How popular is the baby name Buddy 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 Buddy.

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Popularity of the baby name Buddy


Posts that mention the name Buddy

Where did the baby name Peggysue come from in 1958?

Early rock and roll musician Buddy Holly (1936-1959)
Buddy Holly

In September of 1957, the classic rock and roll song “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly came out.

“Peggy Sue” was on Billboard‘s “Top 100” chart for 22 weeks from late 1957 to early 1958, reaching as high as the #3 spot.

Right on cue, the compound name Peggysue debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1958:

  • 1960: unlisted
  • 1959: 6 baby girls named Peggysue
  • 1958: 7 baby girls named Peggysue [debut]
  • 1957: unlisted
  • 1956: unlisted

The name Peggy by itself also saw a significant increase in usage that year:

  • 1960: 6,434 baby girls named Peggy [rank: 69th]
  • 1959: 7,408 baby girls named Peggy [rank: 57th]
  • 1958: 10,072 baby girls named Peggy [rank: 42nd] (peak)
  • 1957: 7,379 baby girls named Peggy [rank: 62nd]
  • 1956: 7,487 baby girls named Peggy [rank: 63rd]

No doubt many of these Peggys had the middle name Sue.

So how did Buddy Holly chose the name “Peggy Sue” for the song? He didn’t — he wrote a song called “Cindy Lou,” taking the names from his newborn baby niece, Cindy Carol, and Cindy’s mom (Buddy’s sister) Patricia Lou.

But the original song wasn’t working out, so the band experimented with it in the summer of ’57. One of the changes they made was to the name. The rhythmically identical “Peggy Sue” was suggested by drummer Jerry Allison, who was dating a girl named Peggy Sue at the time.

At the end of 1958, Buddy Holly started working on “Peggy Sue Got Married,” one of rock and roll’s first sequel songs. Sadly he didn’t finish the song before February 3, 1959 — the day that he, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa.

If you were having a baby girl, and you had to name her either Peggy Sue or Cindy Lou, which combination would you choose?

P.S. “Peggy Sue” was released just a few months after the doo-wop song “Deserie,” which we talked about a few days ago.

Sources:

Image: Buddy Holly (Brunswick Records publicity photo)

[Latest update: Aug. 2023]

Where did the baby name Jimbo come from in 1961?

The characters Ace and Jimbo from an episode of the TV series "The Twilight Zone" (1959-1964)
Ace and Jimbo from “The Twilight Zone“

Yesterday’s post involved Alfred Hitchcock, so today let’s cross over into the Twilight Zone.

The TV series The Twilight Zone is now a cult classic, but was only moderately popular during its original run (1959-1964).

That said, it did win a couple of Emmys in the early ’60s. It also inspired viewers to start Twilight Zone fan clubs across the nation. Best of all, it boosted at least one baby name onto the U.S. charts.

That name? Jimbo:

  • 1963: 7 baby boys named Jimbo
  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: 10 baby boys named Jimbo [debut]
  • 1960: unlisted
  • 1959: unlisted

In March of 1961, Twilight Zone audiences were introduced to nice-guy character Jimbo Cobb in the episode “The Prime Mover.”

Jimbo Cobb was telekinetic. Ace Larsen, the owner of the diner where Jimbo worked, discovered this one day and convinced Jimbo to go to Las Vegas with him.

The story unfolds as you might expect: They win for a while with the help of Jimbo’s ability to move objects (like roulette balls) with his mind. But Jimbo is wiser than he seems, and in the end doesn’t allow Ace to keep his winnings.

Instead of losing his mind (like some gamblers are wont to do), Ace finds the humor in all of it immediately. Easy come. Easy go. Something snaps inside of him, and he appreciates the life he has more than the life he thought he wanted.

Jimbo was played by actor Buddy Ebsen, who also appeared in dozens of other early TV shows, including Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, Rawhide, and Gunslinger. He’s best remembered today for playing Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies.

