How popular is the baby name Dondi 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 Dondi.

The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.


Popularity of the baby name Dondi


Posts that mention the name Dondi

Where did the baby name Shilo come from in 1970?

Neil Diamond's album "Velvet Gloves and Spit" (1970 reissue)
Neil Diamond album

Long before celebs Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt popularized the name Shiloh, singer Neil Diamond put the name Shilo (no H) on the onomastic map:

  • 1972: 35 baby girls and 19 baby boys named Shilo
  • 1971: 32 baby girls and 11 baby boys named Shilo
  • 1970: 38 baby girls and 9 baby boys named Shilo [dual-gender debut]
  • 1969: unlisted
  • 1968: unlisted

Diamond’s song “Shilo” was originally and released on the 1967 album Just for You, but his label wouldn’t release it as a single, because they didn’t think an introspective song about an imaginary childhood friend (“Shilo, when I was young / I used to call your name / When no one else would come / Shilo, you always came”) would be a commercial success.

Diamond switched labels in 1968. By 1970, several of his new songs (“Sweet Caroline” and “Holly Holy”) had become big hits.

The folks back at the original label decided to capitalize on this success by giving “Shilo” a different backing track and releasing the new version as a single. This spiffed-up version reached #24 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in April of 1970.

Diamond responded by re-recording the song (“with a quicker tempo, a tighter arrangement, and a bolder, if slightly less expressive vocal”) and including it on the reissued version of his 1968 album Velvet Gloves And Spit, which came out in late 1970 with a redesigned front cover that drew attention to the addition.

The song’s lyrics suggest that Shilo was female, but the name debuted in the baby name data for both genders in 1970. Shilo was the top girl-name debut of 1970, in fact. (Other dual-gender debuts include Dasani and Dondi.)

What are your thoughts on the baby name Shilo? Which spelling do you prefer?

Sources: Shilo – Neil Diamond | Song Info | AllMusic, Neil Diamond chart history – Billboard, SSA

Where did the baby name Clovia come from in 1949?

The characters Chipper and Clovia from the comic strip "Gasoline Alley" (panel from the early 1950s).
Clovia and Chipper

The curious name Clovia debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1949:

  • 1951: 5 baby girls named Clovia
  • 1950: 13 baby girls named Clovia
  • 1949: 22 baby girls named Clovia [debut]
  • 1948: unlisted
  • 1947: unlisted

It was the 4th-highest girl name debut that year after Rainelle, Rainell and Randye.

Where did it come from?

A comic strip!

The strip, called Gasoline Alley, debuted in newspapers in late 1918. (And it’s still being published today, amazingly.)

In May of 1949, Gasoline Alley characters Skeezix and Nina welcomed a baby girl and decided to name her Clovia.

Why “Clovia”?

Nina got stuck in traffic on the way to the hospital and was forced to give birth in a taxi. On the infant’s wrist was a birthmark in the shape of a four-leaf clover.

Clovia doll
Clovia the doll

And Clovia wasn’t just a comic strip character. For a time, she was also a doll.

In mid-1949, a few weeks after Clovia’s introduction, Clovia dolls became available in retail stores. (Dolls based on comic strip babies had become trendy in the 1940s.)

The baby name Clovia remained on the national baby name list through the 1950s, but usage petered out in the 1960s.

(Dondi, another comic strip-inspired name, had more staying power. Sparkle, on the other hand, lasted only a year.)

Sources:

  • “Comic Strip Dolls.” Life 19 Oct. 1953.
  • Cushman, Philip. Constructing the Self, Constructing America. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995.

Images © Life.

Where did the baby name Dondi come from in 1956?

A panel from newspaper comic strip "Dondi" (Oct. 14, 1955)
The comic strip Dondi (Oct. 1955)

The comic strip Dondi was first published in September of 1955.

The strip featured a six-year-old Italian “mid-European” boy who was orphaned during WWII. When he was discovered by American soldiers, he was looking for his parents, crying out donde* (“where” in Spanish), so the soldiers dubbed him Dondi. He was discovered and befriended by a pair of American G.I.s who’d found him “cowering behind a rubble heap.”

When the soldiers were ordered back to the U.S., Dondi inadvertently smuggled himself into the U.S. by boarding the same boat as his “buddies.” Eventually he was adopted by one of the soldiers and “the early focus of the strip was Dondi’s discovery of America.”

In 1956, the name Dondi appeared for the first time — both as a boy name and as a girl name — in the U.S. baby name data:

Boys named DondiGirls named Dondi
19624824
196150†19
19601710
195914.
1958235
195732.
195619*7*
1955..
*Debut, †Peak usage

One of Dondi’s first namesakes was Stephen Dondi Thomas, born in late 1955 to Mr. and Mrs. Leslie F. Thomas of Dayton, Ohio.

The Thomases named him as they did because the illegal entry problems of the comic strip Dondi closely paralleled the experience of their daughter, Janie, 4.

Born in Italy to an Italian mother and an American father, Janie was facing deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Both the strip and the name peaked in popularity in the early ’60s. The strip ran until 1986; the name last appeared in the SSA data in 2002.

*Is donde used in Italian? Should the strip’s writers have used dove instead?

Update, Sept. 2017: My sources were wrong! I finally checked out the original strip. Turns out that Dondi’s name was not from donde — an explanation that never made much sense anyway — but from someone calling him a “dondi boy” (dandy boy). Here’s some of the Dondi dialogue that ran in mid-October, 1955:

“All right now, sonny, tell us your name.”

“My name Dondi!”

“Dondi what? What is your last name?”

“Dondi last name I ever have.”

