Here are the most distinctively Canadian first names by decade, according to Canadian website The 10 and 3:
- 2010s: Zainab and Linden
- 2000s: Gurleen and Callum
- 1990s: Simran and Mathieu
- 1980s: Chantelle and Darcy
- 1970s: Josee and Stephane
- 1960s: Giuseppina and Luc
- 1950s: Heather and Giuseppe
- 1940s: Heather and Lorne
- 1930s: Isobel and Lorne
- 1920s: Gwendoline and Lorne
Did you know that Canada’s love of “Lorne” comes from the Marquess of Lorne, the British nobleman who served as Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883? To see more explanations, and also more names per decade, check out the source article.
The name I’m most curious about is Josée from the 1970s. It had a “Canadian factor” of 634.6 — larger than any other name in the study — but also had no explanation, and I can’t figure out the influence. Does anyone have a guess?
Source: Gord, Sheila, Graham and Beverley? The Most Distinctively Canadian Names Are Not What You’d Expect
Image: Adapted from Sunrise at Maligne lake 2 by Sergey Pesterev under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Looks like there are quite a few notable Canadians called Josée that could have had an influence on baby names in the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9e
But the other reason that factor is so high is that Josée all but disappeared in the US for a while, only appearing in the data in 1970 and 1973: http://www.nancy.cc/baby-name/josee/
That’s a good point about the difference in usage between the countries.
I saw that list, but those Josées seem either too young or not famous enough to have been influential. (Maybe I’m wrong though — anyone from Quebec want to chime in?)
I wonder if the answer has to do with TV. Maybe there was a memorable Josée character on a French-language soap opera or something…