How popular is the baby name Patsy 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 Patsy.

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Popularity of the baby name Patsy


Posts that mention the name Patsy

Where did the baby name Shireen come from in 1923?

The characters Omar and Shireen from the movie "Omar the Tentmaker" (1922)
Omar and Shireen from “Omar the Tentmaker“

The baby name Shireen first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1923:

  • 1925: unlisted
  • 1924: unlisted
  • 1923: 5 baby girls named Shireen [debut]
  • 1922: unlisted
  • 1921: unlisted

A similar uptick can be seen in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) data the same year:

  • 1925: 3 people named Shireen
  • 1924: 2 people named Shireen
  • 1923: 4 people named Shireen
  • 1922: no one named Shireen
  • 1921: 1 person named Shireen

What was drawing attention to the name Shireen around that time?

Two different characters in the silent film Omar the Tentmaker, which was released in December of 1922.

The movie was loosely based on the life of medieval Iranian polymath Omar Khayyam. Here’s how it was described in an advertisement:

Omar, most daring poet of ancient Persia, secretly wooed the beautiful, the forbidden Shireen, destined to be the bride of the Shah. Fleeing in the night, the Shah’s slaves tear them apart. Follows thrill, romance and conflict before the lovers are reunited in a most spectacular and smashing climax.

The plot, which spans a number of years, actually features two romances: the primary one between Omar (played by Guy Bates Post) and Shireen (Virginia Brown Faire), and a secondary one between the couple’s grown daughter “little Shireen” (Patsy Ruth Miller) and a Christian crusader.

The film was adapted from the 1914 play of the same name by playwright Richard Walton Tully.

The Persian name Shireen (also spelled Shirin) is transliteration of a Persian word meaning “sweet.” What are your thoughts on the name?

Sources:

Image: Clipping from Shadowland magazine (Oct. 1922)

Where did the baby name Valoyce come from in 1925?

Valoyce Conklin
Valoyce Conklin

In 1925, the rare name Valoyce was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1927: unlisted
  • 1926: unlisted
  • 1925: 8 baby girls named Valoyce
  • 1924: unlisted
  • 1923: unlisted

It was one of the top one-hit wonders of the year, in fact.

Where did the name come from?

Valoyce Conklin, a 4-year-old girl in California who was featured in the newspapers in 1925 because of an unusual court case.

Valoyce and several other children were living at a mansion in Oakland called Hickory Hall, which was apparently being used for two distinct purposes: as a boardinghouse for young children, and as the headquarters of the “Oakland Metaphysical Society.”

You’d think these two things wouldn’t mix well together, and…you’d be right. Because Valoyce’s adoptive mother, Ildica Conklin — apparently a former member of the Society — took Joyce Leech, the head of Hickory Hall, to court in January of 1925 in order to regain custody of Valoyce. The papers referred to Leech as the “high priestess” of a “religious cult.”

Mrs. Conklin testified that women members of the Society had been “forced to disrobe and submit to beatings at the hands of other women members.” She also testified that the children had been abused, e.g., “whipped with ropes.”

In the end, Ildica was able to regain custody of Valoyce.

The court case prompted local officials* to investigate Hickory Hall, but the investigation didn’t lead to any charges. Two years later, though, Hickory Hall was back in the headlines due to similar allegations (this time, the child was named Patsy). I’m not sure what the outcome of the second court case was, or what became of the Oakland Metaphysical Society.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Valoyce? Would you use it for a modern-day baby?

*One of the investigators was District Attorney Earl Warren, who went on to become Chief Justice of the United States.

P.S. Curious about the name “Ildica”? My best guess is that it’s a form of the traditional Hungarian feminine name Ildikó. Ildica Conklin (née Eisenmayer) was born in Illinois in 1870. Incidentally, she was the widow of San Diego sheriff Ralph Conklin (who’d died in 1918).

Sources:

  • “Abuse Tales of Hickory Hall Probed.” Oakland Tribune 14 Feb. 1925: 1.
  • Advertisement for Hickory Hall (in “Children Boarded” section). Oakland Tribune 2 Apr. 1921: 13.
  • “Court Probe of Whipping of Child Set for Hearing.” Oakland Tribune 20 Jan. 1927: 29.
  • “Cult Sensation.” Daily News [New York] 3 Feb. 1925: 15.
  • “‘I Don’t Mind Being a Witness,’ Child Smiles at Judge.” Oakland Tribune 3 Feb. 1927: 2.
  • “In ‘Hickory Hall’ Battle.” Oakland Tribune 27 Jan. 1925: 1.
  • “Mystic Cult of Women Bared in Mother’s Fight to Gain Captive Child.” Bee [Danville] 10 Feb. 1925: 11.
  • “Women of Cult Beat One Another, Apostate Declares.” Daily Times [Longmont] 27 Jan. 1925: 2.
  • SSA

Where did the baby name Patsyann come from in 1933?

The compound name Patsyann (Patsy Ann) was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data, making its single appearance during the 1930s:

  • 1935: unlisted
  • 1934: unlisted
  • 1933: 7 baby girls named Patsyann [debut]
  • 1932: unlisted
  • 1931: unlisted

What put it there? I think the influence was the mystery tale Outrageous Fortune by British author Patricia Wentworth. The story was serialized in many U.S. newspapers in the autumn of 1933.

