How popular is the baby name Dee in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Dee.

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Popularity of the Baby Name Dee


Posts that Mention the Name Dee

Baby born on D-Day, named Deeday

D-Day

A baby boy born in England on June 6, 1944, was named Deeday Rodney White — primarily because his father, Bert, kept hearing the term “D-Day” on the radio:

All his father reported hearing on the wireless the morning he was born was about the D-Day landings.

“He said to me all he could hear was ‘D-Day, D-Day, D-Day being drummed into my head’.”

Mr. White said initially the registrar refused to accept the name, saying the operation was top secret.

His father returned the next day with a copy of the Daily Mirror reporting the news of the D-Day landings on the French coast.

The name doesn’t have a hyphen on his birth certificate, but Mr. White prefers to write it “Dee-Day.”

And, even though he “hated” the name as a child, he became proud of it as an adult — so much so that he passed it down to his own son.

(Other D-Day babies include Dee Day, Invasia, and D-Day.)

Source: “D-Day: The baby named after the Normandy landings.” BBC News 5 Jun. 2019.

Where did the baby name Deshannon come from in 1969?

Jackie DeShannon album "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" (1969).
Jackie DeShannon album

Right around the time the name Shannon was seeing a steep rise in usage, the name Deshannon debuted in the U.S. baby name data:

Girls named ShannonGirls named Deshannon
197210,965
[rank: 22nd]		14
197112,651
[rank: 21st]		12
197013,548
[rank: 22nd]		13
196910,448
[rank: 31st]		12*
19686,402
[rank: 53rd]		.
19673,446
[rank: 101st]		.
19662,992
[rank: 120th]		.
*Debut

The influence? Singer Jackie DeShannon, whose biggest hit, “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” peaked at #4 on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” chart in the summer of 1969.

But this wasn’t DeShannon’s first hit. She’d already seen success with the Burt Bacharach song “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” which had peaked at #7 in the summer of 1965.

So it seems that sudden trendiness of “Shannon” was the x-factor that prepared expectant parents to see more name-potential in “DeShannon” the second time around.

The singer’s birth name was Sharon Lee Myers. She went through various stage names before settling on “Jackie DeShannon.” “Jackie” was chosen because it was gender-neutral, while “DeShannon” was created out of two earlier ideas: “Dee,” which, by itself, made the full name too close to ones already in use (like Sandra Dee and Brenda Lee), and “de Shannon,” which was often written incorrectly.

DeShannon also had a successful career as a songwriter, working with performers like Jimmy Page and Marianne Faithfull. In 1982, she received the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for “Bette Davis Eyes,” which she had co-written with Donna Weiss. (The song was a 1981 hit for singer Kim Carnes.)

How do you like DeShannon as a baby name?

Sources: What The World Needs Now Is Jackie DeShannon, Jackie DeShannon – Wikipedia

Popular and unique baby names in Scotland (UK), 2019

scotland

According to National Records of Scotland (NRS), the most popular baby names in the country in 2019 were Olivia and Jack.

Here are Scotland’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2019:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 394 baby girls
  2. Emily, 388
  3. Isla, 364
  4. Sophie, 308
  5. Ella, 284
  6. Ava, 278
  7. Amelia, 275
  8. Grace, 272
  9. Freya, 260
  10. Charlotte, 243

Boy Names

  1. Jack, 449 baby boys
  2. Oliver, 359
  3. James, 345
  4. Charlie, 306
  5. Harris, 304
  6. Lewis, 280
  7. Leo, 278
  8. Noah, 272
  9. Alfie, 261
  10. Rory, 258

In girls’ top 10, Freya and Charlotte replaced Jessica (now 11th) and Aria (now 15th).

In the boys’ top 10, Charlie and Alfie replaced Alexander (now 11th) and Logan (now 13th). Charlie’s rise was significant; it shot up to 4th from 13th the year before.

The NRS press release mentioned that the popular British crime drama Peaky Blinders has given a boost to the baby names Cillian, Polly and Chester. (Polly and Chester are characters in the show; Cillian refers to star Cillian Murphy.) It also noted that Ezra has become more popular thanks to English singer/songwriter George Ezra.

