How popular is the baby name Mae 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 Mae.
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Mrs. Lester Renfrow of Dallas, Texas, welcomed a baby girl on D-Day (June 6, 1944).
The baby was born at about 2:30 in the morning, as sirens marking the Allied invasion of Normandy were sounding.
So she was named Invasia Mae.
Source: “Invasion’s First Namesake Is Born.” St. Joseph News-Press 6 Jun. 1944: 6.
Image: Normandy Invasion (public domain)
The top 1,000 baby girl names of 2009 can be found at the Social Security Administration’s website. But what about all the other names that were doled out last year? Those names are also available via the SSA I recently discovered (thanks Kelly!).
Just a few hours ago I posted a list of boy names that didn’t make the top 1,000 last year, but were still given to 100+ babies. Here is the equivalent (and much longer) list of girl names, grouped by the number of babies that received each name:
*Nyasia could have made the top 1,000. In fact, it should have made the top 1,000. It was given to 263 babies, just like the names that ranked 996th-1,000th (Gretchen, Karli, Kloe, Lilyanna and Mireya). But it came in last alphabetically, so in the eyes of the SSA it’s name #1,001. Sad, sad…
Image: Adapted from Scattered stars in Sagittarius by ESA/Hubble under CC BY 4.0.
During the latter half of the 1930s, the baby name Deanna saw an extreme rise in usage:
A number of similar names also saw a spike in usage in 1937:
| 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | |
| Deanna | 29 | 77 | 1,624 | 2,254 |
| Deanne | 12 | 22 | 230 | 231 |
| Deann | 8 | 13 | 65 | 98 |
| Deana | 20 | 20 | 42 | 63 |
| Deeann | . | . | 18* | 14 |
| Deeanna | . | . | . | 7* |
| Deeanne | . | . | . | 5* |
Deanna was the baby name that saw the highest relative rise in usage from 1936 to 1937, and Deanne was third on that list. (Second and fourth were Noretta and Noreta — check out the Norita post for the explanation.)
Also rising were the Di- variants, like Dianna, along with the simple name Dee.
Finally, the variant Deeann was the top debut name of 1937.
So…what kicked off this sudden trendiness of Deanna?
Singer and actress Deanna Durbin.
She became famous upon the late 1936 release of the musical comedy Three Smart Girls.
In the film, which was a box office success and received several Oscar nominations, she played the youngest of three sisters (named Joan, Kay and Penny).
A full-page advertisement for the film that ran in Life magazine described Durbin as the “greatest soprano since Jenny Lind.”
Deanna was born Edna Mae Durbin in Canada in 1921. She started out as a singer, but began appearing in films as a teenager. Universal Pictures gave her the stage name “Deanna” when she was about 14.
Louis B. Mayer himself directed her “renaming” process. Durbin was all right, but “Edna Mae” was too ordinary. She was sometimes called “Deedee” at home, and everyone thought matching initials would be attractive for an actress’s name. Edna Mae like the name “Diana,” but she pronounced it “Dee-anna” and a sharp-eared publicity man jumped on the difference. “Dee-anna” would be original and have cachet. So Edna Mae Durbin, renamed Deanna Durbin, was set to go into her first feature film.
The popularity of the name Deanna declined in the ’40s and ’50s, but reached new heights in the ’60s and ’70s, landing in the top 100 from 1969 to 1971. These days it’s still given to several hundred babies per year, but no longer ranks inside the top 1,000.
Do you like the name Deanna? Do you like it more or less than Diana?
Sources:
P.S. The name Kizzy saw a similarly steep rise in usage exactly four decades later…
Looking for a girl name that’s short and to-the-point? Something that might work particularly well as a middle name?
Check out this list of several hundred one-syllable girl names:
Please note that I did include names in the gray area between one syllable and two syllables. The deciding factor on these particular names will be your own interpretation/accent, so be sure to test the names out loud before making any final decisions. (“Hayle,” for instance — would you say it like Hale, or like Hailey? Or “Rise” — is it rize, or ree-sah?)
Many of these names also happen to be unisex, so they appear on the one-syllable boy names list as well.
What’s your favorite one-syllable girl name?
Image: Adapted from 1 Drvo 06241 by Olja Simovic under CC BY-SA 4.0.
[Latest update: July 2023]
