How popular is the baby name Betty 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 Betty.

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Popularity of the baby name Betty


Posts that mention the name Betty

Name quotes #93: Kenai, Fingal, Jerrie

Letter about baby Kenai (via Rocky Mountain NP’s IG)

From a handwritten letter sent to Rocky Mountain National Park from “Shawn in Texas”:

My wife and I got to take our baby boy named Kenai (named after Kenai Fjords National Park) on his first National Park trip to Rocky Mountain National Park just right before the fires. This was a special trip for us seeing that this would make his first adventure before the many to come.

(The baby name Kenai has become increasingly popular recently. I don’t know what year this particular baby was born, but over 10% of the Kenais born in 2019 were also from Texas.)

From an article in the New York Post about the “Via Getty” confusion on social media:

Lefties fired up over protesters storming the US Capitol Building mistakenly believed one caught-on-camera rioter was named “Via Getty” — because of a photo credit for the media firm Getty Images.

Politico reporter Ryan Lizza had posted a photo on Twitter with the message “Via Getty, one of the rioters steals a podium from the Capitol.”

But online critics embarrassingly assumed “Via Getty” was the guy’s name — instead of attribution for one of the world’s largest visual media companies.

(Usage of the baby name Via is rising pretty swiftly right now — anyone know why? I’m stumped.)

From a New York Times article about parents looking for “positive” baby names:

Some parents-to-be have been so distracted by the pandemic that they’ve skipped the deliberation and quickly picked a name. Amanda Austin of Erie, Pa., owner of an e-commerce store specializing in dollhouse miniatures, came up with her daughter’s name on a whim. “It was in March, when the whole world was shutting down,” she said. “Covid terrified me. My husband and his dad own a construction company and Pennsylvania had banned construction work.”

The name “Annette” popped suddenly into her mind. “I shared it with my husband and he loved it,” Austin said. “His reaction is a far cry from my other daughter’s naming process, where we went back and forth for months. I think we had so much going on with the pandemic that we didn’t have the mental bandwidth to dig deeper.” The name also reminded the couple of the 1950s, a “less complicated” time.

From a 1979 People article about the “eerie similarities” between two Ohio men who discovered, at age 39, that they were twins separated at birth:

Curiously, both had been christened James by their adoptive parents [who lived 40 miles apart]. As schoolboys, both enjoyed math and carpentry — but hated spelling. Both pursued similar adult occupations: Lewis is a security guard at a steel mill, and Springer was a deputy sheriff (though he is now a clerk for a power company). Both married women named Linda, only to divorce and remarry — each a woman named Betty. Both have sons: James Alan Lewis and James Allan Springer.

From a 2017 article about the off-Broadway play They Promised Her the Moon (which tells the story of pilot Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb, the first American woman to test for space flight):

“I immediately fell in love with the story,” the show’s director and producer, Valentina Fratti, told Space.com. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t know about Jerrie Cobb.” 

Fratti had been named for the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, but hadn’t known about the “almost first,” her American counterpart. 

From a 1907 article in the Deseret Evening News called “Genealogy“:

A very good guide, in the study of New England genealogy, is given by the Christian name. In some families, Simon, Stephen and Thomas may follow down the line of sons; while others carry only John, James and William. Genealogists have great confidence in this clue, for those Christian old worthies used to name their sons after themselves and their fathers. They had not evolved into the “Vernons” and “Cecils” and “Irvings” of now-a-days; these modern names which mean nothing but a morbid craving for the romantic and unusual.

From a 1964 article in the Eugene Register-Guard called “Quite a Problem, Naming the Baby“:

The American melting pot has made something of a stew of old world cultures. Isaac and Rebecca Goldberg are the parents not of Moses and Rachael, but of Donald and Marie. Hjalmar and Sigrid Johanson are the parents of Richard and Dorothy. It seems rather a shame that Axel and Jens, Helma and Ingeborg, not to mention Stanislaus and Giacomo and Pedro and Vladimir have just about disappeared. The custom seems to be for the first generation to anglicize the given name as soon as possible. The next generation or two branches out and we get Pat Johnson, even Angus Puccini. Then, after a few generations, there is a tentative reach backward for the Shawns or even the Seans. Katy’s real name may again be Caitlin, Pat’s Padriac.

