How popular is the baby name Barbara in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Barbara.

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Popularity of the baby name Barbara


Posts that mention the name Barbara

How did Carrie-Anne Moss get her name?

Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss
Carrie-Anne Moss

Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss, who portrayed the character Trinity in all four Matrix movies, was born to parents Barbara and Melvyn Moss of British Columbia in August of 1967.

Why was she named Carrie-Anne?

Her mother named her after the song “Carrie-Anne,” by the Hollies. It was a last-minute change. She almost got named Jenny Rebecca, after a Barbra Streisand hit of a previous summer. A disaster narrowly averted.

Carrie Anne,” which was released in May of 1967, peaked at #9 on Billboard‘s U.S. Hot 100 chart a couple of weeks before Moss was born. (Billboard didn’t launch a Canadian Hot 100 chart until mid-2007.)

“Jenny Rebecca,” on the other hand, was never released as a single. But it was the third track on Streisand’s best-selling album My Name Is Barbra (1965).

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Carrie-Anne Moss at Peabody’s “Marvel’s Jessica Jones” Night by Jana Lynn French/Peabody under CC BY 2.0.

Popular baby names in Poland, 2024

Flag of Poland
Flag of Poland

Last year, the European country of Poland welcomed approximately 252,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Maja and Nikodem.

Here are Poland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2024:

Girl names

  1. Maja, 4,640 baby girls
    • Maja ranked fifth for girls in 2023.
  2. Zofia, 4,470
  3. Zuzanna, 4,144
  4. Laura, 4,036
  5. Hanna, 3,916
  6. Julia, 3,482
  7. Oliwia, 3,420
  8. Pola, 3,166
  9. Alicja, 3,131
  10. Maria, 2,698
  11. Antonina, 2,666
  12. Emilia, 2563
  13. Amelia, 2,550
  14. Liliana, 2,417
  15. Michalina, 2,375
  16. Lena, 2,366
  17. Iga, 2,349
  18. Marcelina, 2,330
  19. Klara, 2,323
  20. Helena, 2,226 (tie)
  21. Wiktoria, 2,226 (tie)
  22. Lucja, 1,898
  23. Gabriela, 1,825
  24. Kornelia, 1,771
  25. Nela, 1,648
  26. Aleksandra, 1,522
  27. Rozalia, 1,487
  28. Blanka, 1,351
  29. Jagoda, 1,343
  30. Lilianna, 1,323
  31. Anna, 1,310
  32. Nadia, 1,238
  33. Róza, 1,186
  34. Mia, 1,181
  35. Natalia, 1,110
  36. Kaja, 1,094
  37. Aurelia, 1,024
  38. Aniela, 1,015
  39. Anastazja, 987
  40. Milena, 947
  41. Sara, 873
  42. Weronika, 821
  43. Nina, 795
  44. Matylda, 792
  45. Nikola, 771
  46. Barbara, 761
  47. Jasmina, 751
  48. Liwia, 734
  49. Adrianna, 609
  50. Eliza, 579

Boy names

  1. Nikodem, 6,388 baby boys
  2. Antoni, 5,404
  3. Jan, 5,277
  4. Aleksander, 5,170
  5. Leon, 4,669
  6. Franciszek, 4,574
  7. Ignacy, 4,229
  8. Jakub, 3,938
  9. Stanislaw, 3,715
  10. Mikolaj, 3,644
  11. Filip, 3,097
  12. Szymon, 2,722
  13. Adam, 2,628
  14. Maksymilian, 2,569
  15. Wojciech, 2,552
  16. Oliwier, 2,510
  17. Tymon, 2,478
  18. Marcel, 2,360
  19. Kacper, 2,199
  20. Wiktor, 1,993
  21. Michal, 1,891
  22. Julian, 1,853
  23. Gabriel, 1,720
  24. Oskar, 1,696
  25. Milosz, 1,678
  26. Igor, 1,638
  27. Tymoteusz, 1,555
  28. Piotr, 1,390
  29. Bruno, 1,089
  30. Hubert, 1,031 (tie)
  31. Dawid, 1,031 (tie)
  32. Tadeusz, 1,020
  33. Krzysztof, 969
  34. Natan, 928
  35. Teodor, 923
  36. Cezary, 911
  37. Henryk, 904
  38. Dominik, 884
  39. Milan, 835
  40. Karol, 779
  41. Bartosz, 774
  42. Mateusz, 732
  43. Ksawery, 755
  44. Artur, 701
  45. Alan, 684
  46. Fabian, 661
  47. Tomasz, 656
  48. Maciej, 650
  49. Leo, 608
  50. Daniel, 587

The news release made note of two names — Wieslawa (given to 2 baby girls) and Waclaw (given to 3 baby boys) — that were once quite popular, but today are “almost forgotten” (niemal zapomniane) in Poland.

P.S. The Polish letters L-with-a-stroke, Z-with-an-overdot, and S-with-an-accent don’t render properly on my site, so please imagine they exist in several of the above: the girl names Lucja, Róza, Jasmina, and Wieslawa, and the boy names Stanislaw, Mikolaj, Michal, Milosz, Waclaw.

Sources: Imiona nadawane dzieciom w Polsce – Otwarte Dane, Najpopularniejsze imiona nadawane dzieciom w 2024 roku – Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji – Portal Gov.pl, Annual births in Poland hit new postwar low as population decline accelerates – Notes from Poland

Image: Adapted from Flag of Poland (public domain)

What popularized the baby name Tracy in the mid-20th century?

