How popular is the baby name Bob 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 Bob.

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Popularity of the baby name Bob


Posts that mention the name Bob

For-profit baby names

California mom-to-be Natasha Hill — the woman who was supposed to be getting $5,000 for allowing strangers to name her unborn baby via the site Belly Ballot — isn’t really pregnant. She isn’t even really named “Natasha Hill.”

Her name is Natasha Lloyd, and she’s an actress who was hired by the website’s founder to help drum up publicity.

Yep — the whole thing was a hoax. The folks at Today.com were the ones to figure it out:

When TODAY Moms first reported on the contest, some readers were incredulous; they couldn’t believe a real mom would do such a thing. Now it appears they were right.

Except…they weren’t. Several “real moms” (and dads) have indeed done such a thing. Here are all the for-profit baby names (and attempts) I know of:

*I never blogged about these three, so here are the details:

  • In 2001, Jason Black and Frances Schroeder of New York tried to auction off the name of the their third child (first son) via Yahoo and eBay. They were aiming for a corporate sponsor, so the bidding started at $500,000. No one bid. They ended up naming the baby Zane Black.
  • In 2002, Bob and Tracy Armstrong from Florida tried to auction off the name of their baby (gender unknown) via eBay. After eBay pulled the auction for the third time, they decided not to try again.
  • In 2002, Heather and Steve Johnston of Washington state tried to auction off the name of their baby boy via eBay. The bidding started at $250,000. I found no follow-up stories, so I imagine the auction was either pulled or unsuccessful.

Video games on one end, $15,000 on the other…such wildly different values placed on baby names. Kinda fascinating, isn’t it?

Sources: $5,000 online baby-name contest revealed as hoax, Mom crowdsources baby name for $5,000

Image: Adapted from $20 Federal Reserve Bank Note (1929) (public domain)

[Latest update: Dec. 2024]

How did Nadia Comaneci influence U.S. baby names in 1976?

Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci
Nadia Comaneci

At the 1976 Summer Olympics, 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first to score a “perfect 10” in a modern Olympic gymnastics event. (She was on the uneven bars at the time.) She ended up earning six more 10s — and winning three gold medals — in Montreal that July.

The same year, Comaneci popped up in the U.S. baby name data for the first and only time:

  • 1978: unlisted
  • 1977: unlisted
  • 1976: 9 baby girls named Comaneci [debut]
  • 1975: unlisted
  • 1974: unlisted

Comaneci (pronounced koh-mah-NETCH) is one of several Romanian surnames that refer to the Cumans, a Turkic people who migrated to the Carpathian region in the early 13th century.

The name Nadia also got quite a boost in 1976. It jumped not only into the girls’ top 1,000, but straight into the top 500:

  • 1978: 610 baby girls named Nadia [rank: 353rd]
  • 1977: 790 baby girls named Nadia [rank: 303rd]
  • 1976: 585 baby girls named Nadia [rank: 360th]
  • 1975: 86 baby girls named Nadia
  • 1974: 88 baby girls named Nadia

Nadia Comaneci’s first name was inspired by a Russian film character called Nadezhda. Nadia (also spelled Nadya) is a diminutive of Nadezhda, which means “hope” in Russian.

Comaneci now lives in the U.S. and is married to fellow Olympic gymnast Bart Conner. They have a son, Dylan Paul, who is named for Bart’s favorite musician, Bob Dylan, and Bart’s former University of Oklahoma coach, Paul Ziert.

P.S. Soviet gymnast Nelli Kim, who also earned a pair of perfect scores at the 1976 Summer Olympics, is likely behind he debut of Nelli in the U.S. baby name data in 1977.

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the cover of Time magazine (2 Aug. 1976)

Where did the baby name Cobina come from in 1939?

Cobina Wright, Jr. (1921-2011)
Cobina Wright, Jr.

Esther Cobb (1887-1970) was an ambitious gossip columnist known professionally, and later legally, as Cobina Wright.

She had her only child, Cobina Carolyn Wright, in 1921.

Cobina Sr. made sure to groom Cobina Jr. “for a film career capped by a spectacular marriage.”

Cobina Jr. ended up becoming one of the glamour girls of her era:

By 1938, [Cobina Jr.] was already under contract with 20th Century Fox while also modelling and singing in nightclubs. The next year, she won the title of Miss Manhattan and was named “most attractive and talented New York girl of the 1939 season.”

She was even wooed by Prince Philip (the eventual husband of Queen Elizabeth II) in the late 1930s.

In the early 1940s, she appeared in several films (e.g., Week-End in Havana) and made the cover of Life Magazine (in February of 1941).

While Cobina was at the height of her fame, her name appeared in the U.S. baby name data twice:

  • 1942: unlisted
  • 1941: 7 baby girls named Cobina
  • 1940: unlisted
  • 1939: 8 baby girls named Cobina [debut]
  • 1938: unlisted

In late 1941, at the age of 19, she got married. Several years after that, Cobina Jr. retired from acting.

Update, 6/1/2018: Just discovered something! In the early 1940s, Bob Hope “hired two ladies, Blanche Steward and Elvia Allman, to do parodies of two well-known debutantes of the period, Brenda Frazier and Cobina Wright, Jr.” The characters Brenda and Cobina appeared in several films together from 1940 to 1942. But Bob had to get rid of the characters when the real-life Cobina initiated a lawsuit. This might be a better explanation for the return of the name in ’41. It also might relate to Robin’s comment…

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the cover of Life magazine (17 Feb. 1941)

Babies named via radio in the 1920s

Antique cathedral radio

Since the 1990s, expectant parents have been using the internet to ask complete strangers for baby name suggestions.

