How popular is the baby name Tony in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Tony.

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Popularity of the Baby Name Tony


Posts that Mention the Name Tony

Where did the baby name Mayim come from in 1993?

The character Blossom (played by Mayim Bialik) from the TV series "Blossom" (1991-1995).
Mayim Bialik (as Blossom)

The rare name Mayim first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1993:

  • 1995: unlisted
  • 1994: unlisted
  • 1993: 8 baby girls named Mayim [debut]
  • 1992: unlisted
  • 1991: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Young actress Mayim Bialik (pronounced MY-im bee-AH-lik).

She played the part of smart, spunky teenager Blossom Russo on the TV series Blossom (1991-1995).

Blossom was the only girl in the house: She lived with her father, a divorced session musician, and her two older brothers, Tony and Joey. She also spent a lot of time with her fast-talking best friend, Six LeMeure.

The plot lines mostly revolve around [Blossom’s] battles with school authorities, her trials of romance, the temptations of marijuana, alcohol and sex, wrecking her father’s car or having to sneak back into the house after staying out all night.

The sitcom wasn’t successful right away. By the third season (1992-1993), though, Blossom had blossomed into a hit. So it’s not surprising that the name Mayim didn’t debut in the data until midway through the show’s run.

Mayim Bialik’s first name is a Hebrew vocabulary word defined by some sources as “waters” (plural), though the actress herself prefers to define it as “water” (singular):

I was named for water. Mayim means water in Hebrew and it has followed me my entire life as a personal metaphor. Water is the element closest to my heart. 

The word mayim is not typically used as a given name among Hebrew speakers. So how did Bialik come to have it?

Turns out it was bestowed in honor of her grandmother, Maryam, who was known as “Bubbe Mayim” within the family. (Bubbe means “grandmother” in Yiddish.)

What are your thoughts on the name Mayim?

P.S. The name Blossom also saw a modest increase in usage in the early 1990s, particularly 1991.

Sources:

Baby name story: Ozana

Polish filmmaker Tony Halik (1921-1998) with son Ozana, early 1960s
Tony Halik and Ozana

Polish filmmaker Mieczyslaw “Tony” Halik is best remembered for his travel show Pieprz i Wanilia (translation Pepper and Vanilla), which aired on Polish television in the 1980s and ’90s.

In Poland under the communist regime, when obtaining a passport was no easy feat, the series was especially important, as it offered a much needed window on the world to many Poles who would otherwise have few occasions to see what life was like beyond the Iron Curtain.

Footage for the show was collected over the many years that Tony spent exploring remote parts of the world.

One of these trips, for instance, began in 1957. He and his first wife Pierrette drove a Jeep from the southern tip of South America to the northern tip of North America, and then back again. The journey took four-and-a-half years and covered over 180,000 kilometers. They visited 21 countries, crossed 140 rivers and swamps, built 14 bridges, and went through 8 sets of tires.

Pierrette became pregnant during the journey. She gave birth to a baby boy in January of 1959 in Bristol, Connecticut.

The couple decided to name their son Ozana, “after the Indian who saved Halik’s life” in Mato Grosso, Brazil. (According to one account, he was saved amidst a skirmish between two feuding tribes.)

Baby Ozana spent his first years in the wilderness with his parents as they continued their journey, which lasted until 1961.

P.S. Mieczyslaw is pronounced myeh-chih-swaf.

Sources:

How did Virna Lisi influence baby names in the 1960s?

Italian actress Virna Lisi (1936-2014)
Virna Lisi

When Italian actress Virna Lisi started appearing in American films in the mid-1960s, American audiences took notice.

How do we know? Well, the baby name Lisi appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first time in 1965, and, the same year, the baby name Virna re-emerged in the data (after a decades-long absence) with its highest-ever usage.

Girls named VirnaGirls named Lisi
196721.
1966115
196538†8*
1964..
1963..
*Debut, †Peak usage

(It should be noted, of course, that Lisa was the #1 baby name in the nation from 1962 to 1969. No doubt this made the similar — but much rarer — name Lisi sound rather stylish during that decade.)

Virna Lisi was born Virna Lisa Pieralisi in Ancona, Italy, in 1936.

Her father had wanted to call her Siria (“Syria”), but that country’s colonial ruler, France, was at loggerheads with Mussolini and the births registrar accordingly refused to accept the name. The exasperated Pieralisi then made up Virna on the spot.

