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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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?
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.
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.
[S]he is spending the whole week correcting every media report out there on how to spell the baby’s name. Whoops!
The problem started when US Weekly spelled the little girl’s name with two “d”s instead of one, and just spiraled from there. Leah has had to turn to social media to make the correction.
Sounds like the Teen Mom just got a taste of what happens when you decide you need your baby’s name to be insanely “unique.”
I grew up in what I have learned since then, is considered an ALTERNATIVE environment. I went to a hippie school, and my classmates had names that included Andromeda, Boreas, Vitali, Oak, and Rolly (pronounced Role-e) (hi guys!). Considering the roll call, I was kind of the “Jane Smith” of the group. However, regardless of the pillows on the floor, and meetings where we had to discuss our feelings, I still got teased on the playground and called names.
[…]
Then, I moved to the East Coast. East coast people find it a very funny name. This morning, as it would happen, two co-workers discussed my name in front of me, and one said, “I didn’t think it was your real name.” I get that a lot. Maybe it’s because there aren’t any hippies left here. I know the cultural consciousness happened on the east coast, because I’ve met people that had hippies for parents, but it seems that east coast hippies have moved on to academic postings or documentary filmmakers, and they seem to name their kids Amos or Noah, and not after seasons or other natural occurrences.
About 4,250 Alexas are turning five in the U.S. this year. One of them is Amazon’s.
The voice-computing technology that can now control more than 85,000 different devices debuted Nov. 6, 2014.
[…]
In 2015, the year after Amazon Alexa debuted, Alexa was the 32nd most popular female baby name in the U.S., bestowed upon 6,052 newborns that year, according to Social Security Administration data.
Alexa as a baby name has since declined in popularity.
Sydney couple Courtney Cassar, 31, and Laura Sheldon, 29, welcomed daughter Lyla Jill last month, but rather than using a hyphen between their family names, they bestowed the ‘mashed-up’ moniker ‘Casseldon’ on their baby girl instead.
From an Us Weeklypiece 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.
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.
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.”
For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.
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?
Sources:
“The Fair Sex in a New Field.” Cincinnati Enquirer 1 Apr. 1928: 110.
“Favorite of Rodeos.” Oakland Tribune 24 Sept. 1933: 57.
“Girl Student Rise to Tijuana Triumph.” New York Times 12 Mar. 1928: 25.
“Long Beach Girl Wins Sweetheart of Rodeo Honors.” Santa Cruz Sentinel 22 Jul. 1933: 3.
P.S. For several months in 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.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 9, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 9-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “nines” in numerology?
Turning names into numbers
Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.
First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.
For instance, the letters in the name Rockwell correspond to the numbers 18, 15, 3, 11, 23, 5, 12, and 12. The sum of these numbers is 99. The digits of 99 added together equal 18, and the digits of 18 added together equal 9 — the numerological value of Rockwell.
Baby names with a value of 9
Below you’ll find the most popular 9-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.
9
The letters in the unisex baby name Ace add up to 9.
9 via 18
The letters in the following baby names add up to 18, which reduces to nine (1+8=9).
Girl names (9 via 18)
Boy names (9 via 18)
Lea, Gaia, Ela, Acacia, Addi
Can, Adal, Acie, Edi, Jag
9 via 27
The letters in the following baby names add up to 27, which reduces to nine (2+7=9).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number nine. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 9 being described as “humanitarian,” “tolerant,” “helpful,” “determined,” and “compassionate.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 9:
Pregnancy (9 months long)
Baseball (9 players on the field; 9 innings)
K-9 (“canine”) police dog units
“Cloud nine” (expression)
“Nine lives” of a cat (expression)
“To the nines” (expression)
“The whole nine yards” (expression)
What does the number 9 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?
P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.
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