Sources: Exploring The Twilight Zone #57: The Prime Mover, The Prime Mover – Wikipedia

Fastest-rising girl names of all time in the U.S. baby name data

hot air balloons

Yesterday we looked at the fastest-rising boy names of all time, so today let’s look at the fastest-rising girl names.

Here are all the girl names that increased in popularity by more than 10,000 babies in a single year:

  1. Linda, +46,978 baby girls from 1946 to 1947
  2. Shirley, +19,514 baby girls from 1934 to 1935
  3. Ashley, +18,435 baby girls from 1982 to 1983
  4. Deborah, +12,954 baby girls from 1950 to 1951
  5. Mary, +12,842 baby girls from 1914 to 1915
  6. Jennifer, +12,455 baby girls from 1969 to 1970
  7. Amanda, +11,406 baby girls from 1978 to 1979
  8. Linda, +11,239 baby girls from 1945 to 1946
  9. Brittany, +10,969 baby girls from 1988 to 1989
  10. Michelle, +10,937 baby girls from 1965 to 1966
  11. Debra, +10,866 baby girls from 1950 to 1951
  12. Jennifer, +10,626 baby girls from 1970 to 1971
  13. Patricia, +10,452 baby girls from 1945 to 1946
  14. Cindy, +10,268 baby girls from 1956 to 1957
  15. Debra, +10,015 baby girls from 1952 to 1953

Linda is clearly the winner here.

Linda’s spike in 1947 is like the perfect storm of spikes. The name was already on the rise, and then the song “Linda” (1946) became a huge hit in mid-1947 — at the beginning of the post–WWII baby boom.

Several performers recorded the song, but the most successful rendition was the one sung by Buddy Clark (backed by Ray Noble’s orchestra):

If the song had been released just one year earlier — which is theoretically possible, as it was written in 1942 — the Linda spike might have been even bigger, as the largest one-year increase in births in U.S. history happened between 1945 and 1946.

The song “Linda” was created by songwriter Jack Lawrence at the request of his attorney, Lee Eastman, who wanted a song written for his 5-year-old daughter.

Being a good friend, I obliged and wrote a song for five-year-old Linda. When I made the rounds of publishers I met with frustration. Most of them like everything about the song but the name Linda. “Why Linda?” they would ask. “That’s not a popular name”. One guy said: “Call it Ida — after my mother-in-law and I’ll publish it”. I had to remind him there already was an “Ida — Sweet as Apple Cider!” Another maven suggested the name Mandy. He felt that had a more musical ring than Linda. I reminded him that Irving Berlin had thought so too, years ago he had written: “Mandy, There’s A Minister Handy”, etc.

Jack Lawrence stuck with Linda, and the song made musical (and baby name) history.

And 5-year-old Linda Eastman also made musical history, in a sense, by marrying Beatle Paul McCartney in the late 1960s.

Trivia question of the day: Only one girl name ever decreased in popularity by more than 10,000 baby girls over a one-year period. Can you guess the name?

P.S. One of the fastest-rising names of 1947, Jolinda, was no doubt riding on the coattails of Linda.

Sources: Linda – Jack Lawrence, Songwriter, List of Billboard number-one singles of 1947 – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Adapted from Turkey-2036 by Dennis Jarvis under CC BY-SA 2.0.

[Latest update: May 2023]

The names Seventeen, Eighteen, and Nineteen

Baker family on the 1880 U.S. Census
Baker family, 1880 U.S. Census

Yesterday’s post on the Rosado family of Brazil reminded me of a Tennessee family I spotted in the 1880 U.S. Census.

The parents were Stephen and Maria Baker, ages 52 and 45, and the three youngest children were listed as…

  • Billy (?) Seventeen (male, age 4)
  • Lady Eighteen (female, age 3)
  • Aurilla Nineteen (female, age 0)

My hunch is that they were the 17th, 18th, and 19th children, but I haven’t been able to verify it yet.

The older children still at home in 1880 were named Millie, Buddy, Willie, and Albert.

On the 1870 U.S. Census, the family’s children were listed as Rachel, James, Francis, Florence, Milley, Budie, and Wm (an abbreviation for William).