Have you spotted any interesting name-related quotes/articles/blog posts lately? Let me know!

Where did the baby name Neysa come from in the 1910s?

Illustrator Neysa McMein (1888-1949)
Neysa McMein

The name Neysa first popped up in the U.S. baby name data in 1917. It began seeing regular usage during the 1920s:

  • 1924: 10 baby girls named Neysa
  • 1923: 8 baby girls named Neysa
  • 1922: 12 baby girls named Neysa
  • 1921: 7 baby girls named Neysa
  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: unlisted
  • 1918: 9 baby girls named Neysa
  • 1917: 9 baby girls named Neysa [debut]
  • 1916: unlisted
  • 1915: unlisted

What put this name on the map?

Illustrator Neysa McMein, whose creations — typically drawings of pretty young women — were featured prominently in magazines and advertisements during the 1920s and 1930s. For instance, Neysa drew every single McCall’s magazine cover from 1923 to 1937, 62 Saturday Evening Post covers from 1916 to 1939, and gave a face to Betty Crocker in 1936.

Beyond her art, Neysa McMein was also a well-known personality of the Roaring Twenties. She was “mentioned or quoted in magazine articles, fiction, and in advertisements with some regularity.” According to theater director George Abbott, “every taxi-cab driver, every salesgirl, every reader of columns, knew about the fabulous Neysa.”

Interestingly, though, she didn’t start out as a Neysa. She was born a Marjorie.

In 1911, after growing up in Illinois and graduating from art school in Chicago, she moved to New York City to both launch her career and forge a new identity — which included adopting a new name.

Though she told the press that “Neysa” had been suggested by a numerologist, she told her husband a different story: that “Neysa” was the name of an Arabian filly she’d encountered while visiting cartoonist/horse breeder Homer Davenport in New Jersey.

Regardless of the source, she did say that she believed the name Neysa had more “commercial value” than the name Marjorie.

What are your thoughts on the name Neysa? Would you use it?

Sources:

Name quotes #81: Melinda, Kaislen, Amitabh

double quotation mark

It’s a new month — time for a new batch of name-related quotations!

From an article and a blog post about the naming of Wendy’s:

When it came to deciding what to call the chain, [Dave Thomas] tried out the names of all five of his children before he settled on the nickname for his daughter, Melinda, which was Wendy.

Before my dad left us [in 2002], we had a long conversation about him naming the restaurant Wendy’s. It was the first time we’d ever had this conversation. He said, “You know what? I’m sorry.” I asked him what he meant. He explained, “I should’ve just named it after myself, because it put a lot of pressure on you.”

From a 2017 LDS Living article about Mormon names:

Jennifer Mansfield, a current graduate student in the Folklore Program at Utah State University, identified six different types of Mormon names: religious (Moroni, Nephi, Brigham), combination (Taylee, Mandylyn), invented (Kaislen), creatively spelled (Kady, Taeler), ancestral (Freestone, Jenkin), and themed (Monson, Hinckley, Kimball).

From CUNY linguist Leonard R. N. Ashley (via Futility Closet):

I once had a student named Usmail, which I at first thought was some Hispanic version of Ishmael. It transpired that he had been named for the only contact his family in a remote Puerto Rican village enjoyed with the outside world, the red-white-and-blue truck that came frequently and had painted on its side US Mail.

(Here are more names like Usmail.)

From the 2013 New York Times obituary of Pitcairner and Bounty mutineer descendant Tom Christian:

There are no automobiles on Pitcairn, and the island’s rocks and cliffs bear names redolent of long-ago tragedies: “Where Dan Fall,” “Where Minnie Off,” “Oh Dear.”

[…]

Besides his daughter Jacqueline, Mr. Christian’s survivors include his wife, the former Betty Christian, whom he married in 1966 (like many Pitcairn couples, they are distant cousins); three other daughters, Raelene Christian, Sherileen Christian and Darlene McIntyre; and six grandchildren.

