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

Fastest-rising girl names of all time in the U.S. baby name data

hot air balloons

Yesterday we looked at the fastest-rising boy names of all time, so today let’s look at the fastest-rising girl names.

Here are all the girl names that increased in popularity by more than 10,000 babies in a single year:

  1. Linda, +46,978 baby girls from 1946 to 1947
  2. Shirley, +19,514 baby girls from 1934 to 1935
  3. Ashley, +18,435 baby girls from 1982 to 1983
  4. Deborah, +12,954 baby girls from 1950 to 1951
  5. Mary, +12,842 baby girls from 1914 to 1915
  6. Jennifer, +12,455 baby girls from 1969 to 1970
  7. Amanda, +11,406 baby girls from 1978 to 1979
  8. Linda, +11,239 baby girls from 1945 to 1946
  9. Brittany, +10,969 baby girls from 1988 to 1989
  10. Michelle, +10,937 baby girls from 1965 to 1966
  11. Debra, +10,866 baby girls from 1950 to 1951
  12. Jennifer, +10,626 baby girls from 1970 to 1971
  13. Patricia, +10,452 baby girls from 1945 to 1946
  14. Cindy, +10,268 baby girls from 1956 to 1957
  15. Debra, +10,015 baby girls from 1952 to 1953

Linda is clearly the winner here.

Linda’s spike in 1947 is like the perfect storm of spikes. The name was already on the rise, and then the song “Linda” (1946) became a huge hit in mid-1947 — at the beginning of the post–WWII baby boom.

Several performers recorded the song, but the most successful rendition was the one sung by Buddy Clark (backed by Ray Noble’s orchestra):

If the song had been released just one year earlier — which is theoretically possible, as it was written in 1942 — the Linda spike might have been even bigger, as the largest one-year increase in births in U.S. history happened between 1945 and 1946.

The song “Linda” was created by songwriter Jack Lawrence at the request of his attorney, Lee Eastman, who wanted a song written for his 5-year-old daughter.

Being a good friend, I obliged and wrote a song for five-year-old Linda. When I made the rounds of publishers I met with frustration. Most of them like everything about the song but the name Linda. “Why Linda?” they would ask. “That’s not a popular name”. One guy said: “Call it Ida — after my mother-in-law and I’ll publish it”. I had to remind him there already was an “Ida — Sweet as Apple Cider!” Another maven suggested the name Mandy. He felt that had a more musical ring than Linda. I reminded him that Irving Berlin had thought so too, years ago he had written: “Mandy, There’s A Minister Handy”, etc.

Jack Lawrence stuck with Linda, and the song made musical (and baby name) history.

And 5-year-old Linda Eastman also made musical history, in a sense, by marrying Beatle Paul McCartney in the late 1960s.

Trivia question of the day: Only one girl name ever decreased in popularity by more than 10,000 baby girls over a one-year period. Can you guess the name?

P.S. One of the fastest-rising names of 1947, Jolinda, was no doubt riding on the coattails of Linda.

Sources: Linda – Jack Lawrence, Songwriter, List of Billboard number-one singles of 1947 – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Adapted from Turkey-2036 by Dennis Jarvis under CC BY-SA 2.0.

[Latest update: May 2023]

Mouseketeer names: Annette, Dennis, Karen, Lonnie

The Mickey Mouse Club (1950s)

Annette Funicello, the most popular member of the original Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1959), passed away a couple of days ago.

Seeing her name in the news made me think about the other original Mouseketeers, most of whom were born in the early to mid-1940s (making them teens in the late 1950s). If you’re looking for a baby name reminiscent of sock hops and soda fountains, the first batch of Mouseketeers is not a bad place to start:

