Folk-rock duo Sonny & Cher (pronounced shair) — made up of Salvatore “Sonny” Bono and Cherilyn “Cher” Sarkisian — met in 1962 and got married in 1964.
Soon after, they scored their first big hits: “I Got You Babe,” which ranked #1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart for three weeks straight in August of 1965, followed by “Baby Don’t Go,” which peaked at #8 in October.
Over the next few years, the pair put out several more successful singles, such as “The Beat Goes On,” which reached #6 in early 1967. Cher also released several solo singles, including the top-10 hits “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” and “You Better Sit Down Kids.”
As a result, the name Cher returned to the U.S. baby name data in 1965 (after a one-year absence) and began rising in usage:
- 1967: 43 baby girls named Cher
- 1966: 32 baby girls named Cher
- 1965: 18 baby girls named Cher
- 1964: unlisted
- 1963: 12 baby girls named Cher
Interestingly, during the second half of the ’60s (and into early ’70s), Cher’s name was typically written with an accent mark over the e on record covers:
I’m not sure how many of Cher’s namesakes similarly wrote their names with an accent mark, though, because the SSA’s data doesn’t include diacritics (among other things).
After several years of success, Sonny & Cher’s popularity began to wane. Here’s how Life magazine accounted for the decline:
Sonny and Cher had about two good years before, along with a lot of other singers of the class of ’65, they disappeared from the record charts and radio. […] They lost the young when acid rock took over from their simple, easy beat.
So the couple went on the road, performing in nightclubs. They developed an act that involved both music and comedy.
They also welcomed their only child, a daughter named Chastity Sun, in March of 1969. The baby had been conceived while Cher was filming the (unsuccessful) movie Chastity, which was released several months later, in June.
Right on cue, the rare name Chastity appeared for the first time in the U.S. baby name data in 1969 — thanks to the baby, or to the movie, or both.
Their nightclub act led to them being re-discovered by a CBS executive, who gave them their own TV variety show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which premiered in August of 1971. The series quickly became popular and remained so throughout its four-season run.
While the show was on the air, Cher continued releasing solo singles. In fact, three of her songs reached the top spot on the Hot 100:
- “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves,” which peaked at #1 in November of 1971,
- “Half-Breed,” in October of 1973, and
- “Dark Lady,” in March of 1974.
In response to Sonny and Cher’s second wave of popularity, the usage of the baby names Sonny and Cher increased in 1972:
| Girls named Cher | Boys named Sonny | |
| 1974 | 103 | 281 [rank: 475th] |
| 1973 | 178 [rank: 760th] | 274 [rank: 476th] |
| 1972 | 235† [rank: 650th] | 263 [rank: 486th] |
| 1971 | 110 | 206 [rank: 567th] |
| 1970 | 72 | 192 [rank: 587th] |
Cher’s birth name, Cherilyn, also saw a nearly six-fold increase in usage that year:
- 1974: 112 baby girls named Cherilyn
- 1973: 84 baby girls named Cherilyn
- 1972: 161 baby girls named Cherilyn [rank: 824th]
- 1971: 27 baby girls named Cherilyn
- 1970: 23 baby girls named Cherilyn
How did she come to have the name Cherilyn? Here’s how Cher’s mother, actress Georgia Holt, explained it:
The first part was for Lana Turner’s daughter. I loved that name Cheryl. And the second part was for my mother, Lynda.
The couple’s young daughter Chastity was also featured on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour dozens of times. These appearances propelled the name Chastity into the top 1,000 in 1972, then the top 500 in 1973:
- 1974: 749 baby girls named Chastity [rank: 311th]
- 1973: 544 baby girls named Chastity [rank: 380th]
- 1972: 220 baby girls named Chastity [rank: 675th]
- 1971: 50 baby girls named Chastity
- 1970: 40 baby girls named Chastity
By 1974, the couple’s marriage was on the rocks. The TV series ended in May of that year, Sonny and Cher’s divorce was finalized in mid-1975.
In early 1976, Sonny and Cher put their differences aside to co-host a new version of the show, simply called The Sonny & Cher Show.
In July of 1976, Cher welcomed a baby boy named Elijah Blue with her second husband, musician Gregg Allman of The Allman Brothers Band. Two months later, when The Sonny & Cher Show resumed after a summer break, Cher and Sonny spoke about Elijah Blue on the air.
The following year, the usage of the baby name Elijah increased by more than 67%:
- 1978: 547 baby boys named Elijah [rank: 322nd]
- 1977: 504 baby boys named Elijah [rank: 350th]
- 1976: 301 baby boys named Elijah [rank: 452nd]
- 1975: 263 baby boys named Elijah [rank: 491st]
- 1974: 288 baby boys named Elijah [rank: 472nd]
The second iteration of the TV series lasted until August of 1977, and Cher’s tumultuous second marriage ended not long after that.
In late 1978, Cher filed a name-change petition in Los Angeles Superior Court. Her request to shorten her legal name to the mononym Cher was granted in early 1979.
Decades later, she said:
For so long I was “Cher from Sonny and Cher.” And then I had two children, and each had a different father with a last name that I’d taken on. One day I just realized, “I’m Cher, I don’t need anything else.”
Sources:
- Sonny & Cher – Wikipedia
- Sonny & Cher – Billboard
- Cher – Britannica
- Cher singles discography – Wikipedia
- “The Changing of Cher.” Life 17 Mar. 1972: 76-78.
- “Georgia Holt.” Chicago Tribune 24 Jul. 1988.
- Cher Scholar
- Chaz Bono – Wikipedia
- Clark, Kenneth R. “People in the news.” Salinas Californian 26 Feb. 1979: 34.
- Glass, Joshua. “Cher is just Cher.” CR Fashion Book 27 Feb. 2020.
- SSA
Third and fourth images: Screenshots of the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (episodes from Mar. 1972 and Sept. 1973)
I love your blog, but I’m disappointed to see you misgendering Chaz Bono in this post.
I’m transgender and one of the reasons I study names is that I’m fascinated by the names other trans people choose for themselves.
I think in this context it’s OK to talk about Chaz’s birth name, since it clearly did have an impact and he was known by that name for a long time, but it’s always preferable to refer to trans people with their current name and pronouns, even when referring to them pre-transition.
I’d recommend rephrasing your first mention of him to something along the lines of:
“They welcomed their only child in March of 1969. Assigned female at birth, their son publicly transitioned and changed his name to Chaz in 2009. At the time of his birth, his birth name, Chastity Sun, had a remarkable impact on the popularity of the name Chastity for baby girls.”
(you could also use that as an opportunity to look into the history/popularity of the name Chaz!)
And the second mention to something like:
“The couple’s young child, then known as Chastity, was also featured on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour dozens of times.”
To be clear, I don’t presume any ill intent on your part! Just want to educate.
– Emily (they/them)
Thank you very much, Emily, for this comment.
I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.
There were several sentences about Chaz in earlier drafts of this post. Chaz’s true gender and current name/pronouns weren’t part of the story as it was unfolding in the 1960s and ’70s, though, so I had a hard time trying to integrate that information.
In the end, I wasn’t able to weave it in without it sounding clunky, so I left it out. Which was not a great decision.
I should have tried harder. (I wish I’d used your wording!)
I’m sorry about how I handled this. Thank you for calling me out on it, and for the good advice. :)