How popular is the baby name Pleshette 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 Pleshette.

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Popularity of the baby name Pleshette


Posts that mention the name Pleshette

Where did the baby name Loey come from in 1970?

The character Loey from the TV movie "Ritual of Evil" (1970)
Loey from “Ritual of Evil”

It’s almost Halloween! So let’s look at the curious girl name Loey, which debuted in the U.S. baby name data at the start of the ’70s:

  • 1972: unlisted
  • 1971: unlisted
  • 1970: 11 baby girls named Loey [debut]
  • 1969: unlisted
  • 1968: unlisted

What put it there?

A character from the TV horror movie Ritual of Evil, which premiered in February of 1970. It was a sequel to the 1969 TV movie Fear No Evil, and so it featured the same main character: psychiatrist David Sorrell.

In Ritual of Evil, Dr. Sorrell investigated the death of one of his patients, a young heiress. Turns out she was killed by a Satanic cult, and her little sister Loey (played by Belinda Montgomery) was now in danger as well.

In the film, the name “Loey” was pronounced to rhyme with Chloe and Zoe.

What are your thoughts on the name Loey?

P.S. Other horror-filled names we’ve discussed before include Tippi, Pleshette, Marnie, Annabelle, Aristede, Jamison, Josette, Angelique, Samara, Daveigh, Rhoda, and Thedy.

Sources: Ritual of Evil (1970) – Movies and Mania, SSA

What popularized the baby name Samara in the early 2000s?

The character Samara Morgan (played by Daveigh Chase) in the horror movie "The Ring" (2002).
Samara Morgan from “The Ring“

Halloween is a few days away, so here’s a pair of horror-imbued baby names, each of which got a boost from the same scary film.

That film was The Ring, released in October of 2002. The film’s main character was a journalist dealing with a cursed videotape (that killed anyone who watched it). But the film’s memorable character — as in all good horror films — was the villain: the vengeful spirit of a little girl named Samara (pronounced sah-MAHR-ah) Morgan. Samara was played by young actress Daveigh (pronounced dah-VAY) Chase.

The year after The Ring came out, the name Samara saw a steep rise in usage, and the name Daveigh debuted in the U.S. data:

Girls named SamaraGirls named Daveigh
2005825 (rank: 380th)12
2004857 (rank: 365th)21
2003656 (rank: 456th)22*
2002242 (rank: 929th).
2001261 (rank: 883rd).
*Debut & peak usage

The Ring did well at the box office, and it was followed by two successful sequels: The Ring Two (released in March of 2005) and Rings (February of 2017).

Daveigh Chase was not actively involved in either sequel, so her name didn’t see any subsequent boosts in the data. But Samara Morgan was central to both films (of course) and we can see the corresponding peaks in the usage of “Samara” in 2006 and 2018:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Samara in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Samara

(The rise that began in 2016 may have been kicked off by Australian actress Samara Weaving, who was being called a “newcomer” in Hollywood around that time.)

The Ring was a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ringu, which was based on the 1991 Japanese novel Ringu by Koji Suzuki. In the novel and the original film, the little girl was named Sadako Yamamura. I couldn’t find any information on why the American version of the character was renamed “Samara” specifically, but my guess is that “Samara” was chosen simply because it was a 3-syllable S-name like Sadako.

What are your thoughts on the name Samara? Would you use it (despite the horrific association)?

P.S. Other horror-filled names we’ve discussed before include Rhoda, Thedy, Tippi, Pleshette, Marnie, Annabelle, Aristede, Jamison, Josette, and Angelique.

Sources: The Ring (2002 film) – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Screenshot of The Ring

How did the movie “The Birds” influence baby names in the 1960s?

Actress Tippi Hedren in the movie "The Birds" (1963)
Tippi Hedren in “The Birds“

Last month, HBO released an original movie called The Girl, which tells the story of director Alfred Hitchcock’s obsession with actress Nathalie “Tippi” Hedren.

It reminded me that The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964) — the two Hitchcock films that feature Hedren — both had an effect on U.S. baby names in the 1960s.

The horror movie The Birds, which was set in a seaside town being attacked by various types of birds, brought about the emergence of two new names in the SSA data. The first was Tippi in 1963, and the second was Pleshette (from the surname of fellow Birds actress Suzanne Pleshette) a year later:

Girls named TippiGirls named Pleshette
196689
196512†.
1964107*
19636*.
1962..
*Debut, †Peak usage

How did Hedren, who was born in Minnesota in 1930, come to have the nickname Tippi?

My father gave it to me. My baptismal name is Nathalie Kay Hedren, and he thought that was too much, so he started calling me Tupsa, a Swedish term of endearment. It went from Tupsa to Tips to Tippi. I’ve never been called Nathalie.

Actress Tippi Hedren in the movie "Marnie" (1964)
Tippi Hedren in “Marnie“

The psychological thriller Marnie — which revolved around a deeply troubled woman named Margaret “Marnie” Edgar — wasn’t behind any debuts, but it did make the name Marnie trendy for several years:

  • 1966: 246 baby girls named Marnie [rank: 604th]
  • 1965: 266 baby girls named Marnie [rank: 584th]
  • 1964: 112 baby girls named Marnie
  • 1963: 38 baby girls named Marnie
  • 1962: 31 baby girls named Marnie

The name entered the top 1,000 for the first time in 1965. It reached peak usage in 1969.

Marnie was based on a book of the same name by English author Winston Graham (who also wrote the Poldark novels).

Which of these three names — Tippi, Pleshette, or Marnie — do you like most?

P.S. Did you know that Tippi Hedren was the person who first taught Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. how to do nails?! The Vietnamese Heritage Museum in California calls Tippi the “Godmother of the Vietnamese Nail Industry.”

Sources:

Images: Screenshots of The Birds and Marnie

[Latest update: Feb. 2026]