Actress Diana Lynn rehearsing for "The Philadelphia Story" (Dec. 1959)
Diana Lynn rehearsing “Philadelphia Story”

According to the U.S. baby name data, the usage of Tracy increased for both boys and girls during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s.

The boys’ rise was probably bolstered by a pair of masculine associations: leading man Spencer Tracy (who’d become famous in the mid-1930s) and comic strip character Dick Tracy (who first appeared in the papers in the early ’30s).

The girls’ rise was likely influenced by fictional character Tracy Lord, the protagonist of the play The Philadelphia Story (1939), which was adapted for the big and small screens multiple times. Tracy Lord — a beautiful but self-centered heiress — was portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in 1940 (film), Barbara Bel Geddes in late 1950 (TV), Dorothy McGuire in late 1954 (TV), Grace Kelly in 1956 (film), and Diana Lynn in late 1959 (TV).

Notably, the 1959 televised production of The Philadelphia Story featured original music, including “Tracy’s Theme” [vid] — an instrumental song that peaked at #13 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in February of 1960.

Another influence on the girls’ usage may have been AP columnist Hal Boyle, who often wrote about his daughter Tracy Ann (from the time she was adopted in 1953 until the early 1970s). Photos of Tracy Ann Boyle occasionally ran in the newspapers.

Six-year old Tracy Ann Boyle interviewing actor Chuck Connors (Sept. 1959)
Tracy Ann Boyle (in 1959)

The name Tracy was being given more often to baby girls than to baby boys by 1954, and the girls’ usage was more than double the boys’ usage by the end of the 1950s:

Girls named TracyBoys named Tracy
19628,308 (rank: 55th)3,340 (rank: 111th)
19616,987 (rank: 64th)3,185 (rank: 119th)
19605,767 (rank: 84th)2,584 (rank: 137th)
19593,367 (rank: 131st)1,450 (rank: 199th)
19582,110 (rank: 178th)1,249 (rank: 212th)
19571,966 (rank: 183rd)1,156 (rank: 223rd)
19561,386 (rank: 219th)773 (rank: 261st)
1955936 (rank: 280th)526 (rank: 323rd)
1954612 (rank: 348th)445 (rank: 338th)
1953326 (rank: 477th)327 (rank: 387th)

Do you know of anything else (e.g., famous people, characters, news stories) that might have helped popularize the name Tracy in the mid-20th century? (Did I miss anything?)

Sources: The Philadelphia Story (play) – Wikipedia, Tracy’s Theme – Wikipedia, Billboard Hot 100 for the week of 22 Feb. 1960, SSA

Images: Clippings from the Oakland Tribune (6 Dec. 1959) and the Meriden Journal (17 Sept. 1959)

What happened to the baby name Monica in the late 1990s?

White House intern Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky

After ranking among the top 100 girl names in the U.S. for more than three decades, the name Monica suddenly dropped out of the top 100 in 1998:

  • 2001: 1796 baby girls named Monica [rank: 182nd]
  • 2000: 1,992 baby girls named Monica [rank: 167th]
  • 1999: 2,134 baby girls named Monica [rank: 151st]
  • 1998: 3,229 baby girls named Monica [rank: 105th]
  • 1997: 4,223 baby girls named Monica [rank: 79th]
  • 1996: 4,326 baby girls named Monica [rank: 82nd]

The name’s decline in usage was even steeper the following year (-34% in 1999 vs. -24% in 1998). Here’s a visual:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Monica in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Monica

What was negatively influencing the name Monica in the late 1990s?

White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, who’d been married to Hillary Clinton since 1975, began an affair with Lewinsky during his first term in office. They had a total of ten sexual encounters over the course of sixteen months (from late 1995 to early 1997).

News of the affair broke in January of 1998.

Clinton initially denied the relationship (under oath). It wasn’t until August that he finally acknowledged that he’d had “inappropriate intimate contact” with Lewinsky.

President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky (in Feb. 1997)
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

Ongoing coverage of the “Monica Lewinsky scandal” (as it was called) dominated the headlines during 1998 and, in October, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about Lewinsky’s impact on other women named Monica:

It’s as if the reputations of Monicas everywhere have been stained by the notorious Lewinsky. “Before this, everyone would say, ‘Monica — what a pretty name,'” Monica Gardner, a 34-year-old bond buyer from Arlington, Va., recalls wistfully. “Now, it’s embarrassing.”

Bill Clinton was impeached (for committing perjury and obstructing justice) in December. He was acquitted of the charges in February of 1999.

The following month, an impressive 70 million people tuned in to watch Barbara Walters interview Monica Lewinsky on 20/20. A poll conducted the next day “found that 72% of [respondents] still have a generally unfavorable impression of [Lewinsky], down just slightly from a high of 78% in September.”

Two weeks later, Lewinsky was on the cover of Time magazine. When the Time interviewer stated, “You’re probably the most famous woman in the world right now,” Lewinsky responded, “Unfortunately.”

What are your thoughts on the name Monica?

P.S. The name’s decline might have been even steeper if not for several less-controversial ’90s associations, such as fictional character Monica Geller (from Friends), tennis player Monica Seles, and mononymous R&B singer Monica (whose duet with Brandy, “The Boy Is Mine,” topped Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart for 13 weeks straight in mid-1998).

Sources:

Images: Adapted from Monica Lewinsky (US DOD) and Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky on February 28, 1997 (White House)