How popular is the baby name Juanita 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 Juanita.

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Popularity of the baby name Juanita


Posts that mention the name Juanita

Where did the baby names Juandalynn and Donzaleigh come from in 1970?

Donzaleigh and Juandalynn Abernathy with parents (Ralph and Juanita) and brother (Ralph), circa 1969
Donzaleigh and Juandalynn Abernathy with family

The names Donzaleigh and Juandalynn were both one-hit wonders in the U.S. baby name data in 1970:

Girls named JuandalynnGirls named Donzaleigh
1972..
1971..
197013*9*
1969..
1968..
*Debut

Where did they come from?

Juandalynn and Donzaleigh Abernathy — the daughters of civil rights activist and Baptist minister Ralph Abernathy (1926-1990).

Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr., co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the late 1950s, following the Montgomery bus boycott (which they helped organize). King was the first president of the SCLC, but Abernathy assumed the role after King was assassinated in April of 1968.

In 1969 and 1970 — when Abernathy was in the spotlight as the new SCLC president — African American magazines like Jet and Ebony ran photos of the Abernathy family, which included Ralph, his wife Juanita, and their middle three children:

  • Juandalynn Ralpheda (b. 1954)
  • Donzaleigh Avis (b. 1957)
  • Ralph David III (b. 1959)

(Their oldest, Ralph David Jr., had died two days after birth in 1953. Their youngest, Kwame Luthuli, wasn’t born until the early 1970s.)

Juandalynn’s first and middle names were clearly inspired by her parents’ names, but I don’t know how Donzaleigh’s name was coined.

What are your thoughts on the names Juandalynn and Donzaleigh? Which one do you like more?

Sources:

Image: © 1970 Ebony

Baby born on bridge, named Bridge

Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge

On October 27, 1945, Mrs. Juanita Dunlop gave birth to a baby boy while traveling in an ambulance across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

“At the time Mrs. Dunlop said that she would not give the baby any fancy names,” but her husband later decided that he wanted to add the word “bridge” to the baby’s name.

So their son was christened Robert Bridge in late December at the Methodist Church in Manly, New South Wales.

The Dunlops’ two older children, both boys, were named Stephen and Richard.

Source: “Baby Named After Bridge Birthplace.” The Sun [Sydney, Australia] 23 Dec 1945: 6.

Image: Sydney Harbour Bridge by Diego Delso under CC BY-SA 3.0.

What gave the baby name Troylene a boost?

Candy Barr and daughter Troylene, 1963
Candy Barr & Troylene, 1963

The rare name Troylene has appeared in the U.S. baby name data just three times total. It debuted in 1951, then popped up again twice in the 1960s:

  • 1966: unlisted
  • 1965: 5 baby girls named Troylene
  • 1964: unlisted
  • 1963: 13 baby girls named Troylene [peak]
    • 6 born in California
  • 1962: unlisted
  • […unlisted…]
  • 1952: unlisted
  • 1951: 5 baby girls named Troylene [debut]
  • 1950: unlisted

The peak usage in 1963 is easy to explain, so we’ll start there.

In the early ’60s, Dallas burlesque dancer “Candy Barr” (birth name: Juanita Dale Slusher) served over three years of a fifteen-year prison sentence for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. Just after she was released in April of 1963, a few photographs of Candy and her 7-year-old daughter Troylene ran in the newspapers. (Troylene’s father was Candy’s second husband, Troy Phillips.)

…So that explains the ’60s. What about the ’50s?

The reason for the debut is trickier to pinpoint — and there may not be a specific reason at all. (“Troylene” may have emerged organically as a variant of trendy names like Darlene and Charlene.)

That said, I do have two theories:

  • First, a New Mexico cowgirl named Troylene Boykin (b. 1943). She participated in various kids’ rodeos during the early ’50s, so her name periodically popped up in Southern newspapers starting around 1951. (Sadly, Troylene Boykin died of a heart ailment in 1956.)
  • Second, a Texas baby named Zanneta Troylene McKnight (b. 1951). Her twin brother, Clifton Troyce McKnight, was born with an “upside down” stomach (congenital diaphragmatic hernia) and required major surgery soon after they were born in mid-November. They were both highlighted in the local news at that time.

It’s interesting to note that most of the 20th-century Troylenes I found records for were born in Texas, and a good number of them had fathers named Troy. The twins’ father was a Troy, for instance.

What do you think of the baby name Troylene?

Sources:

  • Cartwright, Gary. “Say “Cheesecake”.” Texas Monthly Jan. 1986: 280.
  • “Winters Baby’s ‘Upside Down’ Stomach Set Right by Surgery.” Abilene Reporter-News 8 Dec. 1951: 25.

Where did the baby name Lacosta come from in 1974?

La Costa's album "With All My Love" (1975).
La Costa album

The interesting name Lacosta first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1974, and it reached peak usage several years later in 1977:

1978: 17 baby girls named Lacosta
1977: 40 baby girls named Lacosta [peak]
1976: 33 baby girls named Lacosta
1975: 27 baby girls named Lacosta
1974: 6 baby girls named Lacosta [debut]
1973: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Country singer LaCosta Tucker — older sister of Tanya Tucker. LaCosta recorded under the name “La Costa” from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s.

LaCosta’s parents, “oilfield nomads” Beau and Juanita, moved the family around the South while the children were growing up in the 1950s and ’60s.

Their first kid they very conventionally called Don, but after that they named them exotically, to relieve the drab hardness of their existence. They called their first girl LaCosta. “In Spanish, it means ‘the coast’,” she says.

“When we were living In Seminole, Texas, where I was born, our parents had a real good friend who lived In Denver City, about 15 miles away. Her name was LaCosta Ivey, and they named me after her because they liked her and they were looking for a name that was different.”

In 1999 — more than two decades after “Lacosta” debuted in the data — Tanya herself used it as a middle name for her third child, daughter Layla LaCosta Laseter.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Lacosta?

Source: “LaCosta, Tanya Tucker’s Big Sister, Gets A Break, Too.” Cincinnati Enquirer 25 Jun. 1974: 34.

P.S. Natalie Cole included a song called “La Costa” on her 1977 album Thankful. But the song wasn’t a single, and the album was released late in the year (November), so I doubt the song had much influence on baby names.