How popular is the baby name Walter 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 Walter.

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Popularity of the baby name Walter


Posts that mention the name Walter

How did celebutante Brenda Frazier influence baby names in the late 1930s?

Debutante Brenda Diana Duff Frazier (1921-1982)
Brenda Frazier

Brenda Frazier was an American debutante who rose to fame toward the end of the Great Depression. She wasn’t from an old-money family, but she did have a $4 million trust fund, thanks to her paternal grandfather.

By the time Frazier was ready to make her debut, most of the established charity group balls and cotillions — even the more down-market ones — rejected her application.

So Brenda’s overbearing, “embarrassingly nouveau riche” mother planned an extravagant coming-out party. It was held at the Ritz-Carlton in December of 1938, and it attracted a remarkable amount of media attention. In anticipation of the event, LIFE made Brenda a cover girl in mid-November.

The baby name Brenda was already on the rise, but all the buzz around Brenda Frazier kicked the name into high gear in 1939:

  • 1941: 6,331 baby girls named Brenda [rank: 41st]
  • 1940: 5,442 baby girls named Brenda [rank: 42nd]
  • 1939: 2,756 baby girls named Brenda [rank: 86th]
  • 1938: 676 baby girls named Brenda [rank: 244th]
  • 1937: 233 baby girls named Brenda [rank: 423rd]
  • 1936: 163 baby girls named Brenda [rank: 511th]

This was also the year that gossip columnist Walter Winchell, inspired by Frazier’s “ubiquity, her hustle, her fame,” coined the term celebutante — a portmanteau of celebrity and debutante — to describe Brenda specifically.

Over the next few years, Frazier stayed in the spotlight by appearing in various magazine advertisements, such as this Studebaker Land Cruiser ad from early 1941:

Brenda Frazier featured in a magazine ad for Studebaker cars (Feb. 1941)
Brenda Frazier in a magazine ad

(Decades later, she wrote: “I found it amusing that I should be paid to recommend a particular make of car — I, who had never been permitted to drive an automobile and went everywhere by taxi or by chauffeured limousine.”)

By the middle of the century, the name Brenda was one of the most popular baby names in the nation. It ranked among the top 20 girl names from 1948 all the way to 1964.

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

By that time, though, Brenda Frazier’s popularity had long since waned. She went on to live a difficult life (which included eating disorders, drug and alcohol addictions, two divorces, and multiple suicide attempts) before passing away “a virtual recluse” in 1982.

In 2007, New York Magazine ranked the top 20 socialites of all time. Frazier came in 16th.

P.S. Other debutantes who’ve influenced U.S. baby names include Cobina Wright, Jr., Deyanne O’Neil Farrell, Oona O’Neill, Sharman Douglas, Theonita Cox, and Gamble Benedict.

Sources:

Images: Clippings from the cover of Life magazine (14 Nov. 1938) and from the Saturday Evening Post (22 Feb. 1941)

Baby name story: Reagan

Mr. and Mrs. Scott Bush of Dallas welcomed a baby boy on November 3, 1980 — the day before the presidential election. They named him Reagan, making his full name Reagan Bush.

“We felt it was a unique opportunity to name him after two great Americans,” said Scott Bush.

The birth prevented Mrs. Bush from getting to the polls, but Mr. Bush voted — “For Reagan, of course.”

Ronald Reagan and George Bush ended up defeating Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale by a wide margin that year. No doubt this pleased the Bush family of Dallas very much.

Source: “Child Named for GOP Ticket.” Rushville Republican 8 Nov. 1980: 1.

Babies named for Mercury astronauts

Astronaut Alan Shepard (1923-1998)
Alan Shepard

NASA’s Mercury program (1959-1963) was the nation’s first human spaceflight program.

Six of the Mercury flights were manned — each by a single astronaut. The six astronauts, in order, were Alan Shepard, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra, and Gordon Cooper.

So far I’ve been able to track down namesakes for two of these men:

Alan Shepard

The first American (and second human) in space was Alan Shepard. He piloted a sub-16-minute suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961. (Yuri Gagarin‘s flight on April 12 had been an orbital flight lasting 108 minutes.)

At 11:42 am, “an hour and eight minutes after Shephard’s [sic] rocket took off,” a baby boy was born to Mr. and Mrs. William J. Mann of Middletown, New York. The boy was named Alan Shepard Mann.

“I had thought of the name myself,” said Mr. Mann. “Then so many friends called and suggested it that we decided to name the baby Alan Shepard. My wife had already picked out a name, Ralph Luppon, but she agreed too that under the circumstances it was the only thing to do.”

Astronaut John Glenn (1921-2016)
John Glenn

John Glenn

The first American to orbit the Earth and the third American (and fifth human) in space was John Glenn. He traveled around the Earth three times aboard the Friendship 7 during a nearly 5-hour flight on February 20, 1962.

Here are just a few of the babies born on Feb. 20 and named in honor of John Glenn:

  • John Glenn Donato, baby boy, born to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Donato of Burbank, California.
  • John Glenn Guntle, baby boy, born at 2:42 p.m., “just one minute before astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. landed Tuesday in the Atlantic Ocean after his third orbit of the earth,” to Mr. and Mrs. Larry Guntle of Dowagiac, Michigan.
  • John Glenn Fortner, baby boy, born to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Fortner of Spartanburg, South Carolina.
  • Glenn John Ashley Mertz, baby boy, born “as astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. re-entered the atmosphere” to Mr. and Mrs. Louis Ashley Mertz of Freeport, New York.
  • Jonna Glyn Morse, baby girl, born at 10:50 a.m., “while Col. Glenn was still in orbit,” to Mr. and Mrs. Sidney L. Morse of Los Angeles, California.
  • Late addition: Glenn Orbit Reeves, baby boy, born in Texas.

We can see the influence of John Glenn’s flight in the U.S. baby name data, in fact.

For more names like these, check out yesterday’s post on baby names inspired by astronauts in the Apollo program.

Sources:

  • About Project Mercury – NASA
  • “Astronaut’s Name Given New Babies.” Los Angeles Times 25 Feb. 1962: GB2.
  • “It Took Week for Famous Name to Stick.” Spartanburg Herald 28 Feb. 1962: 1.
  • “Middletown Infant May Be First Namesake of Spaceman.” Evening News [Newburgh, NY] 6 May 1961: 1.
  • “Name Fame.” Spokane Daily Chronicle 23 Feb. 1962: 1.
  • “Tots Named for Glenn.” Meriden Record 21 Feb. 1962: 8.

Images: Adapted from Astronaut Alan Shepard (NASA) and Mercury 6, John H Glenn Jr (NASA)

Baby name mash-ups: Abdrew, Jeffifer, Ryatt, Tiffanique

Here are some oddball baby names I found while scanning the SSA’s baby name lists. They look like creative combinations of other names. (My guesses as to what those “other names” might be are in parentheses.)

Boy names:

Girl names:

Which is your favorite? (Mine is Franchester!)

Have you come across any other baby name mash-ups recently?

P.S. Don’t forget Craphonso. :)

[Last update: 5/2019]