How popular is the baby name Jennie 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 Jennie.
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Charles and Harriet “Hattie” Hanna married in the late 1800s and went on to have at least six children — including a set of identical triplets.
The three baby girls were born in Buffalo, New York, in September of 1906. They were named Ida, Iva, and Eva.
Surviving identical triplets were rare in those days, making the Hanna sisters somewhat of a curiosity. So, as young children, they traveled throughout the U.S. and Canada as circus sideshow performers.
The Hanna triplets (at six weeks old)
The girls left the circus to attend school, but began performing again as teenagers. This time around they worked for a musical/comedy theater company in Kansas City, Missouri. One newspaper article mentioned that their talents included “dancing, singing and saxophone playing.”
In their 20s, they retired from show business to get married. Notably, Eva’s husband was George Hulme, better known as the famous mid-20th century circus clown Bumpsy Anthony.
What do you think of Ida, Iva, and Eva as triplet names? Which one of the three do you like best?
P.S. According to the 1910 U.S. Census, two of the triplets’ siblings were named Jennie (older) and Mildred (younger).
Sources:
Dawdy, Kirk. “Woodstock and the Circus (PDF).” Local History: Woodstock & McHenry County, Woodstock Public Library.
Years ago, I discovered three documents with relatively complete lists of births for the city of Providence, Rhode Island, for the years 1866, 1867, and 1868. I’ve already created Providence’s baby name rankings for 1866 and 1867 using the first two documents, and today (finally!) I’ve got the third set of rankings for you.
Let’s start with some stats:
1,762 babies were born in Providence in 1868, by my count. According to the introduction of the document I’m using a source, however, the total number is 1,866. I don’t know how to account for this discrepancy.
1,617 of these babies (791 girls and 826 boys) had names that were known at the time of publication. The other 145 babies got blank spaces. Either their names hadn’t been registered yet, or they hadn’t been named yet, or perhaps these babies died young and never received a name.
284 unique names (143 girl names and 141 boy names) were shared among these 1,617 babies.
And now, on to the names!
Top 5
A quick look at the top 5 girl names and boy names in Providence in 1868:
Top baby girl names
Top baby boy names
1. Mary 2. Catherine 3. Sarah 4. Ellen 5. Margaret
1. John 2. William 3. James 4. Charles 5. George
All Girl Names
Mary, 149 baby girls
Catherine, 39
Sarah, 38
Ellen, 31
Margaret, 28
Elizabeth, 25
Alice, 24
Anna, 20
Ann, 16
Emma, 14
Eliza, 13
Clara & Martha, 11 each (tie)
Hannah & Lucy, 10 each (tie)
Bridget, Grace, Jennie, Julia & Maria, 9 each (5-way tie)
Annie, Florence, Jane, Minnie & Susan, 8 each (5-way tie)
Agnes, Caroline, Cora, Ella & Harriet, 7 each (5-way tie)
Back when sea voyages were the only way to reach distant lands, many babies ended up being born aboard ships. And many of these ship-born babies were given names that reflected the circumstances of their birth. A good portion of them, for instance, were named after the ships upon which they were born.
I’ve gathered hundreds of these ship-inspired baby names over the years, and I think it’s finally time to post what I’ve found…
A
Abergeldie:
Emma Abergeldie Walsh, born in 1884
Abernyte:
Eva Abernyte Congdon, born in 1875
Abington:
Herbert Bealie Abington Tait, born in 1884
Abyssinia:
Abyssinia Louise Juhansen, born in 1870
Abyssinia Elfkin, born in 1872
Louise Abyssinia Bellanger, born in 1874
Achilles:
John Achilles Denchey, born in 1871
Actoea:
U. Actoea Jones, born in 1868
Adriatic:
John Adriatic Gateley Collins, born in 1879
Adriatic O’Loghlin Gould, born in 1880
Agnes Adriatic Cook, born in 1880
Agamemnon:
Frederick Agamemnon Dingly, born in 1876
Alaska:
Mary Alaska Magee, born in 1884
Alcester:
Gertrude Alcester Dart, born in 1884
Alcinous:
Mary Duncan Alcinosa Greenwood, born in 1887
Aldergrove:
Aldergrove Andrew Fullarton Feathers, born in 1875
He in turn gave his name to Medford, Minnesota, in the 1850s. His father, Englishman William K. Colling, was an early Minnesota settler who “said that he had a son who was born on board the ship Medford, and was named Medford, in honor of the ship, and proposed that the town should be named Medford in honor of the boy.”
P.S. Hundreds of other babies have been named after ships that were making headlines (e.g., the Titanic, the Lusitania, the Andrea Doria) around the time they were born.
The less-common variant Lyrissa debuted the same year, and the more-common variants Larissa and Larisa both saw higher around the same time. (Larissa jumped into the top 1,000 for the first time in 1967, in fact.)
What’s the reason?
An actress featured on the popular TV soap opera The Doctors (1963-1982). Laryssa Lauret played character Dr. Karen Werner, who was introduced in 1967 and had a heavy German accent. One writer later described the character as “the resident Teutonic trouble-maker.”
Laryssa Lauret, an American actress of Ukrainian descent, was born Larysa Kukrycka in Warsaw in 1939. She was raised in Austria for a time, then finished her schooling in New York. She shares her name with a martyr, a nymph and various ancient Greek cities. According to this Greek-English Lexicon, the meaning of the name is “citadel.”
The Doctors also influenced the usage of at least two other baby names:
Carolee saw a jump in usage in 1968, the year after actress Carolee Campbell originated the role of like-named character Carolee Simpson, R.N.
Sindee re-entered the data in 1963, the year actress Sindee Ann Richards appeared on the show for 5 sequential episodes as “Jennie.”
But getting back to Laryssa…do you like the name? How do you prefer to spell it?
Source: “Ukrainian Actress to Appear in TV Show.” Ukrainian Weekly 15 Jan. 1978: 4.
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