How popular is the baby name Nancy 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 Nancy.

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Popularity of the baby name Nancy


Posts that mention the name Nancy

The name Nancy transliterated into Chinese

Nancy in Chinese characters
The name Nancy transliterated into Chinese.

My husband visited China recently and brought back a cute little gift for me. (Thank you, E!)

It’s a jade stamp in the shape of a horse (because I was born in the year of the horse). The stamp itself is my name written in two ways — the normal way, and transliterated into Mandarin Chinese.

He thinks he remembers the shop-girl telling him the characters meant “beautiful flower from the south.”

When I tried translating the characters myself, though, I wasn’t able to come up with that.

Here’s my attempt:

On the left is ?, nán, which means “south” or “southern.”

So that part of the definition makes sense.

But on the right is ?, which can be pronounced either qiàn or x?. We want the second pronunciation (nán + x? = Nancy, more or less). With that pronunciation, the only definition I can find is “used in the transliteration of people’s names.”

Ha.

So I have no idea where the “beautiful flower” part came from. Seems like that character doesn’t really mean anything at all.

Which is sad, because that bottom symbol, ?, could have been used on its own and given the name a much cooler meaning. It’s also pronounced x?, and means “west” or “western,” so my name could have been ? ?, or “south west.”

Southwest would have been awesome for two reasons. First, I’m actually from the Northeast. :) Second, a directional pun-name could have made me one of the cool kids (finally!).

Oh well.

Have you ever had your name transliterated into Chinese, or any other writing system? How did it come out?

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)

Introducing baby name popularity graphs!

I’ve been wanting to add baby name popularity graphs to Nancy’s Baby Names for years now.

Finally, that wish has become a reality!

I uploaded tens of thousands of baby name popularity graphs about a week ago.

Each graph shows you the number of babies that got a particular name (e.g., Nancy) every year since 1880.

Why did I use raw numbers instead of rankings? Three reasons:

  1. Numbers often give you a more realistic picture of name usage. For example, Michael was in the top 2 from 1954 all the way until 2008, but the numbers indicate that Michael was much more popular in the ’50s and ’60s than it was anytime after.
  2. Numbers allow you to see the usage of rare names that have never “ranked” — names like Olethia, Romulus and Arlandria.
  3. Number-based graphs aren’t commonly found on baby name websites, and I wanted to offer you guys something you may not have seen before.

How can you view the graphs? Just use the links below to get into the directory, then click any name to be taken to the graph page.

The baby name popularity graphs are still being perfected, but I think they look good enough now for me to officially announce their arrival. :)

If you like them, dislike them, have questions, have suggestions, etc., I’d love to hear from you. Either leave a comment below or contact me via email.

If you really like them, I’d appreciate it if you would help me spread the word. Please share any of the graph pages (e.g., Quinn), letter pages (e.g., boy names starting with Q), or name list pages (e.g., Boy Names) on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or wherever else you hang out online. Thanks!

Update, 1/11/13: I’ve added length-based name lists!

Should we redefine the name “Nancy”?

Most baby name books and websites define Nancy as “grace” or “favor.” Why? Because they call Nancy a form of Anne, and Anne is defined as “grace” or “favor.”

The more I learn about my own name, though, the more I question this assumption.

It’s true that Nancy has long been used as form of Anne. But it wasn’t originally used in this way.

Here’s the story.

In the Middle Ages, Annis was a common female name. It was a vernacular form of Agnes (which can be traced back to the ancient Greek word hagnos, meaning “pure, chaste”).

Phrases like “mine Annis” and “thine Annis” eventually gave rise to names like Nanse and Nansie.

Mine Annis, thine Annis, became my Nannis, my Nanse (Nance), thy Nannis, thy Nanse (Nance); and Nanse, Nance, Nanze, with the usual diminutiv, became Nansie, and speld Nancie, and now usually Nancy.

Then two things happened.

First, the name Annis fell into disuse. “With the disappearance of the form Annis, the connection of Nancy with Agnes was forgotten.”

Second, in the late 1600s, the names Nan and Nanny — very common diminutives of Anne — became slang for “prostitute.” In their place, parents began using Nancy.

[Interesting coincidence: Nan and Nanny were derived from phrases like “mine Anne” and “thine Anne,” much like the way Nancy was derived from Annis.]

So, as Nancy’s link to Agnes faded, its link with Anne grew stronger. As a result, people saw Nancy as a diminutive of Anne and defined it accordingly.

But is the definition correct? (Is there a such thing as a “correct” definition in cases like this?)

How would you define Nancy?

Sources:

  • American Philological Association. Transactions of the American Philological Association. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1892.
  • Hanks, Patrick, Kate Hardcastle and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of First Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Update, 8/12/2020: Here are some extra tidbits about the name Nancy from the amateur genealogy website What’s in a Name:

  • “In Scotland Nancy has long been used synonymously with Agnes and one correspondent [EP] records this interchangeability in Salem, Massachusetts, USA towards the end of the 18th century.”
  • “A personal correspondent [JL3] has noted that the phonetic spelling of Florence in Yorkshire, England as Florance has given rise to the use of Nancy as a pet name for the latter variant.”