How popular is the baby name Norma 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 Norma.

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Popularity of the baby name Norma


Posts that mention the name Norma

Where did the baby name Wetona come from in the 1910s?

Ad for the silent film "The Heart of Wetona" (1919)

Here’s a curious one: Wetona. The name started appearing in the U.S. baby name data during the second half of the 1910s:

  • 1922: 10 baby girls named Wetona
  • 1921: 6 baby girls named Wetona
  • 1920: 12 baby girls named Wetona [peak]
  • 1919: 9 baby girls named Wetona
  • 1918: unlisted
  • 1917: unlisted
  • 1916: 5 baby girls named Wetona [debut]
  • 1915: unlisted

The SSA data from that far back isn’t terribly reliable, though, so here’s data from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for the same time period:

  • 1922: 6 Wetonas
  • 1921: 4 Wetonas
  • 1920: 9 Wetonas and 1 Wetonah
  • 1919: 10 Wetonas, 1 Wetonah, and 1 person with the middle name Wetona
  • 1918: 1 Wetona
  • 1917: 1 Wetona
  • 1916: 1 Wetona and 1 Wetonah
  • 1915: none

What put Wetona (and Wetonah) on the map in 1916? The play The Heart of Wetona, which was written by George Scarborough and performed on Broadway from February to May, 1916. It starred actress Lenore Ulric as the “Indian princess” Wetona.

Actress Lenore Ulric as the character Wetona (in 1916)
Lenore Ulric as Wetona

How did Scarborough come up with the name Wetona? I’m not sure that he did. “The play was originally called Oklahoma and focused on problems of religious leaders in the new state.” It was then rewritten by theatrical producer/playwright David Belasco, who “changed some of the characters to Indians and the locale to a reservation.”

A few years later, in 1919, two things happened. First, the play was turned into a silent film starring Norma Talmadge. Second, the song “Heart of Wetona” — which was “inspired by and dedicated to Norma Talmadge” — was published. These two things together account for the increased usage of the name Wetona that year.

Do you like the name Wetona? Do you think it’s usable nowadays?

Sources:

Where did the baby name Thurgood come from in 1993?

Civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)
Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. He served from 1967 until 1991.

Prior to that, he was known for having won 29 of the 32 cases he’d argued argued before the Supreme Court. Most were civil rights cases, including the famous Brown v. Board of Education case that ended legal segregation in public schools in 1954.

The year he died, the name Thurgood debuted on the U.S. baby name charts:

  • 1995: unlisted
  • 1994: unlisted
  • 1993: 5 baby boys named Thurgood [debut]
  • 1992: unlisted
  • 1991: unlisted

…and it never returned, making Thurgood a statistical one-hit wonder.

So how did Thurgood Marshall get his unusual first name?

It was passed down from his paternal grandfather, who apparently went by either of two names: Thorneygood and Thoroughgood.

The elder Thoroughgood/Thorneygood served in the U.S. Army, and he didn’t know which name to use when he enlisted, so he used both. And he ended up getting two sets of retirement checks because of it.

Thurgood Marshall told TIME: “I was named Thoroughgood after him but by the time I was in the second grade, I got tired of spelling all that and shortened it.”

His maternal grandfather also had a distinctive name: Isaiah Olive Branch Williams. Isaiah and his wife Mary had six children, all with fascinating names — several inspired by Isaiah’s travels abroad with the U.S. merchant marine. Here are the names of all six:

  1. Avonia Delicia – first name after Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon
  2. Avon Nyanza – first name also after Stratford-upon-Avon
  3. Denmedia Marketa – after the family’s grocery store, located on Baltimore’s Denmead Street
  4. Norma Arica – after the opera Norma and the place where Isaiah first heard it, the Chilean port city of Arica
  5. Fearless Mentor – because, according to Isaiah: “Most kids don’t open their eyes until they’re at least a few hours old. This one looked me straight in the eye as soon as I came in. He’s a fearless little fellow and Fearless will be his name.”
  6. Ravine Silestria – after a ravine in the Bulgarian/Romanian port city of Silistra

Norma was Thurgood Marshall’s mother. He called Fearless and Denmedia “Uncle Fee” and “Aunt Medi.”

