How popular is the baby name Linda 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 Linda.

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Popularity of the baby name Linda


Posts that mention the name Linda

Where did the baby name Dwanna come from in 1936?

Illustration of Dwanna Lee Newman
Dwanna Lee Newman

The name Dwanna first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1936:

  • 1938: unlisted
  • 1937: 7 baby girls named Dwanna
  • 1936: 20 baby girls named Dwanna [debut]
  • 1935: unlisted
  • 1934: unlisted

Where did it come from?

A little girl who got hit by a train — and survived!

In October of 1933, a toddler named Dwanna Lee Newman — the daughter of Arvid and Tola Newman of Eureka, Utah — was struck by a train traveling at about 20 miles per hour.

The locomotive pilot knocked her 10 feet in the air, she alighted on the cross-ties exactly between the rails and the entire freight train passed over her. […] When picked up, she was found to be unconscious, but soon revived, and examination disclosed the fact that aside from a bump on forehead, she was uninjured.

Nearly three years later, in July of 1936, Dwanna’s story was featured in the nationally syndicated Ripley’s Believe It or Not newspaper panel.

Sadly, Dwanna died of pneumonia in late 1937, at the age of five. (Arvid and Tola went on to have two more children, daughters Linda Rae and Vicki Ann, in the 1940s.)

What are your thoughts on the baby name Dwanna?

P.S. Believe it or not, the weirdly similar name Dwala was also influenced by Believe It or Not…

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the Daily Colonist (16 Jul. 1936)

What gave the baby name Michelle a boost in 1966?

The Beatles' album "Rubber Soul" (1965)
Beatles album

The French name Michelle was already a top-20 girl name in the U.S. when it suddenly saw a massive increase in usage in the mid-1960s:

  • 1968: 33,222 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 2nd]
  • 1967: 30,826 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 3rd]
  • 1966: 27,158 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 4th]
  • 1965: 16,215 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 18th]
  • 1964: 16,182 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 23rd]

Michelle’s jump of nearly 11,000 baby girls from 1965 to 1966 easily qualifies as the steepest girl-name rise of the year. In fact, the jump currently ranks 10th on the list of top girl-name rises of all time.

So, what was drawing extra attention to the name Michelle in 1966?

“Michelle” by the Beatles. The love ballad — and the only Beatles song to feature French lyrics — was a track on the British band’s sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, which came out in December of 1965.

Here’s what “Michelle” sounds like:

“Michelle” was never released as a single in the U.S., so it never ranked on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. Despite this, it was played frequently on the radio, and ended up winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in March of 1967.

The song started out as a French-sounding ditty that Paul McCartney would play at parties in Liverpool during the late 1950s (when Left Bank bohemian culture was trendy in England). In the mid-1960s, at the suggestion of John Lennon, Paul developed the ditty into a proper song. He wrote the lyrics around the French feminine name Michelle, and came up with the rhyming phrase ma belle (“my beauty”) and the lyrics sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble (“are the words that go very well together”) with some help from a French-speaking friend.

Thanks largely to the song, the name Michelle was one of the top five girl names in the nation from 1966 to 1974. Though it ranked second a total of four times, it never managed to take the top spot. (It was denied by Lisa during the late 1960s, then Jennifer during the early 1970s.)

What are your thoughts on the name Michelle? (Do you know anyone named after the song “Michelle”?)

P.S. Coincidentally, Paul McCartney was married for nearly three decades to Linda Eastman, whose first name inspired the 1946 song “Linda,” which turned Linda into the fastest-rising girl name of all time from 1946 to 1947.

Sources: Michelle (song) – Wikipedia, Michelle – The Beatles Bible, SSA

What brought the baby name Brennley back in 2017?

Singer Brennley Brown

After popping up in the U.S. baby name data several times in the early 2010s, the name Brennley both re-emerged and reached peak usage in 2017:

  • 2019: 14 baby girls named Brennley
  • 2018: 14 baby girls named Brennley
  • 2017: 56 baby girls named Brennley
  • 2016: unlisted
  • 2015: unlisted

The spelling Brenley also peaked that year, and Brenlei was a one-hit wonder in the data.

What was influencing these names?

A 14-year-old country singer named Brennley Brown.

During the first half of 2017, Brennley appeared on the 12th season of reality competition TV series The Voice. She advanced to the top 8, but was eliminated during the semifinals.

In May, three of the songs that Brennley had performed on the show made consecutive single-week appearances on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart. (The songs were “Long, Long Time” by Linda Ronstadt, “River” by Joni Mitchell, and “Anyway” by Martina McBride.)

What are your thoughts on the name Brennley?

Sources: Brennley Brown – Wikipedia, Brennley Brown – Billboard, The Voice (season 12) – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Screenshot of The Voice

Minnesota family with 22 children

kinderfest

In the mid-20th century, Alvin Joseph Miller and Lucille Rose Miller (née Kahnke) of Waseca, Minnesota, had 22 children — 15 girls and 7 boys.

Here are the names of all 22 siblings:

  1. Ramona Mary (born in 1940), who became a Franciscan nun
  2. Alvin Joseph, Jr. (b. 1942)
  3. Rose Ann (b. 1943)
  4. Kathleen Edith (b. 1945)
  5. Robert Vincent (b. 1946)
  6. Patricia Jean (b. 1947)
  7. Mary Lucille (b. 1948), nicknamed “Marylu”
  8. Diane Margaret (b. 1949)
  9. John Charles (b. 1950)
  10. Janet Irene (b. 1951)
  11. Linda Louise (b. 1953)
  12. Virginia Therese (b. 1954)
  13. Helen Rita (b. 1955), who wrote a book about growing up in a large family
  14. Arthur Lawrence (b. 1956)
  15. Dolores Maria (b. 1957)
  16. Martin Peter (b. 1959)
  17. Pauline Carmel (b. 1960)
  18. Alice Callista (b. 1961)
  19. Angela Mary (b. 1962)
  20. Marcia Marie (b. 1963)
  21. Gregory Eugene (b. 1964)
  22. Damien Francis (b. 1966)

Eight of the children had been born by April of 1950, when the Miller family was interviewed for the U.S. Census:

The Miller family on the 1950 U.S. Census
The Miller family (1950 U.S. Census)

Alvin and Lucille raised their children on a 300-acre farm that included a seven-bedroom farmhouse. Here’s how Diane (#8) described her childhood:

I remember a lot of rides in the wheelbarrow from the granary to the barn. I remember a lot of grinding feed, a lot of egg washing and packing, a lot of sitting by the wood stove in the basement, singing songs as we candled eggs.

Which of the names above do you like most?

P.S. Thank you to Destiny for letting me know about the Miller family a few months ago! (Destiny also told me about the Jones family of West Virginia.)

Sources:

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus