How popular is the baby name Donna 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 Donna.
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The uncommon name Esai debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1987:
1990: 22 baby boys named Esai
1989: 34 baby boys named Esai
1988: 33 baby boys named Esai
1987: 14 baby boys named Esai [debut]
1986: unlisted
1985: unlisted
Where did it come from?
Actor Esai (pronounced ee-sie) Morales, who was one of the stars of the 1987 movie La Bamba.
The movie was a biopic of rock and roll pioneer Richard Valenzuela, popularly known as Ritchie Valens (played by Lou Diamond Phillips). Esai played Ritchie’s brash older brother, Bob Morales. (The characters had different fathers, which accounts for the different surnames.)
Esai Morales, born in New York and of Puerto Rican descent, inherited his first name from his own father. The name is thought to be based on Esaias, which is a form of the Biblical name Isaiah (meaning “Yahweh is salvation” in Hebrew).
Interestingly, the character’s surname being “Morales” like his own was a factor in Esai’s decision to take the part. At the time, he was trying to choose between the role in La Bamba and a role in the Steven Spielberg movie Batteries Not Included, which he assumed would be an “instant hit.”
And I just thought to myself, there’s the commercial-looking success thing, but then there’s this thing that tugs at my heart. It made me cry. I read the story and, like, I had tears streaming down my face. […] And I saw a character with my name on it. Literally, it had my name on it. You don’t see great roles oftentime with Latino names, much less your own. You know, so I was like, you know, I’m gonna roll the dice with this one. And I think I made the right decision.
What do you think of the name Esai?
P.S. Despite having a very short recording career, Ritchie Valens scored several hit singles, including “Donna.”
The baby name Kelce has been picking up steam lately — particularly in Pennsylvania and Missouri:
2020: 21 baby girls named Kelce
8 born in Missouri
2019: 10 baby girls named Kelce
2018: 21 baby girls named Kelce
6 born in Missouri, 5 born in Pennsylvania
2017: 10 baby girls named Kelce
2016: 5 baby girls named Kelce
2015: unlisted
2014: unlisted
Not only that, but it started popping up in the boys’ data just a couple of years ago:
2020: 9 baby boys named Kelce
2019: 10 baby boys named Kelce [debut]
2018: unlisted
2017: unlisted
Why all this recent interest?
Because of NFL brothers Jason and Travis Kelce (KEL-see).
Older brother Jason Kelce has played football for the Philadelphia Eagles since 2011. He won Super Bowl LII with the team in early 2018.
Younger Travis Kelce has played football for the Kansas City Chiefs since 2013. He won Super Bowl LIV with the team in early 2020. In fact, he caught one of the game’s touchdown passes.
Though the brothers have always pronounced their surname KEL-see, the surname is actually supposed to be pronounced kelse (rhymes with “else”). Here’s how Jason explained the pronunciation discrepancy:
[W]e have a really small family, we don’t have any first cousins. Somehow we got so disconnected [from the Kelce side the family] and my dad at some point, when he was working at the steel mill in Cleveland, Ohio, got tired of correcting everyone who was calling him ‘Kel-see.’
[…]
So my dad, out of pure laziness, completely changed his last name. For some reason he decided to change it and that’s what we’ve gone by our whole lives.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Kelce? (Do you like this spelling, or would you prefer something less ambiguous, like “Kelsey”?)
Update, 1/31/2023: Last weekend, the Philadelphia Eagles won the NFC Championship and the Kansas City Chiefs won the AFC Championship — so, not only are Jason and Travis are both going back to the Super Bowl, but “Donna Kelce will officially become the first mother to have two sons play against each other in the Super Bowl” (according to a tweet by the Pro Football Hall of Fame). I don’t know what year Donna was born, but I wonder if it wasn’t 1959, the year the name Donna saw peak usage thanks to a song…
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 Shannon
Girls named Deshannon
1972
10,965 [rank: 22nd]
14
1971
12,651 [rank: 21st]
12
1970
13,548 [rank: 22nd]
13
1969
10,448 [rank: 31st]
12*
1968
6,402 [rank: 53rd]
.
1967
3,446 [rank: 101st]
.
1966
2,992 [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.)
And here are the late bloomers — names that were part of the 2019 game, but didn’t rise/debut until 2020.
Donna increased by 20%.
Nipsey debuted with 7 baby boys.
Luce returned to the data with 7 baby girls.
Maleficent returned to the data with 5 baby girls.
Miren returned to the data with 5 baby girls.
Finally, regarding our theories about how Covid might have affected 2020’s names…I didn’t notice anything definitive. For instance, both Gheba and Skizzo mentioned “prestige” names (e.g., King, Legend, Major, Messiah and Royal). What I found was that some went up, some went down. Same with the modern virtue names (e.g., Courage, Honor, Brave, Bravery, Freedom).
What are your thoughts on these results? Which name surprised you the most?
[Disclaimer: Some of the names above were already moving in the direction indicated. Others were influenced by more than a single pop culture person/event. In all cases, I leave it up to you to judge the degree/nature of pop culture influence.]
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