From an Us Weekly piece about Oprah‘s BFF Gayle King:

I changed my name from Gail to Gayle in seventh grade because I liked to make a loopy y.

From the essay “The Joy of Being Called Morven Crumlish” by the awesomely named Morven Crumlish (via British Baby Names):

I like having an unusual name. The Morven part is not so uncommon in Scotland – most people I meet know another Morven, and I know at least half a dozen. I once ended up in the pub with two other Morvens, which got funnier as the night wore on. Added to the Crumlish, though, my name is, I think, unique. “There can’t be more than one Morven Crumlish!” is something I hear a lot, when the different parts of my life accidentally collide, which makes it difficult to misbehave. In the past my name has become an abstraction. “So this is what a Morven Crumlish looks like,” said the porters who wheeled me down to get my tonsils removed, reducing me to an indefinite object.

[Here are some other very Scottish names.]

From a 2013 article in The Atlantic about the names of NPR reporters:

Neda Ulaby’s first name means “dew” and is fairly common in Syria. (“It’s also the name of the heroine of an opera called Pagliacci who is literally killed by a clown,” she told me over email.)

[…]

A few years ago, a pair of hardcore NPR listeners invited Neda Ulaby to their wedding, sending along a picture of their car’s license plate, which reads “OOLABEE.” “Apparently they’d developed the creepy habit of referring to each other as ‘my little Ulaby.’ So I became a mating call,” she explained.

…And another quote from the same article:

Robert Smith of Planet Money told me by email that the only reason to change his name “would be so that I could be more famous. You would remember it better if I ended by reports with, ‘I’m Mobius Tutti.'” But at the same time, he says, “I’m in this business to tell other people’s stories, and not to promote myself or my own name. Being a Robert Smith is always a good reminder that you aren’t that different than the people you cover.”

From the article “What your name says about your age” (2016) in The Hindu:

Movie stars seem to have an impact on naming conventions too. The median [age of women named] Raveena, Karishma, Twinkle and Kajol are between 20 and 23 today, which, given the two movie stars’ debuts in the early 90s, makes sense. The median Aishwarya is 21, which is roughly how many years ago Ms. Rai Bachchan won the Miss World title.

Among men, there has been a sharp rise in the popularity of Shahrukh and Sachin, both peaks coinciding with their debuts on film screens and the cricket field respectively. Amitabh is declining in popularity after hitting a peak among those who were born in the mid 70s.

Where did the baby name Ardoth come from in 1933?

Ardoth Schneider after winning a race (circa 1930)
Ardoth Schneider after winning a race

The rare name Ardoth was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data in 1933:

  • 1935: unlisted
  • 1934: unlisted
  • 1933: 6 baby girls named Ardoth [debut]
  • 1932: unlisted
  • 1931: unlisted

What gave the name a boost that year?

My guess is female jockey and trick rider Ardoth Schneider.

She’d been winning races since the late 1920s, so her name — often misspelled “Ardath” — had been mentioned in the newspapers before.

But 1933 was the year she was declared Sweetheart of California Rodeo:

While thousands cheered themselves hoarse at the western arena [in Salinas] this afternoon as the spectacular 22nd annual rodeo got under way, the 1933 Sweetheart crown was placed over the lustrous, black locks of winsome Ardoth Schneider, 23, of Long Beach.

Following the win, various photos of Ardoth — typically astride or beside a horse — began popping up in the newspapers. And I think the photos (as opposed to the mere mentions) are what made the difference.

As the new “Sweetheart,” she went on a tour of Panama, Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador with a letter of introduction from President Roosevelt that described her as California’s “finest outdoor girl.”

What are your thoughts on the name Ardoth? Would you use it for a modern-day baby?

P.S. For several months during the winter of 1928, Ardoth was in Japan performing for the coronation of Emperor Hirohito. Twice a day, she jumped her Shetland pony Betty off a 40-foot platform into a pool of water “to entertain the enthusiastic Japanese crowds.”

P.P.S. Tuesdee is another female jockey-inspired baby name I discovered in the data…

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of USA: Female Jockeys Competing In Turf Classic Race (1930) by British Pathé