How popular is the baby name Hallie 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 Hallie.
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In 1705, English astronomer Edmond Halley theorized that three historical comets that had appeared in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually the same comet returning over and over again. He calculated that the comet would return yet again in 1758.
And he was correct! The comet reappeared in 1758, just as Halley had predicted. So comet was named Halley in his honor in 1759.
Since then, Halley’s Comet has flown through the inner Milky Way three more times: in 1835, 1910 and 1986.
The U.S. Social Security Administration has been collecting baby name data since 1880, so let’s check out how the two most recent appearances have affected the usage of the baby name Halley…
Halley’s Comet in 1910
Halley appeared on the U.S. baby name data for the very first time, both for boys and for girls, in 1910. In fact, it was the top debut name for boys that year.
Boys named Halley
Girls named Halley
1912
6
.
1911
5
.
1910
12*
11*
1909
.
.
1908
.
.
*Debut
The similar names Hallie and Haley also saw increased usage in 1910.
But the SSA data didn’t start reflecting real numbers until the ’30s. So I checked the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), which indicates that the total number of babies named Halley in 1910 was actually much higher:
1912: 15 people named Halley born
1911: 8 people named Halley born
1910: 119 people named Halley born
1909: 14 people named Halley born
1908: 3 people named Halley born
Some of the Halleys named specifically for the comet include:
Halley Comett Johnston, boy, born on April 13, 1910, to Jessie Johnston and Addie Webb of North Carolina.
Halley Reed Palmer, boy, born on May 10, 1910, to Mr. and Mrs. John Palmer of Milton, Oregon.
Halley Couch, boy, born on May 21, 1910, in Stockbridge, Wisconsin. (The night of his birth, “his father and older brother watched Halley’s Comet fly over their home. They were so impressed with the sight that they named the baby Halley.”)
I also found 1910 babies named Halie Comet Wood (boy), Estyr Halley Abrams (girl), Comet Halley Briggs (boy), and Aerial Comet Roath (boy).
Speaking of Comet…the SSDI data reveals that at least 10 people were named Comet in 1910, and that one of these 10 happened to have the surname Halley. Also born in 1910: a Comette, a Cometniss, a Cometa, and two Comettas.
Halley’s Comet in 1986
Usage of the baby name Halley
The name Halley was given another big boost by the comet in 1986:
Boys named Halley
Girls named Halley
1988
.
71
1987
.
69
1986
22†
333†
1985
10
146
1984
.
25
†Peak usage
The name saw peak usage for both baby boys and baby girls that year. In fact, the surge in usage among girls bumped Halley well into the girls’ top 1,000 (with a rank of ranking of 580th!) for the first (and, so far, only) time. American parents of the ’80s clearly thought of Halley as more of a female name than a male name.
The only Halley-baby I noticed in the newspapers in 1986 was from Canada: Halley Marie Mullen, a baby girl born to Susan and Brendan Mullen of Ottawa on January 4.
It’s hard to know how much the comet’s return affected the usage of other spellings of the name (like Hailey and Hayley) because the entire name-group was starting to become trendy around that time. That said, the graphs for Hallie and Hali show that these particular variants saw a discernible increase usage in 1986, while, very interestingly, the graph for Haley reveals a dip in usage that year.
Halley’s Comet in 2061
Halley’s Comet is due back in mid-2061. Do you think we’ll see a spike in the number of babies named Halley that year? Why or why not?
P.S. Though many people pronounce Halley to rhyme with the word “daily,” the surname is traditionally pronounced to rhyme with the word “valley.”
Looking for a set of baby names with something in common? If so, here are some 6-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 “listen,” “silent,” and “tinsel” 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 Weston, grandson Townes).
Below are hundreds of six-letter names (collected from the SSA’s huge database of U.S. baby names) that happen to be anagrams of other names.
Here’s an intriguing sentence I found in an issue of Time magazine from the 1930s:
Many an antebellum baby was named after Hally, the fictitious girl over whom the song moons.
What song are we talking about here?
“Listen to the Mocking Bird,” first published in 1855 as sheet music (this was long before records or radio) with lyrics by Septimus “Sep” Winner (the seventh child in his family, hence the name).
Hally, according to the lyrics, was the deceased sweetheart of the singer. (Despite this sad scenario, the melody is actually pretty lively.) Her name — a diminutive form of Harriet — was spelled “Hally” originally, as in this sheet music from 1856, but pops up as “Hallie” elsewhere, as in the book Music of the Civil War Era (2004) by Steven H. Cornelius.
Here’s the first verse:
I’m dreaming now of Hally, sweet Hally, sweet Hally;
I’m dreaming now of Hally,
For the thought of her is one that never dies:
She’s sleeping in the valley, the valley, the valley,
She’s sleeping in the valley,
And the mocking bird is singing where she lies.
And here’s a recording of the song from 1904:
The song became one of the biggest hits of the era. “By the end of the century, it had sold over twenty million copies of sheet music, making it one of the three or four best-selling compositions of all time.” It was a fixture in theaters, and was even used as marching music during the Civil War.
So…what sort of impact did “Listen to the Mocking Bird” have on baby names during the second half of the 1800s?
It’s impossible to say using the SSA data, which only goes back to 1880. Instead, I turned to the U.S. Census (via Family Search). I searched for the number of instances of Hally and Hallie on each U.S Census from 1850 to 1900 (excluding 1890, as that Census was lost in a fire).
The numbers below don’t represent babies, and no doubt include a few false positives (e.g., “Halliett”). But overall they do suggest that the proportion of people in the U.S. named Hally or Hallie increased over the latter half of the 19th century.
U.S. Census
# Named Hally
# Named Hallie
Total Pop.
1900
797 (0.0000105)
14,612 (0.0001917)
76 mil.
1890
…
…
63 mil.
1880
495 (0.0000099)
3,678 (0.0000733)
50 mil.
1870
288 (0.0000074)
1,486 (0.0000381)
39 mil.
1860
84 (0.0000027)
115 (0.0000037)
31 mil.
1850
31 (0.0000013)
7 (0.0000003)
23 mil.
The SSA data for the 1880s and 1890s doesn’t include Hally (it was too rare at that time) but does include Hallie, which was given to dozens of U.S. babies in each of those years.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Hally?
Sources:
Ewen, David. All The Years of American Popular Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977.
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