She started acting as a teenager in Italy, and her success in Italian films eventually led to a brief Hollywood career. She appeared in How to Murder Your Wife (1965) with Jack Lemmon, Not With My Wife You Don’t (1966) with Tony Curtis, and Assault on a Queen (1966) with Frank Sinatra.

But Lisi disliked her “sex symbol” image in America. So she decided to leave. She turned down the lead role in Barbarella, terminated her Hollywood contract, and returned to Europe to play a wider range of characters.

What are your thoughts on the names Virna and Lisi? Which one would you be more likely to use on a modern-day baby?

Sources:

P.S. Italian actress Anna Maria Pierangeli — better known as Pier Angeli — also had a surname that began with “Pier,” the Italian form of Peter.

Name quotes #109: Golan, O-Lan, Cale

double quotation mark

Happy fourth of July! Here’s the latest batch of name quotes…

From one of Abby’s recent Sunday Summary posts:

I remember watching the first Iron Man movie in the theater way back in 2008, and I’ve seen — and enjoyed — every movie since.

In the beginning, the Avengers were mostly men, mostly white. Heroes, of course. But they were from a familiar mold. Steve and Tony and Bruce.

But it didn’t stay that way. And I’ve [been] thrilled to see heroes slowly shift to look like the whole, wide world – and beyond. T’Challa. Wanda Maximoff. Valkyrie.

And now Kamala Khan. Soon Riri Williams, also known as Ironheart, will debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

From an article about brothers Cale and Taylor Makar, both of whom play hockey for the Colorado Avalanche:

Cale was named after Cale Hulse, who played for the Calgary Flames when [their father] Gary was doing some business with the team. Taylor is named after Colonel George Taylor of the Planet of the Apes movies, a take charge guy, portrayed by Charlton Heston, who was thrust into a leadership role. (Just for the record, Heston’s politics and ardent support of the National Rifle Association are not shared by the Makar family. “Oh my god, that’s the opposite of us,” Gary said.)

[Another source clarifies that Cale’s first name is short for Caleb. Cale noted in this interview [vid] that he was nearly named “Kurt Russell Makar, after the actor. […] I dodged a bullet there, I think.”]

From a 2015 interview with James Taylor at Stereogum:

Stereogum: Speaking of another powerful woman, Taylor Swift is probably the biggest pop star in the world right now, and she’s named after you! How do you feel about being connected to her in that way?

Taylor: It’s hugely flattering and was a delightful surprise when she told me that. We did a benefit together, I think it was focused on teenage pregnancy, before Taylor really took off. But she was playing guitar and singing her songs and I knew how remarkable she was. She told me that her mom and dad had been really, deeply into my music and I got a real kick out of the fact that she’d been named after me. Obviously it wasn’t her choice, it was her mom and dad, but nonetheless a great connection I think.

From a recent article about how to choose a Chinese name in the Guardian:

Don’t name yourself after a celebrity

In China, it is considered extraordinarily immodest to name a child after a famous person, a taboo that has roots in imperial laws that forbade citizens from having the same name as the emperor.

From a 2001 article about actress O-Lan Jones in the Los Angeles Times:

Jones’ mother, Scarlett Dark, named her after the character O-lan in Pearl S. Buck’s 1931 novel, “The Good Earth.” The “O” part, Jones said, means “profound,” and the “lan” means “wildflower.” Her mother, ever an original, chose to celebrate the wildflower part with a capital L.

Two from a recent opinion piece, “Every Jewish name tells a Jewish story,” in the Jerusalem Post:

[I]n Judaism after a near-death experience, it is traditional to add a name and change a name. The name Haim, which means “life” is often added, as is the name Alter, a blessing for “long days.” It is a Jewish insurance policy for an improved future for the name bearer.

…and:

After the 1967 Six Day War, Israelis created names that were lovely and filled with hope. Tal, Elizur, Sharona were born. And names of cities and towns became first names – Sinai, Golan, Eilat are a few. The ’67 war was a watershed for hope in Israel and it was reflected in these new names.

From the article “Amazon Killed the Name Alexa” by Joe Pinsker in The Atlantic:

“We don’t usually think about the individuals who are already born when this happens, but the impact on their lives is real as well,” Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park, told me. Sharing a name with a robot can be tiresome. “‘OMG, Siri like the iPhone,’ should be engraved on my tombstone,” complained Siri Bulusu, a journalist, in a 2016 piece about her name. And name overlaps have led to sitcom-style misunderstandings, like when, as The Wall Street Journal reported, one dad asked his daughter Alexa for some water, and their robot Alexa responded by offering to order a case of Fiji water for $27.