According to the U.S. baby name data, Tatum both re-emerged as a girl name and debuted as a boy name in 1973:
| Girls named Tatum | Boys named Tatum | |
| 1975 | 91 | 10 |
| 1974 | 83 | 14 |
| 1973 | 25 | 9* |
| 1972 | . | . |
| 1971 | . | . |
Why?
Because of child actress Tatum O’Neal, one of the stars of the 1973 drama/comedy movie Paper Moon.
The film followed a pair of con artists — a man and a girl — as they roamed through Kansas during the Great Depression. The man, Moses, was played by actor Ryan O’Neal; the girl, Addie, was played by O’Neal’s daughter Tatum.
In April of 1974, 10-year-old Tatum won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. This made her the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award.
How was Tatum O’Neal named? Here’s what the actress said in her memoir:
I was not named for my maternal grandmother, as some accounts have it, but for the great jazz pianist Art Tatum.
The English surname Tatum was derived from the place name Tatham, which originally referred to the homestead of a person called Tata.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Tatum? (Do you like it better for a particular gender, or do you think it works well as a unisex name?)
P.S. The name Addie saw an increase in usage in 1974 — no doubt due to the movie, but perhaps also due to the short-lived TV series Paper Moon, which aired during the last four months of the year. On the show, Addie was played by Jodie Foster.
Sources:
- Paper Moon – IMDb
- Tatum O’Neal – Wikipedia
- O’Neal, Tatum. A Paper Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
- SSA
Images: Screenshots of Paper Moon and the trailer for Paper Moon