Sources:

Image: Thurgood Marshall, 1967

Which Talmadge sister name do you like best?

Actresses and sisters Constance, Natalie and Norma Talmage
Constance, Natalie & Norma Talmadge

Sisters Norma, Natalie and Constance Talmadge were movie stars during the silent film era.

  • Norma, most famous for the 1922 movie Smilin’ Through, was born in 1894.
  • Natalie, who went on to marry Buster Keaton, was born in 1896.
  • Constance was born in 1898.

If you were having a daughter, and you had to name her either Norma, Natalie or Constance, which would it be? Why?

Babies named for the Great Depression

In the U.S., the Great Depression started in 1929 and lasted through most of the 1930s.

What was it like to live during the Depression?

Massive unemployment had a profound social and emotional impact upon American workers and their families. […] The great population movement of the thirties was transiency the worker adrift in a sea of unemployment. People, especially the young, girls as well as boys, took to the road because they could no longer bear to stay home. In the middle of the decade when the dust blew in the Great Plains, wiping out their farms, whole families of Okies, Arkies, and Mizoos migrated west, especially to California. The migrants often made their way to the junk-pile Hoovervilles with their Prosperity Roads, Hard Times Avenues, and Easy Streets. The destitute often lost their homes or farms because they were unable to make payments on mortgages.

One fascinating fact I discovered not long ago is that a small number of babies born during the Great Depression were actually named Depression.

At least three of these babies made the news:

  • In the New York Times: Norma Depression Jacobs, a baby girl born in New York to parents Joseph and Sally Jacobs in early 1932.
  • In the Reading Eagle: Viola Depression Davis, a baby girl born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1932.
  • In the New York Times: Franklin Depression Pasquale, a baby boy born in New York in 1933. (Franklin was for President Roosevelt, whose presidency began in March of 1933 — “the worst month for joblessness in the history of the United States.”)

And here are more baby Depressions I tracked down using other sources:

  • Robert Depression Cann, born in Oklahoma on October 22, 1931.
  • Joyce Depression Bradford, born in Texas on December 5, 1931.
  • Robert Depression Arnold, born in California on February 2, 1932.
  • Helen Depression Carr, born in Indiana on February 29, 1932.
  • Hoover Depression Norman, born in Texas on June 14, 1932. (Hoover was in office from 1929 to 1933.)
  • Depression Heaton, born Ohio on June 24, 1932. (Born and died the same day, sadly.)
  • William Depression Ellerby, born in North Carolina on August 5, 1932.
  • Depression Brockington, born on October 21, 1932.
  • Depression Ivy, born in Texas on May 28, 1934.
  • Percy Depression Giles, born in West Virginia circa 1934.
  • Depression Austin, born in North Carolina circa 1934.
  • Depression Red, born in Georgia circa 1934. (The sister born right after her was named “Beauty.” Quite the disparity.)
  • Depression Bennett, born in Alabama on February 10, 1938.

I also found two baby Depressions born in the 1870s, during an earlier period of economic recession now called the Long Depression.

Sources:

  • “Baby Will Know of Depression; In Fact, It’s Her Middle Name.” New York Times 19 Jan. 1932.
  • Bernstein, Irving. “Americans in Depression and War.” The U.S. Department of Labor Bicentennial History of The American Worker, Ed. Richard B. Morris. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976.
  • “Child, Named for President, Called Franklin Depression.” New York Times 3 May 1933.
  • “Parents Name Baby Viola Depression.” Reading Eagle 26 Oct. 1932: 9.

Image: Migrant agricultural worker’s family (1936) by Dorothea Lange