The name Rahn, which had already appeared in the U.S. baby name data a couple of times in the 1940s, re-emerged strongly in the mid-1950s — so strongly that it reached the top 1,000 for the first and only time:
- 1956: 18 baby boys named Rahn
- 1955: 22 baby boys named Rahn
- 1954: 66 baby boys named Rahn (rank: 914th)
- 37 (66%) born in six states: CA (8), OH (7), IA (6), PA (6), IL (5), and NE (5)
- 1953: unlisted
- 1952: unlisted
Rahn would have been one of the top baby name debuts of the year, in fact, had it not popped up previously in the data. (Instead, the top debut for boys in 1954 was Dirk-variant “Durk.”)
So…what’s behind the return of Rahn?
Looks like the answer is German soccer player Helmut Rahn.
At the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final, underdog West Germany beat undefeated Hungary by 3-2 in a huge upset. Rahn was the one who secured the win by scoring both the second and the third goals for West Germany.
Soccer wasn’t a popular sport in the U.S. at that time, so there wasn’t much coverage of the event in American newspapers, and none on television. (Though the ’54 World Cup was the first to be televised, the footage only aired in Europe.)
But many of the states that saw the highest usage were also states with significant German-American populations, so I imagine that those communities were paying particular attention to the tournament via other sources (perhaps German-language newspapers).
The German surname Rahn was derived from the Middle High German word ran, meaning “slim,” “slight.”
What do you think of “Rahn” as a first name?
Sources:
- Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Helmut Rahn – Wikipedia
- German Americans – Wikipedia
P.S. West Germany’s dramatic win may have given the name Helmut a boost as well, though it’s hard to tell.
