Where did the baby name Trenny come from in 1968?

Trenny Robb, 1967
Trenny Robb, 1967

From 1968 to 1970, the baby name Trenny was popular enough to appear in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1970: 6 baby girls named Trenny
  • 1969: 7 baby girls named Trenny
  • 1968: 20 baby girls named Trenny [debut]
  • 1967: unlisted
  • 1966: unlisted

Where did “Trenny” come from?

A bridesmaid, believe it or not.

On December 9, 1967, Lynda Bird Johnson — the elder daughter* of President Lyndon B. Johnson and Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson — married U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Charles Robb in a private ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

One of the bridesmaids was the groom’s sister, a photogenic 20-year-old named Marguerite Trenholm “Trenny” Robb.

Interest in her spiked after the wedding photos came out, and she became somewhat of a media darling for the next few years. In 1968, for instance, Trenny appeared on The Merv Griffin Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, she modeled in magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal and Mademoiselle, and she even flew to Rome to screen test for an Omar Sharif film.

The media followed her modeling career over the next couple of years — even after President Johnson was replaced by President Nixon in early 1969.

But then Trenny decided to leave it all behind and pursue other interests. In 1970 she married, moved to a farm in Vermont, and started a business making pot pipes and related paraphernalia (love beads, peace posters).

These days, Trenny is still in Vermont, but she’s moved on from making pipes to making lamps.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Trenny?

P.S. The English surname Trenholm comes from the name of a village in Yorkshire. The place name can be traced back to a pair of Old Norse words meaning “crane” (as in the bird) and “islet.”

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*Weirdly enough, the wedding of the younger Johnson daughter, Luci, also had an influence on the baby names…

Popular baby names in Saskatchewan (Canada), 2020

Flag of Saskatchewan
Flag of Saskatchewan

Last year, Saskatchewan welcomed a total of 14,170 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Olivia and Liam.

Here are Saskatchewan’s top 20 girl names and top 20 boy names of 2020:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 79 baby girls
  2. Amelia, 55
  3. Emma, 50
  4. Emily, 43
  5. Sophia, 41
  6. Ava, 37 (tie)
  7. Harper, 37 (tie)
  8. Addison, 35 (3-way tie)
  9. Ellie, 35 (3-way tie)
  10. Scarlett, 35 (3-way tie)
  11. Charlotte, 32 (tie)
  12. Isla, 32 (tie)
  13. Hazel, 30
  14. Abigail, 29 (tie)
  15. Aurora, 29 (tie)
  16. Ivy, 28
  17. Evelyn, 27
  18. Elizabeth, 26
  19. Nora, 25
  20. Madison, 24

Boy Names

  1. Liam, 74 baby boys
  2. Jack, 53
  3. Oliver, 49
  4. Hudson, 48
  5. Noah, 47 (tie)
  6. William, 47 (tie)
  7. Lucas, 44
  8. Benjamin, 43 (tie)
  9. Theodore, 43 (tie)
  10. Bennett, 41 (4-way tie)
  11. Henry, 41 (4-way tie)
  12. Lincoln, 41 (4-way tie)
  13. Luke, 41 (4-way tie)
  14. Maverick, 39 (tie)
  15. Owen, 39 (tie)
  16. James, 38 (tie)
  17. Levi, 38 (tie)
  18. Asher, 37
  19. Wyatt, 36
  20. Brooks, 35

In the preliminary rankings (which covered the year up to December 9th), the top ten boy names included the name Maverick. In these finalized rankings, however, Maverick came in 14th — right below Luke.

In 2019, the top two names were the same.

Sources: Open Data and Public Reporting – eHealth Saskatchewan, Liam And Olivia Still Saskatchewan’s Most Popular Baby Names In 2020

Image: Adapted from Flag of Saskatchewan (public domain)

Where did the baby name Bedar come from in 1966?

The unusual name Bedar has appeared just once in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1968: unlisted
  • 1967: unlisted
  • 1966: 5 baby girls named Bedar [debut]
  • 1965: unlisted
  • 1964: unlisted

Where did it come from?

A flower girl. Specifically, 4-year-old “Bedar Howar” — the flower girl at the August wedding of 19-year-old Luci Johnson, daughter of U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson.

bedar, bader, baby name, 1966

But here’s the catch: Her name was actually Bader Howar. Every contemporary write-up about the wedding that I saw managed to misspelled her name.

Her father Edmond was a real estate developer of Jordanian descent; her mother Barbara was a Washington D.C. socialite and writer. In the mid-1970s, Barbara mentioned to People magazine that Bader was “named for a paternal grandmother.” (Her name is a form of Badr, which means “full moon” in Arabic.)

Bader now works as a portrait photographer in California, though she did have a brief acting career (including a small part in Pretty in Pink).

Sources:

Babies named for “Old Rough and Ready”

U.S. President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)
Zachary Taylor

Gen. Zachary Taylor acquired the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) in Florida. He garnered even more national attention a few years later, during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

He rode his popularity all the way to the White House, though he was only in office for sixteen months (March 1849 to July 1850) before unexpectedly dying of a gastrointestinal illness on July 9th.

According to the 1850 U.S. Census, many baby boys were named Zachary Taylor (and, less often, Zachariah Taylor) in the late 1840s. Even more interesting, though, is the fact that about a dozen boys were listed as “Rough & Ready” (or some variation thereof):

  • Rough & Ready Hickey, a 3-year-old in Alabama.
  • Rough & Ready Reece, a newborn in Tennessee.
  • Rough & Ready Saunders, a 3-year-old in Virginia.
  • Rough & Ready Watson, a 2-year-old in Mississippi.
  • Rough & Ready Sansing, a 3-year-old in Mississippi
  • Rough & Ready Payne, a 1-year-old in Louisiana.
  • Rough & Ready Shutes, a 2-year-old in Wisconsin.
  • Rough & Ready Morton, a newborn in Tennessee.
  • Rough & Ready Justice, a 1-year-old in Texas.
  • Rough & Reddy Calloway, a 1-year-old in Georgia.
  • Rough & Readdy Worthington, a 5-year-old in Maryland.

In some cases, “Rough & Ready” was just a nickname for Zachary/Zachariah Taylor. In other cases, though, “Rough and Ready” really was the name — though, over time, “Rough &” often morphed into “Ruffin.”

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