“Come now, Dondi, didn’t you ever have some other name?”

“Long time ago pretty lady is holding me and saying ‘you dondiboy.’ So everybody is calling me Dondi.”

According to an interview with strip co-creator Irwin Hasen, the “pretty lady” was a Red Cross worker.

Sources:

  • “Comic Strip Orphan Gets a Namesake.” Chicago Tribune 26 Dec. 1955: C5.
  • Dondi – Don Markstein’s Toonopedia
  • Johnson., Steven K. “Goodbye.” Chicago Tribune 9 Jun. 1986.
  • Winslow, Rachel Rains. The Best Possible Immigrants: International Adoption and the American Family. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.

Baby names that debuted most impressively in the U.S. data, 1881 to today

lotus bud

Though most of the baby names in the SSA’s annual datasets are repeats, each dataset does contain a handful of brand-new names.

Below are the most popular debut names for every single year on record, after the first.

Why bother with an analysis like this? Because debut names often have cool stories behind them, and high-hitting debuts are especially likely to have intriguing explanations tied to historical people/events. So this is more than a list of names — it’s also a list of stories.

Here’s the format: “Girl name(s), number of baby girls; Boy name(s), number of baby boys.” Keep in mind that the raw numbers aren’t too trustworthy for about the first six decades, though. (More on that in a minute.)

  • 1881: Adell & Celeste, 14; Brown & Newell, 14
  • 1882: Verda, 14; Cleve, 13
  • 1883: Laurel, 12; Brady, Festus, Jewell, Odell & Rosco, 8
  • 1884: Crystal & Rubie, 11; Benjamen, Jens, Oakley & Whitney, 9
  • 1885: Clotilde, 13; Arley & Terence, 9
  • 1886: Manuelita, 10; Terrence, 10
  • 1887: Verlie, 13; Myles, 11
  • 1888: Ebba, 18; Carlisle, Hughie & Orvel, 9
  • 1889: Garnett, 12; Doyle, 9
  • 1890: Verena, 11; Eduardo & Maggie, 10
  • 1891: Gayle, Idabelle & Zenia, 9; Sheridan, 14
  • 1892: Astrid, Dallas & Jennett, 9; Corbett, 23
  • 1893: Elmyra, 12; Estel, Mayo, Shelley & Thorwald, 8
  • 1894: Beatriz, Carola & Marrie, 9; Arvel, Erby & Floy, 8
  • 1895: Trilby, 12; Roosevelt, 12
  • 1896: Lotus, 11; Hazen, 11
  • 1897: Dewey, 13; Bryon, Frankie, Mario & Rhoda, 7
  • 1898: Manilla, 35; Hobson, 38
  • 1899: Ardis & Irva, 19; Haven, 9
  • 1900: Luciel, 14; Rosevelt, 20
  • 1901: Venita, 11; Eino, 9
  • 1902: Mercie, 10; Clarnce, 9
  • 1903: Estela, 11; Lenon & Porfirio, 7
  • 1904: Magdaline, 9; Adrain, Arbie, Betty, Desmond, Domenic, Duard, Raul & Severo, 8
  • 1905: Oliver, 9; Eliot & Tyree, 9
  • 1906: Nedra, 11; Domenico & Ryan, 10
  • 1907: Theta, 20; Taft, 16
  • 1908: Pasqualina, 10; Robley, 12
  • 1909: Wilmoth, 9; Randal & Vidal, 9
  • 1920: Dardanella, 23; Steele, 11
  • 1921: Marilynne, 13; Norberto, 14
  • 1922: Evelean, 14; Daren, 35
  • 1923: Nalda, 15; Clinard & Dorland, 9
  • 1924: Charis, 14; Melquiades, 13
  • 1925: Irmalee, 37; Wayburn, 11
  • 1926: Narice, 13; Bibb, 14
  • 1927: Sunya, 14; Bidwell, 14
  • 1928: Joreen, 22; Alfread & Brevard, 9
  • 1929: Jeannene, 25; Donnald, Edsol, Rhys & Wolfgang, 8

(From the SSA: “Note that many people born before 1937 never applied for a Social Security card, so their names are not included in our data.”)

  • 1990: Isamar, 446; Dajour, 26
  • 1991: Emilce, 30; Quayshaun, 93
  • 1992: Akeiba, 49; Devanta, 41
  • 1993: Rosangelica, 91; Deyonta, 37
  • 1994: Ajee, 185; Shyheim, 168
  • 1995: Yamilex, 130; Alize, 30
  • 1996: Moesha, 426; Quindon, 67
  • 1997: Erykah, 279; Cross, 43
  • 1998: Naidelyn, 78; Zyshonne, 26
  • 1999: Verania, 62; Cauy, 32
  • 2000: Kelis, 108; Rithik, 22
  • 2001: Yaire, 184; Jahiem, 155
  • 2002: Kaydence, 70; Omarian, 31
  • 2003: Trenyce, 88; Pharrell, 67
  • 2004: Eshal, 38; Jkwon, 100
  • 2005: Yarisbel, 30; Jayceon, 48
  • 2006: Lizania, 35; Balian, 24
  • 2007: Leilene, 81; Yurem, 206
  • 2008: Aideliz, 91; Yosgart, 72
  • 2009: Greidys, 186; Jeremih, 87

I’ve already written about some of the names above, and I plan to write about all the others as well…eventually. In the meanwhile, if you want to beat me to it and leave a comment about why Maverick hit in 1957, or why Moesha hit in 1996, feel free!

Source: U.S. SSA

Image: Adapted from LotusBud0048a (public domain) by Frank “Fg2” Gualtieri