Crowdsourcing via cutting-edge technology — seems thoroughly modern, doesn’t it? It’s been going on for a few decades now, sure, but it’s a distinctly “information age” sort of practice, right?

That’s what I would have said…before discovering that expectant parents were using cutting-edge technology to crowdsource for baby names over 80 years ago.

How?

Radio!

During the first years of the 20th century, radio was used by the military for two-way wireless communication. Around 1920, it began to be used for one-way communication to larger audiences. This was called “broadcasting” (as opposed to “narrowcasting”).

Before long, expectant parents began asking radio stations for help coming up with baby names.

Early radio wasn’t recorded, so there’s no telling how many babies were named via radio. Luckily, newspapers ran stories on at least a handful of these radio-named babies. (That’s how I learned about them.)

The first instances I know of occurred in early 1923. This is long before the founding of broadcast networks such as NBC (1926) and CBS (1927), which were radio-based before making the jump to television years later.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

1923: Winifred Susan Beatrice

Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Coker of Atlanta welcomed a baby girl in February, 1923. Two months later, they wrote to local station WSB, owned by the Atlanta Journal, for help naming their daughter.

The station didn’t broadcast the request. Instead, station manager Lambdin Kay came up with “Winifred Susan Beatrice,” based on the call letters of the station.

1923: William Grady Moseley

Mr. and Mrs. George F. Pollock of Atlanta welcomed a baby boy in March, 1923. Two months later, they wrote to local station WGM, owned by the Atlanta Constitution, for help naming their son.

William’s name also wasn’t crowdsourced. The station came up with “William Grady Moseley,” based on the call letters of the station. (William was for the baby’s grandfather; Grady was for orator Henry W. Grady; Moseley was for station director Lass O. Moseley.)

1923: Jean…?

Ok, here’s our first real case of crowdsourcing.

R. R. Brown, pastor of the Omaha Gospel Tabernacle in Omaha, Nebraska, welcomed a baby girl on Saturday, April 21, 1923. He delivered a sermon by radio on Sunday, April 22. During the broadcast, he told listeners he’d “decided to let radio fans do the naming.”

The papers, reporting Brown’s call for baby names the following day, noted that “already he has received by telephone a number of suggestions. One of them was that he call her “Radioana.””

According to the 1930 Census, Brown’s three children were named Robert, Lois and Jean. Jean was born right around 1923.

I’m not sure whether her name came from a radio listener’s suggestion, though.

1926: Unknown

An unidentified couple wrote to radio station WOC in Davenport, Iowa, in October, 1926. They wanted radio listeners to help them name their baby girl.

The detail-deficient article didn’t reveal the outcome, but it did include a flippant flapper joke:

Wants Name From Fans article 1923

1927: Mary Lou

Proper crowdsourcing and a known name. Finally!

Lawrence and Ethel Webb Bartley of Whitesburg, Kentucky, welcomed a baby girl in January, 1927. Several weeks later, they wrote to a local radio station for help naming their daughter.

The request was broadcast. Listeners in 38 U.S. states and in Canada submitted more than 1,000 name suggestions, some of which were read on-air.

The Bartleys ended up naming their daughter Mary Lou.

In March, an op-ed writer commenting on the Bartley story praised the “innovation of appealing to radioland to name a new member of the family.” She went on to say, “We hope the custom of having radioland pick the baby’s name flourishes and spreads.”

[UPDATE, Feb. 2015: Was Mary Lou Bartley’s original first name Seroba?!]

1927: Robert Edward

Mr. Kenneth Smith of Des Moines, Iowa, welcomed a baby boy, his 8th child, in late 1927. He asked local radio station KSO for help naming his son.

He also offered “a fur robe to the radio listener who would suggest the best name.”

More than 200 names were suggested. The winning name, Robert Edward, was submitted by “Mrs. Thompson of Bedford.”

Baby Named By Radio Listeners

A prize? Some free advertising? Happened 84 years ago, but sounds utterly modern to me.

Sources:

  • “Baby Named by Radio Listeners.” Carroll Herald 11 Jan 1928: 9.
  • “Rites are held for Mary Lou Bartley.” Mountain Eagle 19 Aug. 2009.
  • “Mrs. Beatrice C. Hale, ‘WSB Baby’ who was named by radio station.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution 3 Oct. 1985: D11.
  • “‘Old Reliable’ Christens Baby Via Radiophone.” Atlanta Constitution 15 May 1923: 6.
  • Pehkoff, Suzanne. “Naming the Baby.” Los Angeles Times 19 Mar. 1927: A4.
  • “‘Radioana’ Baby’s Name.” Spokane Daily Chronicle 23 Apr. 1923: 1.
  • “Radio Helps Name Baby.” Los Angeles Times 6 Mar. 1927: 2.
  • Radio Programming – Wikipedia
  • Ryan, Quin A. “Inside the Loud Speaker.” Chicago Tribune 6 Feb. 1927: D11.
  • “Wants Name from Fans.” Evening Independent [St. Petersburg] 11 Oct. 1926: 3-A.