How popular is the baby name Johnny 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 Johnny.
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On October 6, 1963, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the fourth and final game of the 1963 World Series against the New York Yankees. They swept the series with the help of their pitchers — Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, and reliever Ron Perranoski — who collectively gave up only four runs in all four games combined.
The same day, Mr. and Mrs. Eddie A. Turner of Compton, California, welcomed triplets — two boys and one girl. Several days later, they announced that they’d named the babies after Dodgers pitchers:
From 1968 to 1970, the baby name Trenny was popular enough to appear in the U.S. baby name data:
1970: 6 baby girls named Trenny
1969: 7 baby girls named Trenny
1968: 20 baby girls named Trenny [debut]
1967: unlisted
1966: unlisted
Where did “Trenny” come from?
A bridesmaid, believe it or not.
On December 9, 1967, Lynda Bird Johnson — the elder daughter* of President Lyndon B. Johnson and Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson — married U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Charles Robb in a private ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
One of the bridesmaids was the groom’s sister, a photogenic 20-year-old named Marguerite Trenholm “Trenny” Robb.
Interest in her spiked after the wedding photos came out, and she became somewhat of a media darling for the next few years. In 1968, for instance, Trenny appeared on The Merv Griffin Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, she modeled in magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal and Mademoiselle, and she even flew to Rome to screen test for an Omar Sharif film.
The media followed her modeling career over the next couple of years — even after President Johnson was replaced by President Nixon in early 1969.
But then Trenny decided to leave it all behind and pursue other interests. In 1970 she married, moved to a farm in Vermont, and started a business making pot pipes and related paraphernalia (love beads, peace posters).
These days, Trenny is still in Vermont, but she’s moved on from making pipes to making lamps.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Trenny?
P.S. The English surname Trenholm comes from the name of a village in Yorkshire. The place name can be traced back to a pair of Old Norse words meaning “crane” (as in the bird) and “islet.”
Sources:
Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
The baby name Chantay made an impressive debut in the U.S. baby name data in 1960:
1962: 16 baby girls named Chantay
1961: 80 baby girls named Chantay [peak usage]
1960: 67 baby girls named Chantay [debut]
1959: unlisted
1958: unlisted
Where did it come from?
Yet another single-episode TV character.
That character was Chantay, who appeared on a November 1960 episode of the TV western Lawman (1958-1962).
Chantay was a Native American teenager (played by actress Sharon Hugueny) who had run away from the Indian school. She was befriended one of the show’s main characters, Deputy Johnny.
The California surf rock group The Chantays — famous today for the surf rock classic “Pipeline” (vid) — formed in 1961 and may have taken their name from the character as well.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word charade as “an empty or deceptive act or pretense.”
Given this rather unsavory meaning, it’s surprising that a handful of parents named their baby girls Charade in the 1960s:
1968: unlisted
1967: 5 baby girls named Charade
1966: unlisted
1965: unlisted
1964: 6 baby girls named Charade [debut]
1963: unlisted
So what was the influence here?
That debut in 1964 can be attributed to the movie Charade (1963) and/or the movie’s theme song, also called “Charade.”
The movie was a romantic comedy/thriller starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant that came out in December of 1963 (less than a month after the Kennedy assassination). Here’s how TCM sums it up: “A beautiful widow tries to find her husband’s lost fortune while eluding the killers who want it themselves.”
(Interesting fact: The movie fell out of copyright immediately upon release because the word “copyright” was mistakenly omitted from the title screen.)
The song was a sad-sounding Parisian waltz composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Henry Mancini’s version reached #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February of 1963. Crooner Andy Williams also released a version that managed to reach the top 100 that year (but just barely — 100th place in January).
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