How popular is the baby name Glenn 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 Glenn.

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Popularity of the baby name Glenn


Posts that mention the name Glenn

How did the movie “Giant” influence baby names in the 1950s?

The characters Bick and Leslie Benedict from the movie "Giant" (1956).
Bick and Leslie from “Giant

One of last week’s post featured Glenna Lee McCarthy, whose father was famous Texas oil prospector and entrepreneur Glenn McCarthy (1907-1988).

Writer Edna Ferber fictionalized Glenn’s rags-to-riches life story in her novel Giant (1952) with the character Jett Rink.

The book was later made into a movie, which came out in October of 1956.

Jett was played by James Dean, who died in a car accident a month before the film premiered.

The other two main characters were Jordan “Bick” Benedict (played by Rock Hudson) and his wife Leslie Benedict (Elizabeth Taylor). Secondary characters included the Benedicts’ son Jordan, or “Jordy” (Dennis Hopper) and a neighbor named Vashti (Jane Withers).

The movie did well at the box office and was nominated for various Academy Awards, including a posthumous Best Actor nomination for Dean. It also gave a boost to several baby names.

In 1957, the year after the movie was released, the name Jett saw its then-highest-ever usage (a level that wasn’t surpassed until the 1980s).

  • 1958: 17 baby boys named Jett
  • 1957: 24 baby boys named Jett
  • 1956: 14 baby boys named Jett
  • 1955: 5 baby boys named Jett
  • 1954: unlisted

The boy name Jordan more than doubled in usage in 1957, and the diminutive form Jordy debuted the same year:

JordanJordy
1958186 [rank: 567th].
1957207 [rank: 539th]5*
1956101 [rank: 733rd].
1955106 [rank: 712th].
1954109 [rank: 692nd].
*Debut

Leslie — which had started being given more often to baby girls than to baby boys about a decade earlier — saw its highest-ever usage as a girl name in 1957:

  • 1958: 6,010 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 79th]
  • 1957: 6,101 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 77th] (peak usage)
  • 1956: 4,386 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 104th]
  • 1955: 4,403 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 99th]
  • 1954: 4,148 baby girls named Leslie [rank: 99th]
Graph of the usage of the baby name Leslie in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Leslie

And Vashti, like Jordan, more than doubled in usage:

  • 1958: 10 baby girls named Vashti
  • 1957: 16 baby girls named Vashti
  • 1956: 7 baby girls named Vashti
  • 1955: 8 baby girls named Vashti
  • 1954: 8 baby girls named Vashti

Interestingly, Luz — another name that was used for two different characters in the movie — saw a slight decline in usage from 1956 to 1957.

Source: Giant (1956) – Wikipedia

Where did the baby name Glenalee come from in 1951?

Oil heiress Glenna Lee McCarthy (1932-2015)
Glenna Lee McCarthy

The baby name Glenalee was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. data in 1951. (In fact, it was tied for 1951’s top one-hit wonders of the year.)

  • 1953: unlisted
  • 1952: unlisted
  • 1951: 9 baby girls named Glenalee [debut]
  • 1950: unlisted
  • 1949: unlisted

Where did it come from?

An oil heiress who eloped with a cobbler’s son!

The bride was 17-year-old Glenna Lee McCarthy, daughter of famous Texas oilman Glenn McCarthy. She was a student at Lamar High School in Houston at the time.

(Glenn McCarthy was one of the men who inspired Edna Ferber to write the novel Giant in 1952. It was later made into a film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson.)

The groom was 19-year-old George Pontikes, son of a Greek cobbler. He had graduated from Lamar and was now attending Rice University, where he played football.

In early December, 1950, the pair ran off to Waco to be married by a justice of the peace. News of their elopement broke toward the end of the month — right around the time that Glenna’s older sister, Mary Margaret, was getting married in a much more traditional manner. (Which…could have been awkward.)

