Here’s a Disney name that was totally new to me…
In 1958, the number of baby girls in the U.S. named Perri more than doubled:
- 1960: 90 baby girls named Perri
- 1959: 91 baby girls named Perri
- 1958: 119 baby girls named Perri [peak usage]
- 1957: 50 baby girls named Perri
- 1956: 32 baby girls named Perri
Why?
In late 1957, Disney released the movie Perri, which follows “the perilous forest life of girl squirrel Perri, who falls for her own prince charming, a male squirrel!”
It’s not an animated film, but a fictional story narrated on top of documentary-style footage shot in Utah and Wyoming.
Like Bambi, the story was based on Felix Salten book. This one was called Die Jugend des Eichhörnchens Perri (Perri: The Youth of a Squirrel) and it was published fifteen years after Bambi.
The boy name Perry also spiked around this time, but this has more to do with the TV show Perry Mason (1957-1966) than with the Disney squirrel.
What do you think of the name Perri?
Sources: Disney’s Perri Trailer, SSA