How popular is the baby name Steve 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 Steve.

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Popularity of the baby name Steve


Posts that mention the name Steve

Where did the baby name Taneha come from in 1975?

Characters Col. Steve Austin and Taneha (the cougar) on the TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man" (1974-1978)
Taneha (cougar) on “The Six Million Dollar Man“

To younger people, “Steve Austin” is the (stone cold) professional wrestler. Back in the ’70s, though, that name belonged to an iconic TV cyborg.

The main character of The Six Million Dollar Man (1974-1978) was former astronaut Col. Steve Austin, who acquired superhuman powers after being bionically rebuilt following a serious accident.

In an episode that aired early 1975, Steve’s goal was to track and capture the infamous “Taneha” — the last surviving member of a particular cougar species — before angry local ranchers could find him and kill him.

The same year, the baby name Taneha debuted in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1980: unlisted
  • 1979: 6 baby girls named Taneha
  • 1978: unlisted
  • 1977: 5 baby girls named Taneha
  • 1976: 7 baby girls named Taneha
  • 1975: 24 baby girls named Taneha [debut]
  • 1974: unlisted

Though the cougar was male, the name only ever charted for baby girls.

I’m not sure how the writers came up with “Taneha” for the fictional cat, but the Oklahoma town of Oakhurst was originally known as Taneha. It was built on land formerly owned by the Creek, and sources say the name was based on a Creek word meaning “oil is below.”

Do you like the name Taneha?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of The Six Million Dollar Man

California family with 22 children

Marion and Charlotte “Lottie” Story of Bakersfield, California, had at least 22 children — including five sets of twins — from 1922 to 1946. Seventeen of their kids are listed on the 1940 U.S. Census (see below).

I don’t know the names of all the Story children, but here are 20 of them: Jean, Jane, Jack, Jacqueline, June, Eileen, Clyde, Robert, James, Jeannette, Steve, Jerry, Terry (sometimes “Terrytown”), Charlotte, Scotty, Sherrie, Garry, Joanne, Frances (called Lidwina), and Monica (called Sandy).

Story family of California in 1940 U.S. census
The Story family on the 1940 U.S. Census

Charlotte Story herself was one of a dozen children, born from 1899 to 1919. Her 11 siblings were named Pearl, George, Rhea, Hazel, Fern, Ira, Myrtle, Dorothy, Helen, Russell, and Viola.

And Charlotte’s mother Elsie was one of 13 children, born from 1865 to 1892. Her 12 siblings were named Edward, Levi, William, Frank, Rosa, Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret, Archibald, Gertrude, and Emma.

So here’s the question: If you had to choose all of your own children’s names from just one of the sibsets above, which set would you pick? Why?

Sources: Charlotte M Story – Find A Grave, Elsie E LaCount – Find A Grave

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus

The baby name “Iyla Vue”: Cute? Comical?

Ashley Scott and Steve Hart are two random celebrities I’d never heard of before a few weeks ago, when they welcomed a baby girl and named her Iyla Vue, pronounced “I love you.”

Ashley wasn’t so sure about Steve’s pun name suggestion at first — she couldn’t decide whether it was “either the greatest name ever, or the absolute worst.”

She settled on “greatest name ever,” I suppose, but would you have come to the same conclusion?

Follow-up question: Would you feel differently about the name if Iyla were spelled Isla?

Source: Ashley Scott Introduces Daughter Iyla Vue: ‘I Just Love’ Her Unique Name

Mystery baby name: Bisceglia

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

The unusual name Bisceglia debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1979 and stuck around for 3 more years before disappearing again:

  • 1983: unlisted
  • 1982: 6 baby girls named Bisceglia
  • 1981: 7 baby girls named Bisceglia
  • 1980: 5 baby girls named Bisceglia
  • 1979: 8 baby girls named Bisceglia [debut]
  • 1978: unlisted

The name must come from the Italian surname Bisceglia [be-SHAYL-yah], which refers to the town of Bisceglie in southern Italy, but I have no idea what drew people’s attention to the surname circa 1979.

The closest I’ve got to a proper theory is Steve Bisceglia, who played football at the University of Alabama in the early ’70s — but the years don’t match up, and male sports stars typically don’t inspire female names.

Any other ideas?

Update, Aug. 2021: The more I look into it, the more I like Becca’s theory about the influence being an ad campaign for wine.

Bisceglia Brothers Wine Co. (which was founded in California in the 1880s) became a subsidiary of Canandaigua Wine Company of New York in 1974. Around 1980, Canandaigua was apparently marketing Bisceglia wine on television. I haven’t been able to track down any commercials (or even print ads) from that time period yet, but here’s a quote from a 1980 issue of Beverage Industry (also originally found by Becca) about the campaign:

Canandaigua’s new Bisceglia line of semi-premium jug wines is advertised as the wine for the liberated woman executive. Television commercials, bearing the brunt of the Bisceglia campaign, feature a woman in a variety of responsible positions as sports editor, successful mayoral candidate and chairperson of the board. Canandaigua’s vice president for sales, Robert Huntington, says market research showed that whereas ten years ago women purchased only about 24% of all wine, now they make purchasing decisions on from 60 to 75% of all wine.

I don’t think we can declare this mystery solved, though, until we learn more about the nature of the advertisements — particularly the commercials. (I just want to be sure they were featuring the name “Bisceglia” prominently enough to affect baby names.)