How popular is the baby name Dane 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 Dane.
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The Thorn Birds, a novel by Australian writer Colleen McCullough, was published in the spring of 1977.
Set in the Australian outback, the book followed three generations of the Cleary family from the 1910s to the 1960s. It was primarily about the forbidden love between main character Meghann “Meggie” Cleary and Catholic priest Ralph de Bricassart (who was nearly two decades Meggie’s senior).
The Thorn Birds became the best-selling book in Australian history. Curiously, though, it didn’t have a strong effect on Australian baby names.* (Neither Meghann nor Meggie has ever ranked among the top 100 girl names in either New South Wales or Queensland, for instance.)
In the U.S., on the other hand, the book wasn’t quite as popular — it was the second-best-selling book of 1977 after J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion — but Meghann debuted impressively in the U.S. baby name data the same year, and jumped into the girls’ top 1,000 one year later:
1979: 374 baby girls named Meghann [rank: 517th]
1978: 301 baby girls named Meghann [rank: 572nd]
1977: 53 baby girls named Meghann [debut]
1976: unlisted
1975: unlisted
No doubt the trendiness of Megan around that time primed expectant parents to see spelling variant Meghann as a fashionable option.
Six years later, the Australian book was made into an American TV miniseries. The four-episode, ten-hour show — which starred Rachel Ward as Meggie Cleary and Richard Chamberlain as Father de Bricassart — was broadcast on ABC in March of 1983.
The televised version of The Thorn Birds was extremely popular. An estimated 110 million people tuned in to watch at least some portion of the program, making it the second-highest-rated miniseries in television history (behind Roots). It also earned 6 Emmy Awards and 7 Golden Globe Awards.
As a result, the usage of both Meghann and Meggie (which had debuted in the data in 1980) saw a marked increase:
Girls named Meghann
Girls named Meggie
1985
260 [rank: 688th]
47†
1984
236 [rank: 704th]
24
1983
297 [rank: 601st]
42
1982
166 [rank: 913th]
9
1981
170 [rank: 889th]
.
†Peak usage
The show also re-ignited the rise of Megan, and inspired the one-hit wonder Meghaan.
Dane O’Neill from “The Thorn Birds“
Two characters featured predominantly in the final episode of the miniseries were Meggie Cleary’s adult children Justine (whose father was Meggie’s estranged husband Luke O’Neill) and Dane (whose father was de Bricassart).
The names Justine and Dane both saw increased in usage in 1983:
Girls named Justine
Boys named Dane
1985
939 [rank: 266th]
1,003 [rank: 230th]
1984
665 [rank: 346th]
638 [rank: 306th]
1983
522 [rank: 413th]
831 [rank: 252nd]
1982
313 [rank: 583rd]
398 [rank: 419th]
1981
310 [rank: 594th]
334 [rank: 453rd]
In the case of Justine, however, the increase is only partially attributable to character Justine O’Neill; actress Justine Bateman of the popular sitcom Family Ties, which had premiered six months before The Thorn Birds aired, was also influencing baby names that year.
Finally, while neither the book nor the miniseries could reverse the decline of Ralph, we do know that Father de Bricassart had at least one namesake: football player D’Brickashaw Ferguson, born in New York in late 1983.
*We don’t have comprehensive historical baby name data for Australia — which, in terms of population, was about 15 times smaller than the U.S. in the late ’70s — so it’s hard to know exactly how much influence the publication of The Thorn Birds had on Australian baby names.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 6, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 6-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “sixes” 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 Weston correspond to the numbers 23, 5, 19, 20, 15, and 14. The sum of these numbers is 96. The digits of 96 added together equal 15, and the digits of 15 added together equal 6 — the numerological value of Weston.
Baby names with a value of 6
Below you’ll find the most popular 6-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.
6
The letters in the following baby names add up to 6.
Girl name (6)
Boy names (6)
Ada
Abba, Baba
6 via 15
The letters in the following baby names add up to 15, which reduces to six (1+5=6).
Girl names (6 via 15)
Boy names (6 via 15)
Aida, Alaa, Adia, An, Ama
Jad, Aadi, Gabe, An, Ej
6 via 24
The letters in the following baby names add up to 24, which reduces to six (2+4=6).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number six. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 6 being described as “harmonious,” “loving,” “stable,” “compassionate,” and “responsible.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 6:
Snowflake (six-fold symmetry)
Beehive (six-sided cells)
Guitar (6 strings)
Football (6 points for a touchdown)
Ice hockey (6 players per side, including the goalie)
Cube (six faces)
Six degrees of separation (the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from one other)
What does the number 6 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, seven, eight, and nine.
Looking for a set of baby names with something in common? If so, here are some 4-letter anagram names for you to check out!
Anagrams are words that contain the same set of letters, but not in the same sequence. For instance, the words “race,” “care,” and “acre” are all anagrams of one another.
Anagram names can be a neat option for siblings — particularly multiples (like twins and triplets). They’re also a clever way to connect a baby name to the name of an older relative (e.g., grandpa Gary, grandson Gray).
Below are hundreds of four-letter names (collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names) that happen to be anagrams of other names.
Four-letter anagram names
Adir, Adri, Ardi, Dair, Dari, Diar, Dira, Dria, Riad, Rida
Please note that I did include names in the gray area between one syllable and two syllables. The deciding factor on these particular names (such as Charles, Miles, and Noel) will be your own interpretation/accent, so be sure to test the names out loud before making any final decisions.
Many of these names also happen to be unisex, so they appear on the one-syllable girl names list as well.
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