Of the nearly 50,000 babies born in Scotland last year, more than 5,000 — over 10% — were given a one-of-a-kind first name. Here are some of the names bestowed just once in Scotland in 2019:

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Alba-Nova, Argyle, Bramble, Calanais, Delphi, Endian, Evie-Peaches, Fritha, Gnoveriti, Grey, Harper-Lee, Isla-Dee, Janiba, Kavinila, Lumi, Mazikeen, Moksha, Nirbhana, Ooliana, Pichapak, Qaria, Quaintrelle, Roux, Salvina-Liza, Sanziana, Tefta, Thistle, Uendjipa, Vaticana, Wish, Xiorra, Yaldz, ZografiaAzmi, Bobby-Dylan, Coen-Knox, Dicaprio, Enxu, Ferdinand, Gurzack, Hanzala, Harbury, Iyvhn, Jonjo, Karamo, Leicester, Malachite, Milanox, Neo-Nova, Oroghene, Otter, Phenomenal, Qusai, Roag, Scirocco, Skandan, Swift, Theodore-Bear, Torcuil, Toviel, Udhay, Valdis, Wurrd, Xubin, Yug, Zalvadorro

And here are possible explanations/associations for some of the above:

  • Bobby-Dylan, American singer Bob Dylan
  • Calanais, a Scottish village and/or the standing stones nearby
  • Dicaprio, American actor Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Harper-Lee, American writer Harper Lee
  • Karamo, American TV personality Karamo Brown
  • Leicester, an English city and (more importantly) a professional soccer team
  • Malachite, a banded green stone
  • Mazikeen, a character from the TV show Lucifer
  • Moksha, the Hindu/Buddish cycle of rebirth (it was on the Baby Names from the East list)
  • Nirbhana, apparently a Gaelic-influenced Nirvana (another name from the East)
  • Quaintrelle, “a woman who is focused on style and leisurely pastimes”
  • Roag, a Scottish hamlet on the Isle of Skye
  • Sanziana, a Romanian word for either fairies or flowers
  • Scirocco, a Mediterranean wind and (more importantly) a car made by Volkswagen
  • Theodore-Bear, apparently an elongated form of “teddy bear”
  • Thistle, the national flower of Scotland (thank you to Clare for reminding me!)

In 2018, the top two names were the same.

Sources: Full list of names for 2019, Babies’ First Names, Quaintrelle – Wiktionary

Image by Csaba Nagy from Pixabay

What brought the baby name Ryne back in 1982?

Baseball player Ryne Duren
Ryne Duren

In the late 1950s, the name Ryne debuted impressively in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1960: 10 baby boys named Ryne
  • 1959: 31 baby boys named Ryne
  • 1958: 21 baby boys named Ryne [debut]
  • 1957: unlisted
  • 1956: unlisted

Where did it come from?

It was inspired by professional baseball pitcher Rinold “Ryne” Duren, known for “[staring] down batters through thick-lensed eyeglasses and then [delivering] fastballs that might go just about anywhere.”

In fact, Duren was the inspiration for the character Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (played by Charlie Sheen) in the 1989 movie Major League.

Duren was in the Major Leagues from 1954 to 1965, but in 1958 was a member of the World Series-winning New York Yankees. It was also the first year he was selected for the All-Star Game.

He inherited the name Rinold from his father, whose family came from Germany. Rinold, like Renault, is related to the more familiar name Reynold.

Baseball player Ryne Sandberg
Ryne Sandberg

But that’s not the end of the story!

Because one of the 1959 babies named Ryne was Ryne Dee “Ryno” Sandberg, who also became a professional baseball player (second baseman). He started with Chicago Cubs in 1981 and went on to become a Hall of Famer.

He boosted the name Ryne not just back into the data, but into the top 1,000 for the first time:

  • 1985: 286 baby boys named Ryne [rank: 516th]
  • 1984: 199 baby boys named Ryne [rank: 605th]
  • 1983: 38 baby boys named Ryne
  • 1982: 31 baby boys named Ryne
  • 1981: unlisted
  • 1980: unlisted
Graph of the usage of the baby name Ryne in the U.S. since 1880.
Usage of the baby name Ryne

Ryne Sandberg had a son in the mid-1980s, but didn’t give him a baseball-inspired name. Instead, Justin Ross got a theater-inspired name. Ryne had seen “A Chorus Line” in New York around that time and been impressed with the name of performer Justin Ross.

Do you like the name Ryne? Would you use it for a baby boy?

Sources: