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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Popularity of the baby name Jane


Posts that mention the name Jane

What gave the baby name Neva a boost in 1953?

Neva Jane Langley (1933-2012), Miss America 1953
Neva Jane Langley

The name Neva, which was most popular during during the 1910s and ’20s, saw an uptick in usage in the early 1950s:

  • 1955: 180 baby girls named Neva [rank: 705th]
  • 1954: 211 baby girls named Neva [rank: 627th]
  • 1953: 239 baby girls named Neva [rank: 568th]
  • 1952: 182 baby girls named Neva [rank: 658th]
  • 1951: 156 baby girls named Neva [rank: 700th]

Why?

Because of beauty queen Neva (pronounced NEE-va) Jane Langley, who was crowned Miss America 1953 in September of 1952.

Neva was a native Floridian, but represented the state of Georgia in the pageant because she was attending the Wesleyan Conservatory of Music (in Macon) at the time.

Speaking of music, Neva won the talent portion of the competition with a performance of the piano piece “Toccata” by Aram Khachaturian.

Because Miss America pageants weren’t televised until 1954, Neva’s first TV appearance didn’t happen until about a week later, on an episode of the panel show What’s My Line? [vid].

What are your thoughts on the baby name Neva?

P.S. Quite a few baby names were influenced by What’s My Line? in the 1950s and ’60s…

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the Hanford Journal (12 Sept. 1952)

What turned Dart into a baby name in 1956?

Part of the poster for "Foxfire" (1955)
“Foxfire” poster

This one stumped me for a long time, but I think I’ve finally figured it out.

The word-name Dart debuted in the U.S. baby name data in the mid-1950s and hung around for several years before disappearing again:

  • 1961: unlisted
  • 1960: 6 baby boys named Dart
  • 1959: 5 baby boys named Dart
  • 1958: 8 baby boys named Dart
  • 1957: 10 baby boys named Dart
  • 1956: 12 baby boys named Dart [debut]
  • 1955: unlisted

At first I got stuck on a pair of auto-Darts: the Chrysler Dart, a concept car that was in the news briefly in mid-1956, and the Dodge Dart, a production car that went on sale in 1960. Neither one was a good answer.

Finally I happened to find a 1955 film called Foxfire that featured a main character named Jonathan “Dart” Dartland (played by Jeff Chandler). He was a half-Apache mining engineer whose new marriage to socialite wife Amanda (played by Jane Russell) was threatened by the cultural gap between them.

The screenplay, based on a 1950 novel of the same name by Anya Seton, was written by Ketti Frings.

What do you think of “Dart” as a baby name?

P.S. Foxfire was the film playing aboard the SS Andrea Doria the moment it was struck by the MS Stockholm.

Sources: Foxfire (1955 film) – Wikipedia, Foxfire (1955) – TCM

Game: Add 3 girl names to this 1910 list…

In 1910, the Boston-based publisher H. M. Caldwell Co. ran the following ad for its “My Own Name” series of books in American Motherhood magazine.

names from 1910

It is the purpose of these charming little books to tell girls all about their names, information about the name, its origin, the name in history, the name in poetry, fiction and romance is given, also notable namesakes past and present.

It wasn’t much of a series, though, as there were only 25 names to choose from:

  1. Alice (ranked 10th nationally in 1910)
  2. Annie (19th)
  3. Bertha (33rd)
  4. Charlotte (99th)
  5. Dorothy (4th)
  6. Edith (35th)
  7. Eleanor (55th)
  8. Elizabeth (7th)
  9. Fanny (391st)
  10. Gertrude (26th)
  11. Gladys (15th)
  12. Helen (2nd)
  13. Isabel (176th)
  14. Jane (116th)
  15. Katherine (57th)
  16. Lucy (75th)
  17. Margaret (3rd)
  18. Marion (59th)
  19. Marjorie (68th)
  20. Mary (1st)
  21. Mildred (8th)
  22. Nellie (51st)
  23. Ruth (5th)
  24. Sarah (40th)
  25. Winifred (185th)

Clearly three more names could have fit on that last line (next to Winifred), so let’s turn this into a game. Which three girl names would you add to this list? That is, give us three names you like that would also be logical additions to this list, given the time period. For instance, I think I’d add Iola, Della, and Bonnie. How about you?

(If you want to access the national rankings for 1910, click over to the SSA’s site and scroll down to “Popular Names by Birth Year.”)

Baby names in the news: Searyl, Harvey, Storm

Some recent and not-so-recent baby names from the news…

Apollo: A baby boy born in the Canadian town of Kelowna at the start of the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, was named Niall Apollo — Apollo after the Greek god of the sun. (Castanet)

Bale: A baby boy born in Wales in November of 2016 was named Bale in honor of Welsh soccer player Gareth Bale. Another boy born in Wales a month later was also named Bale for the same reason. (Wales Online; Wales Online)

Cali: A baby girl born into the Perry family of Kentucky in July of 2017 was named Cali Perry in honor of John Calipari, head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team. (SEC Country)

Harvey: A baby boy born in Texas in August of 2017 amid the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey was named Harvey. (Washington Post)

Jetson: A baby boy born on June 18, 2017, aboard a Jet Airways flight from Dammam to Kochi was named Jetson after the Indian airline. (The Asian Age)

Lyric: A baby girl born on March 19, 2017, to A. J. McLean of the vocal group the Backstreet Boys was named Lyric. (People)

Noah Harvey: A baby boy born on August 29, 2017, “while Tropical Storm Harvey was raging across his hometown of Beaumont, Texas” was named Noah Harvey. (Deseret News)

Pasley: A baby girl born in Minnesota in June of 2017 was named Shirah Pasley Yang — middle name in honor of Jane Pasley, the organ donor whose kidney was received by Kari Yang, Shirah’s mother. (Pioneer Press)

Searyl Atli: A baby born in Canada in November of 2016 “could be the first in the world to not have a gender designation.” The baby’s gender-neutral first and middle names are Searyl and Atli. (BBC)

Storm: A baby girl born in Miami in September of 2017, as Hurricane Irma approached the region, was named Nayiri Storm. (Weather Channel)