  • Annette Funicello (b. 1942)
    • Thanks to Funicello’s fame, the baby name Annette saw a drastic rise in usage during the latter half of the 1950s.
  • Billie Beanblossom (b. 1944)
  • Bonita “Bonnie” Lynn Fields (b. 1944)
  • Bonni Lou Kern (b. 1941)
  • Bronson Scott (b. 1947) – who was a girl, despite her name
  • Charles “Charlie” Laney (b. 1943)
  • Cheryl Holdridge (b. 1944) – who went on to marry Lance Reventlow
  • Carl “Cubby” O’Brien (b. 1946)
  • Dallas Johann (b. 1944)
  • Darlene Gillespie (b. 1941)
    • The baby name Darlene also saw a steep rise in usage while The Mickey Mouse Club was on the air.
  • Dennis Day (b. 1942)
  • Joseph Richard “Dickie” Dodd (b. 1945)
  • Don Agrati (b. 1944)
  • Donald “Don” Underhill (b. 1941)
  • Doreen Tracey (b. 1943)
  • Eileen Diamond (b. 1943)
  • John “Johnny” Crawford (b. 1946)
  • John Joseph “Jay-Jay” Solari (b. 1943)
  • (John) Lee Johann (b. 1942)
  • Judy Harriet (b. 1942)
  • Karen Pendleton (b. 1946)
  • Larry Larsen (b. 1939)
  • Linda Hughes (b. 1946)
  • Leonard “Lonnie” Burr (b. 1943)
  • (Lowrey) Lynn Ready (b. 1944)
  • Margene Storey (b. 1942)
  • Mark Sutherland (b. 1944)
  • Mary Espinosa (b. 1945)
  • Mary Sartori (b. 1943)
  • Mickey Rooney, Jr. (b. 1945)
  • Michael “Mike” Smith (b. 1945)
  • Nancy Abbate (b. 1942)
  • (William) Paul Petersen (b. 1945)
  • Robert “Bobby” Burgess (b. 1941)
  • Ronald “Ronnie” Steiner (b. 1942)
  • Sharon Baird (b. 1942)
  • Sharyn “Sherry” Alberoni (b. 1946)
  • Timothy “Tim” Rooney (b. 1947)
  • Thomas “Tommy” Cole (b. 1941)

Which of the above names do you like the most?

Sources: Girl next door Annette Funicello dies at 70, The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show

Image: Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers 1957 (public domain)

Baby born in Yorba Linda, named Linda Yorba

Don Bernardo Yorba
Don Bernardo Yorba

The Southern California city of Yorba Linda — which was a small, rural town until the 1960s — was named in honor of wealthy local rancher Bernardo Yorba (b. 1800), the son of early California settler José Antonio Yorba (b. 1743), originally from Spain.

Bernardo had 21 children, one of whom was a son named Vicente (b. 1844). Vicente went on to have a son named Bernardo (b. 1894), who also went on to have a son named Bernardo (b. 1921).

That last Bernardo — the great-grandson of the original — had a high school sweetheart named Margaret.

Bernardo married Margaret in 1943. After that, he left to fight in WWII — but not before Margaret became pregnant with their first child. She gave birth to a baby girl while Bernardo was overseas.

Margaret recalled:

When I was in high school I remembered sitting with my friends at noon one time and talking about getting married and I said, “What if I married Bernardo Yorba and named our first baby Linda. She’d be Linda Yorba from Yorba Linda.” And we all thought that was so hysterical. So of course, I named the baby Linda — it just came out of my mouth.

After welcoming Linda in early 1944, the couple went on to have nine more children: Cantana, Lisa, Bernardo, Nichola, Antonio, Miguel, Christopher, Jaime, and Peter.

P.S. Here are two more WWII-era Linda stories: Linda Ann and Linda.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Don Bernardo Yorba (circa 1840)

[Latest update: Dec. 2024]

Wisconsin family with 22 children

Some of the Schoville family of Wisconsin (in 1950)
Some of the Schoville family (in 1950)

Fred and Edith Schoville of Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, had their first child in 1926, their last in 1952, and 20 in between. That’s a total of 22 children. All were single births.

Here are the names of all 22, plus as many of the birth years as I could verify.

  1. Marjorie Maxine (born in 1925)
  2. Freddie (b. 1926)
  3. Lola Jean (b. 1928)
  4. Betty Lavonne (b. 1929)
  5. Marlin Dwayne (b. 1932)
  6. Phyllis Marie (b. 1933)
  7. Donna Mae (b. 1934)
  8. Annabelle
  9. Patsy L.
  10. Larry Lee (b. 1938)
  11. Janice P. (b. 1939)
  12. Sharon H.
  13. Frederick P. (b. 1941)
  14. Susan Kay (b. 1942)
  15. Ronald A.
  16. Robert A. (b. 1945)
  17. Karen C. (b. 1946)
  18. Linda Lou (b. 1947)
  19. Gary G. (b. 1948)
  20. Charles William (b. 1949)
  21. Steven (b. 1951)
  22. Randy Joe (b. 1952)

More than half of the Schoville children are listed on the 1950 U.S. Census:

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

Which girl name is your favorite? How about boy name?

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the Spokane Daily Chronicle (18 Apr. 1950)

[Latest update: Oct. 2024]