This one stumped me for a long time, but I think I’ve finally figured it out.
The word-name Dart debuted in the U.S. baby name data in the mid-1950s and hung around for several years before disappearing again:
- 1961: unlisted
- 1960: 6 baby boys named Dart
- 1959: 5 baby boys named Dart
- 1958: 8 baby boys named Dart
- 1957: 10 baby boys named Dart
- 1956: 12 baby boys named Dart [debut]
- 1955: unlisted
At first I got stuck on a pair of auto-Darts: the Chrysler Dart, a concept car that was in the news briefly in mid-1956, and the Dodge Dart, a production car that went on sale in 1960. Neither one was a good answer.
Finally I happened to find a 1955 film called Foxfire that featured a main character named Jonathan “Dart” Dartland (played by Jeff Chandler). He was a half-Apache mining engineer whose new marriage to socialite wife Amanda (played by Jane Russell) was threatened by the cultural gap between them.
The screenplay, based on a 1950 novel of the same name by Anya Seton, was written by Ketti Frings.
What do you think of “Dart” as a baby name?
P.S. Foxfire was the film playing aboard the SS Andrea Doria the moment it was struck by the MS Stockholm.
Sources: Foxfire (1955 film) – Wikipedia, Foxfire (1955) – TCM