Glenna and George were in the news for several days straight at the very end of 1950. Many papers, including the New York Times, mistakenly called the bride “Glenalee McCarthy.” (Not all did, though, and the baby name Glenna saw peak usage in 1951 as a result.)

Papa Glenn McCarthy was unhappy about the elopement at first, but one paper reported that “trigger-tempered McCarthy” had “calmed down after [the] initial outburst of anger.” Perhaps he was quick to forgive because the situation was eerily familiar: He’d eloped with his own wife, the 16-year-old daughter of a wealthy oilman, back when he was a 23-year-old gas station attendant in 1930.

Do you like the name Glenalee (…even if it started out as a typo)?

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the Kansas City Times (28 Dec. 1950)

The baby names Kippie and Kippy

The character Kippie (played by Glenn Walken) from the TV series "The World of Mr. Sweeney" (1954-1955).
Kippie from “The World of Mr. Sweeney”

The simple name Kip has a longer history than one might guess. There was a Kip in the 11th century Domesday Book, for instance.

But today’s post isn’t quite about Kip. It’s about the diminutive forms Kippy and Kippie, which saw some interesting usage in the ’50s and ’60s. No doubt the trendiness of Kip during that era set the scene for this usage, but pop culture played a part as well.

Let’s start in 1955, when Kippie debuted as a boy name, and Kippy both peaked as a boy name and debuted as a girl name:

Kippy (male)Kippy (female)Kippie (male)Kippie (female)
19576...
195613...
195518†6*6*.
19546...
19536...
*Debut, †Peak usage

I think this extra 1955 usage can be attributed to a TV series called The World of Mr. Sweeney. The main character was Mr. Cicero P. Sweeney, who ran the town general store, but another prominent character was Cicero’s young grandson Kippie, played by Glenn Walken. (Fun fact: Glenn is the brother of Christopher Walken.)

The show began as a weekly segment on The Kate Smith Hour in 1953, but was spun off into an independent program — 15-minute episodes, 5 times per week — that lasted from 1954 to 1955. (Father Knows Best (1954-1960) occasionally featured a boy named Kippy as well, but I think Mr. Sweeney better accounts for the spike/debuts.)

Moving on to the ’60s, we see another spike for Kippy in 1960, followed by a relatively strong debut of Kippy as a girl name in 1962:

Kippy (male)Kippy (female)Kippie (male)Kippie (female)
1963115.9
196287.12*
196111...
1960178..
19599...
*Debut

During 1960, a male character named Kippy Clark was featured in the comic strip Mary Worth. (This might seem trivial, but comics were widely read decades ago. The name Mardeen debuted thanks to the very same strip.)

In 1962, following the sudden death of famous comedian Ernie Kovacs, his widow Edie and his ex-wife Bette battled in court over the custody of his two teenage daughters, Bette and Kippie Kovacs.

Do you like the name Kippy/Kippie? How about Kip itself? Let me know what you think in the comments…

Sources:

Where did the baby name Jaynie come from?

The character Jaynie Stevens from the movie "Orchestra Wives" (1942).
Jaynie Stevens from “Orchestra Wives

Baby names like Janie, Janey, and Jayne have been in the U.S. baby name data since the 1800s, but the spelling “Jaynie” didn’t appear until 1942 specifically:

  • 1944: 9 baby girls named Jaynie
  • 1943: 6 baby girls named Jaynie
  • 1942: 6 baby girls named Jaynie [debut]
  • 1941: unlisted
  • 1940: unlisted

Where did it come from?

The 1942 musical Orchestra Wives, a movie about the behind-the-scenes drama that occurs when a swing band (and all their wives) go out on tour together.

The band’s vocalist was a character named Jaynie Stevens, played by actress Lynn Bari — one of the most popular pin-up girls of WWII.

The band itself was the the real-life Glenn Miller band, led by Glenn Miller, but the name in both cases was changed to “Gene Morrison” (to retain the monogram).

Do you like the spelling of Jaynie, or do you prefer a different spelling of the name?

Source: Orchestra Wives – AFI