How popular is the baby name Jane 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 Jane.
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The name also saw it’s highest-ever usage that year, as did the variant spelling Corretta. And another spelling, Koretta, appeared for the very first time in the data in 1968.
What was bringing all this attention to the baby name Coretta in 1968?
Coretta Scott King. She was the wife of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., until his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. This event put Coretta and her children (Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice*) in the national spotlight.
Not long after the death of her husband, Coretta took Martin’s place as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She was instrumental in establishing the national holiday Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — which happens to be today.
Coretta Scott King was named in honor of her paternal grandmother, Cora. The name Cora is a Latinized form of the ancient Greek name Kore (“maiden”), one of the epithets of the goddess Persephone.
*Usage of the names Yolanda and Dexter also increased markedly in 1968. The usage of Martin, which had been declining, saw an uptick that year. (Peak usage was in 1963, the year of MLK’s legendary “I have a dream” speech.) The usage of Bernice was seemingly unaffected by the assassination.
Incidentally, in her 1969 book My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King talked about the naming of her daughters Yolanda (nicknamed Yoki) and Bernice:
I chose the name Yolanda Denise, but my husband had reservations about it. He questioned whether people would call her Yolanda or would mispronounce the name. He was right. Her name is so frequently mispronounced that it bothered her when she was growing up.
There is a tendency among middle-class African Americans to give their children unusual names. Perhaps they are seeking elegance or some special identification. I fell victim to this custom, rather than following the sensible practice of naming the baby after a member of the family. Later Martin said, “If we ever have another baby girl, I’m going to give her a simple name like Mary Jane.”
When we did have another daughter, we called her Bernice Albertine, after her two grandmothers. Her name was not quite Mary Jane, but at least she was named for members of the family.
Ever wonder why the baby name Carole — already on the rise in the 1930s and early ’40s — saw such a big jump in usage in 1942 specifically?
Here’s the data:
1944: 6,270 baby girls named Carole
1943: 6,506 baby girls named Carole
1942: 8,409 baby girls named Carole [peak usage]
1941: 4,964 baby girls named Carole
1940: 4,788 baby girls named Carole
And here’s the popularity graph for Carole, which clearly shows the spike:
Around that time, there were two famous movie actresses named Carole: Carole Lombard and Carole Landis.
Lombard was the funny one — the “world’s champion attractive screwball,” according to Life magazine — while Landis was more of a traditional Hollywood starlet.
The main cause of that 1942 spike was no doubt the sudden death of Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid actress of her time. She had finished a successful War Bonds promotion tour in the Midwest in mid-January and was flying back to California when her plane crashed into the side of the Mount Potosi in Nevada (near Las Vegas). All 22 people on board were killed.
Was it just an accident? Or, given that the U.S. had been attacked at Pearl Harbor just a month earlier, was it something even darker? Had Lombard, the war-effort activist, been sabotaged by German spies?
But we can’t discount the influence of Landis entirely. It just so happens that, the same year, we see the surname Landis bubble up for the first time in the girls’ data:
Girls named Landis
Boys named Landis
1945
5 baby girls
28 baby boys
1944
.
13 baby boys
1943
6 baby girls
22 baby boys
1942
5 baby girls*
13 baby boys
1942
.
20 baby boys
*Debut
Sadly, Carole Landis died later the same decade of an apparent suicide.
So…how did each actress get her stage name?
Lombard, born Carol Jane Peters in 1908, chose “Carole” at the suggestion of a numerologist and “Lombard” because it was the surname of a friend.
Landis, born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in 1919, “clearly borrowed from Carole Lombard, the first Hollywood star to spell her name that way.” She said she found “Landis” in the San Francisco telephone directory.
What are your thoughts on the name Carole? Would you use it?
P.S. One of those 1942 Caroles was Carole Jones, later known as actress Carol Lynley. And a 1943 Carole was Carole Penny Marshall, later known as actress/director Penny Marshall.
Sources:
Busch, Noel F. “A Loud Cheer for the Screwball Girl.” Life 17 Oct. 1938: 48-50, 62-64.
Gans, Eric Lawrence. Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2008.
Oklahoma-born country singer Reba McEntire is one of four siblings:
Alice, b. 1951
Del Stanley, “Pake” (rhymes with rake), b. 1953
Reba Nell, b. 1955
Martha Susan, “Susie,” b. 1957
Reba was named after her maternal grandmother, but the story of Pake’s nickname is a bit more interesting. Here’s how their mother Jacqueline starts the story:
Our oldest daughter, Alice, was named “Pedro Joe” long before her birth. Her father, Clark [veteran rodeo cowboy and inductee in the Rodeo Hall of Fame], would often write home on the road because we didn’t have a phone.
He’d say, “How is Pedro Joe?” and, if I knew where he was going to be, I’d write back to the next rodeo he was entering and tell the prospective father that he was just fine. Well, when the baby came, she was a little girl. End of Pedro Joe.
The same thing happened with their second child, who was called “Pecos Pete” or “Pake” before he was born. In his case, though, the name was retained. The formal name his parents chose for him was Del Stanley (after rodeo stars Del Haverty and Stanley Gomez), but the birth certificate reads: “Del Stanley (Pake).”
The McEntire’s in utero nicknaming tradition wasn’t carried on with Reba or Susie.
Pake went on to have three daughters: Autumn (born on the first day of autumn), Calamity (named after frontierswoman Calamity Jane), and Chism (named after cattle baron John Chisum).
Sources:
Sharpe, Jerry. “Pake McEntire heads for success on his own.” Pittsburgh Press 1 Jun. 1986: 101.
Smith, Lisa. “Pake McEntire” Gavin Report August 8, 1986: 39.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 3, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 3-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “threes” in numerology?
Turning names into numbers
Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.
First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.
For instance, the letters in the name Tyson correspond to the numbers 20, 25, 19, 15, and 14. The sum of these numbers is 93. The digits of 93 added together equal 12, and the digits of 12 added together equal 3 — the numerological value of Tyson.
Baby names with a value of 3
Below you’ll find the most popular 3-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.
3 via 12
The letters in the following baby names add up to 12, which reduces to three (1+2=3).
Girl names (3 via 12)
Boy names (3 via 12)
Aja, Fae, Bia, Abi, Bee
Gad, Jb, Abed
3 via 21
The letters in the following baby names add up to 21, which reduces to three (2+1=3).
Girl names (3 via 21)
Boy names (3 via 21)
Kai, Asa, Gala, Jaia, Clea
Kai, Kade, Asa, Alec, Ben, Beck, Cale
3 via 30
The letters in the following baby names add up to 30, which reduces to three (3+0=3).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number three. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 3 being described as “creative,” “optimistic,” “friendly,” “outgoing,” and “self-expressive.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 3:
Triple crown (victory in three events)
Hat trick (3 goals scored in one game by a single player)
Circus (3 rings)
Yard (3 feet)
Three-act structure (in narrative)
Rule of thirds (in photography)
Traffic lights
Manx flag (3 legs)
What does the number 3 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?
P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, two, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.
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