that one word, Sossity, an invented word that seemed like a rather prissy girl’s name.”
So how did the British band come to be named after a 18th-century British agriculturist/inventor?
In the late ’60s, when the group was playing small clubs, they changed their name frequently. “Jethro Tull” was a name they tried in February of 1968 at the suggestion of a booking agent, and that’s the one that stuck.
Ian has said that he since regrets choosing that name, specifically disliking the fact that it came from a real historical person: “I can’t help but feel more and more as I get older that I’m guilty of identity theft and I ought to go to prison for it, really.”
(Jethro Tull’s next and more successful album, Aqualung, featured a song about a character named Aqualung. I’m happy to report that “Aqualung” has never popped up in the SSA data.)
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