The mystery involved a shipwrecked man with amnesia. A woman named Nesta* claimed the man was her husband…but really she thought he might know the location of a certain priceless emerald necklace. In the meanwhile, the man’s cousin, a woman named Caroline, tracked him down and tried to help him recover his memory.

The protagonist was clearly Caroline, but Caroline’s roommate Patsy Ann “provide[d] an innocent diversion to the main story with her romantic life.”

In the UK the same year, Outrageous Fortune was published in book form, but under the title Seven Green Stones. Another difference between was Patsy Ann’s name: Pansy Ann in the UK. Perhaps the name had been changed from “Pansy” to “Patsy” for American readers because Patsy sounded trendier than Pansy in the U.S. at the time. The slang meaning of pansy, though relatively new in the ’30s, might have been a factor as well.

(If “Patsy Ann” sounds familiar to longtime readers, I blogged about Patsy Ann, the famous dog from Alaska, a couple of years ago.)

*The name Nesta got a boost in 1934.

Sources: Patricia Wentworth – Wikipedia, Outrageous Fortune by Patricia Wentworth – Northern Reader, Pansy – Online Etymology Dictionary, SSA

How did “The Brighter Day” influence baby names?

brighter day, soap opera, 1950s, television
Babby, Grayling, and Patsy in 1954

The Brighter Day was a moderately popular soap opera that ran on radio from 1948 to 1956 and on television from 1954 to 1962.

The show featured the Dennis family, which was headed by widowed father Rev. Richard Dennis. His five children were adult daughters Elizabeth (Liz) and Althea, adult son Grayling, and teenage daughters Patricia (Patsy) and Barbara (Babby).

At least four Brighter Day characters influenced U.S. baby names:

Grayling

In a 1949 article, Grayling Dennis was described as “restless, charming, spoiled. He writes poetry, plays the violin, has a long string of girl friends who adore his flashing eyes and his wonderful tennis, and drinks too much. But none of these activities has helped Gray, at twenty-three, to “find himself.””

The show was radio-only at that time — listeners would hear Grayling’s name, but never see it — so it’s not surprising that a slew of spelling variants ended up as boy names in the baby name data.

The first of the group to debut was Graylin, in 1949. Grayling, Grayland, and Graylon appeared in 1950, followed by Graylan (’54), Graylyn (’55), Graylen (’56), and Greyling (’57).

GraylinGraylingGraylandGraylon
19601436109
19592761 [rank: 987th]1115
19582855186
19572858 [rank: 997th]1516
195625471912
19551638158
1954824146
1953111167
195288.6
195178.8
19501117*5*5*
19496*...
1948....
*Debut

The name Grayling reached the top 1000 twice in the late ’50s, but all variants saw decreased usage after the TV show was canceled in the early ’60s.

Althea

Dramatic daughter Althea dramatically boosted the usage of the name Althea in the late 1940s:

  • 1951: 334 baby girls named Althea (rank: 454th)
  • 1950: 309 baby girls named Althea (rank: 462nd)
  • 1949: 235 baby girls named Althea (rank: 545th)
  • 1948: 126 baby girls named Althea (rank: 761st)
  • 1947: 118 baby girls named Althea (rank: 803rd)

No doubt she was also behind the debut of the spelling Altheia in 1951.

Spring

In early 1951, Althea discovered she was pregnant. Althea was eager to become an movie actress, not a mother, and “regard[ed] the baby as an annoying interruption to her ambitions.” Regardless, she soon gave birth to a baby girl named Spring, and the baby name Spring debuted in the U.S. data the very same year:

  • 1959: 34 baby girls named Spring
  • 1958: 44 baby girls named Spring
  • 1957: 77 baby girls named Spring
  • 1956: 104 baby girls named Spring
  • 1955: 41 baby girls named Spring
  • 1954: 37 baby girls named Spring
  • 1953: 27 baby girls named Spring
  • 1952: 30 baby girls named Spring
  • 1951: 7 baby girls named Spring [debut]
  • 1950: unlisted

By July of 1952, Althea’s daughter Spring was already 4 years old (a victim of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome). I’m not sure how often Spring appeared in the show overall, but she may have been featured prominently in 1956, judging by the usage of the baby name that year.

Babby

In a 1954 article, Babby Dennis was described as “eager and impulsive.” She was the baby of the family, and her nickname was consistently spelled with a “y” to reflect this fact.

But TV audiences clearly preferred the spelling Babbie, which debuted in 1956 — years before Babby and Babbi finally showed up:

Girls named BabbieGirls named BabbyGirls named Babbi
1963...
196285.
1961189.
196020156
1959195*6*
19588..
19588..
19575..
195610*..
1955...
*Debut

By 1959, Babby was a young adult and involved in a romance with a gangster named Peter Nino. (Despite being a gangster, Nino was popular with TV audiences: “Nino was to be killed off in six months, but fan mail gave him a reprieve.”)

Sources:

P.S. Three of the sources above refer to a single magazine that went through a bunch of name changes over the course of its existence (1930s to 1970s). The publisher was Macfadden, founded by Bernarr Macfadden, who knew a bit about name changes himself…