How popular is the baby name Ltanya 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 Ltanya.

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Popularity of the baby name Ltanya


Posts that mention the name Ltanya

How did Daryle Lamonica influence baby names?

Football player Daryle Lamonica (1941-2022)
Daryle Lamonica

California-born quarterback Daryle Lamonica played professional football for twelve seasons (1963-1975).

He spent seven of those seasons with the Oakland Raiders, leading the team to four consecutive division titles (from 1967 to 1970) and its first Super Bowl appearance (in January of 1968). He was also named the AFL’s Most Valuable Player twice, in 1967 and 1969. (The winner in 1968 was Joe Namath, incidentally.)

Lamonica ended up influencing both boy names and girl names during the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Usage of boy name Daryle (one of the various spellings of the top-100 name Darrell) increased in both 1968 and 1970, while usage of the girl name Lamonica more than tripled in 1968 and nearly doubled in 1971 (the year that Monica reached the girls’ top 50 for the first time).

Boys named DaryleGirls named Lamonica
197271 [rank: 960th]78
1971119 [rank: 749th]103†
1970142† [rank: 697th]56
196988 [rank: 824th]55
196895 [rank: 762nd]40
196762 [rank: 919th]12
196672 [rank: 854th]16
†Peak usage

The Italian surname Lamonica may have sounded particularly appealing to African-American parents, as adding prefixes like “La-” to traditional names was becoming fashionable among African-Americans during the latter years of the civil rights movement. (Perhaps L’Tanya Griffin helped kick off the trend in the late 1940s…?)

Speaking of Lamonica, one of the few baby boys to get the name was actor LaMonica Garrett, who was born in San Francisco in 1975. (He went on to name his own son Montana after San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana.)

What are your thoughts on the names Daryle and Lamonica? Which one would you be more likely to use?

Sources:

Image: Daryle Lamonica trading card

Where did the baby name L’Tanya come from in the late 1940s?

Fashion designer L'Tanya Griffin
L’Tanya Griffin

In the late 1940s — long before the name Tanya (a diminutive of Tatiana) reached peak trendiness in the 1970s — several Tanya-based names popped up in the U.S. baby name data:

Girls named LatanyaGirls named LatoniaGirls named Ltanya
1955671032
195431922
195324811
19521265
195198.
195013.5
19497.9*
194866.
19477*5*.
1946...
*Debut

Latanya and Latonia first appeared in 1947, Ltanya in 1949, and Latonya in 1951. And other variants appeared later, including the intriguing LaTanga.

What was influencing the usage of these names?

My guess is Hollywood-based African-American fashion designer L’Tanya Griffin.

She started to become famous during the second half of the ’40s. Her name began appearing newspapers around 1946, and it was often spelled “LaTanya” and “La Tanya.” (Her birth name was Julia Bernice Hilbert, incidentally.)

In mid-1949, a specific event made L’Tanya Griffin front-page news: Her estranged husband Earl tried to assault her with a beer can full of lye at racetrack in Atlantic City. She was uninjured, but her friend Marshall Miles (former manager of boxer Joe Louis) and several other people suffered first degree burns. Worst off was Earl himself, as the lye had splashed back into his face. It got into his eyes and blinded him (not permanently, turns out).

L’Tanya was at the height of her fashion-fame during the 1950s. She was even on the cover of Jet in mid-1954. The magazine also sometimes ran pictures of her young daughter, also named L’Tanya:

Fashion designer L'Tanya Griffin with her daughter, also named L'Tanya
L’Tanya Griffin with daughter L’Tanya

I’m not sure what became of L’Tanya Griffin after she fell out of the spotlight in the 1960s. But I did discover that one of the babies named “LaTanya” in 1949 was none other than Samuel L. Jackson’s wife LaTanya Richardson.

Do you like the name L’Tanya?

Sources:

  • “Acid Toss by Hubby Backfires.” New York Age 20 Aug. 1949: 1.
  • “Fashions by L’Tanya.” Ebony Aug. 1947: 24.
  • Kirkham, Pat and Shauna Stallworth. “”Three Strikes Against Me”: African American Women Designers.” Women Designers in the USA, 1900-2000: Diversity and Difference, ed. by Pat Kirkham, The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, 2000, pp. 123-144.
  • LaTanya Martinique, Los Angeles, California, ca. 1945
  • “Lye Hurled at Pretty Designer.” Pittsburgh Courier 20 Aug. 1949: 1.

Images: Clipping from the cover of Jet magazine (24 Jun. 1954); clipping from Jet magazine (11 Nov. 1954)