Baby Name: Ken

We’ve talked about Faron, so now let’s talk about Ferlin — a similar name that debuted for a similar reason during the very same decade.

• 1959: 22 baby boys named Ferlin
• 1958: 26 baby boys named Ferlin (peak)
• 1957: 15 baby boys named Ferlin
• 1956: 17 baby boys named Ferlin
• 1955: 9 baby boys named Ferlin
• 1954: 7 baby boys named Ferlin [debut]
• 1953: unlisted
• 1952: unlsted

The name Ferlin was inspired by American country singer Ferlin Husky. His 1953 singles “A Dear John Letter” and “Forgive Me, John” — both duets with Jean Shepard — are what put him, and his name, on the map.

He went on to have hits like “Gone” in 1957 and “Wings of a Dove” in 1960, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

But the name Ferlin would never have come to anyone’s attention if Ferlin Husky had stuck with the stage name Terry Preston, which he began using in the late ’40s. Some sources say he used a stage name because he felt his real name “sounded too rural.” He was convinced by record producer Ken Nelson to revert to his birth name in the early ’50s:

[Nelson] pushed Terry Preston to drop his stage name and use his given name, Ferlin Husky. “I thought, ‘Oh, my god, Terry Preston, my goodness’ sake’ — it sounded too sweet for a country singer. So I said, ‘Ferlin, why don’t you use your right name? It’s a good masculine name, and it’s an unusual name.’ And he didn’t want to do it. One day, he and his father and I were riding in the car, and I mentioned it to his father, and his father said, ‘Ferlin, you’re never gonna be a success until you use your right name.'”

Ironically, Ferlin’s “right name” was invented by a wrong spelling. His father had intended to name him Ferland after a friend, but the name was misspelled “Ferlin” on the birth certificate.

Do you like the name Ferlin? Do you like it more or less than Faron?

Sources:

• About Ferlin Husky – CMT
• Ferlin Husky Biography
• Ferlin Husky, Country Music Pioneer, Dead At 85
• Kienzle, Rich. Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz. New York: Routledge, 2003.