The baby name Colt has a distinctive popularity graph: usage begins in the 1950s, shoots up in the early 1980s, shoots up again in the early 2000s, and shoots up again in the late 2010s.
The initial usage was triggered by the TV Western Colt .45 (1957-1960), which was loosely based upon a 1950 film of the same name. The main character, Christopher Colt, was an undercover government agent posing as a pistol salesman. (The Colt .45 was a type of pistol that was particularly popular in the Old West.)
The name Colt debuted in the SSA’s data the year the show premiered:
- 1959: 8 baby boys named Colt
- 1958: 10 baby boys named Colt
- 1957: 7 baby boys named Colt [debut]
- 1956: unlisted
- 1955: unlisted
The show may have given the name Christopher a boost as well, though it’s hard to tell, as the name was already on the rise in the late ’50s.
But the name that got the biggest boost from the show wasn’t Colt or Christopher — it was Wayde, from actor Wayde Preston, who played Christopher Colt. The name saw peak usage in 1959:
- 1960: 135 baby boys named Wayde [rank: 674th]
- 1959: 252 baby boys named Wayde [rank: 493rd]
- 1958: 153 baby boys named Wayde [rank: 622nd]
- 1957: 33 baby boys named Wayde
- 1956: 15 baby boys named Wayde
But getting back to Colt…the name remained relatively rare until another show, The Fall Guy (1981-1986), introduced TV audiences to the character Colt Seavers, played by Lee Majors. This character wasn’t a gunslinger but a stuntman (who moonlighted as a bounty hunter).
The name jumped straight into the top 500 in 1982:
- 1983: 351 baby boys named Colt [rank: 444th]
- 1982: 344 baby boys named Colt [rank: 459th]
- 1981: 20 baby boys named Colt
- 1980: 9 baby boys named Colt
The next rise in usage was kicked off by football quarterback Daniel “Colt” McCoy, who had a successful college career at the University of Texas (2005-2009) before going pro in 2010.
- 2009: 820 baby boys named Colt [rank: 369th]
- 162 (19.8%) born in Texas
- 2008: 500 baby boys named Colt [rank: 532nd]
- 85 (17.0%) born in Texas
- 2007: 428 baby boys named Colt [rank: 593rd]
- 67 (15.7%) born in Texas
- 2006: 212 baby boys named Colt [rank: 910th]
- 38 (17.9%) born in Texas
- 2005: 186 baby boys named Colt [rank: 943rd]
- 21 (11.3%) born in Texas
- 2004: 143 baby boys named Colt [outside top 1,000]
- 13 (9.1%) born in Texas
And the most recent rise in usage seems to be attributable to the Netflix series The Ranch, which premiered in mid-2016 and stars Ashton Kutcher as a character named Colt Reagan Bennett.
So, going back to the beginning now….where did the name of the Colt .45 pistol come from?
The pistol was made by Colt’s Manufacturing Company of Connecticut. The company was named for founder Samuel Colt (1814-1862), whose English surname originated as “a metonymic occupational name for someone who looked after asses and horses, or a nickname for an obstinate or frisky person.”
What do you think of the baby name Colt? Do you like it as a standalone name, or do you prefer it as a nickname for Colton?
Source: Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
