How popular is the baby name Wilma 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 Wilma.

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Popularity of the baby name Wilma


Posts that mention the name Wilma

Mystery baby names: Djuna and Djuana (Solved!)

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

So far I’ve only posted about two mystery names, Laquita and Nerine. But there are plenty of others.

One of those others is Djuna, which was the most impressive girl-name debut in the U.S. baby name data in 1964:

  • 1966: 24 baby girls named Djuna
  • 1965: 32 baby girls named Djuna
  • 1964: 198 baby girls named Djuna [rank: 738th]
  • 1963: unlisted
  • 1962: unlisted

In fact, 198 was the highest debut number ever up to that point, and it remained the record-holder until Kizzy (inspired by Roots) came along with a whopping 1,115 baby girls in 1977.

And that’s not all. A bunch of similar names became more popular in 1964 as well:

1963196419651966
Djuna–198*3224
Djuana–1907735
Dwana17823937
Duana7291811
Dejuana–241113
Dewanna13242230
Dwanna10241012
Duanna–1066
Dujuana–10*5–
Djana–9*––
Duuna–9*––
Duwana–9*––
Djuan (f)–7*––
Dejuna–6*––
Duuana–6*––
Duwanna–6*––
Dywana–6*––
Djuanna–5*––
Dajuana––9*–
*Debut

(Djana, Duuna, Dejuna and Duuana were one-hit wonders.)

Where did these names come from?

I haven’t a clue. The very first Djuna seems to be writer Djuna Barnes (1892-1982), but I don’t think she made any headlines in the 1960s.

The name was also used in a bunch Ellery Queen novels, but that Djuna was a boy. (And the books were published in the ’40s and ’50s, mostly.)

Olympian Wilma Rudolph named her baby girl Djuana in mid-1964. This may have contributed to the surge in usage. But many (most?) of the Djunas and Djuanas I’ve seen so far were born during the first half of the year, so it can’t be the main cause.

So…I’m stumped.

Do you guys have any ideas?

UPDATE: We worked together to figure out that the answer was TV character Djuna Phrayne, who was featured on a single episode of the TV series Channing. Thank you, everyone!

Michigan quadruplets: Edna, Wilma, Sarah, Helen

The Morlok quadruplets: Helen, Wilma, Sarah, and Edna (in 1935)
Helen, Wilma, Sarah, and Edna Morlok

On May 19, 1930, Carl and Sarah “Sadie” Morlok of Lansing welcomed Michigan’s first documented identical quadruplets. (The odds of having identical quads is about one in 15 million.)

The quads’ names, in order, were: Edna A, Wilma B, Sarah C, and Helen D.

To help decide on names, both the Lansing Journal and the Lansing Capital News announced contests two days after the babies were born. Each offered a $10 prize.

The winner was 10-year-old Nancy Haynes, the daughter of the physician who delivered the quads. The first letter of each name she selected, Edna, Wilma, Sarah and Helen, was a tribute to E. W. Sparrow Hospital.

[…]

Sadie decided to keep the initials A, B, C and D, which recorded the order of their birth, as their middle initials.

Sarah, the longest-surviving quad, published a memoir several years ago entitled The Morlok Quadruplets: The Alphabet Sisters.

P.S. Two other sets of multiples with alphabetical names: quints in Nebraska, quads in Alberta.

Sources:

  • Dozier, Vickki. “For identical quadruplets, fame came with constraints.” Lansing State Journal 21 Sept. 2016.
  • “Helen Morlok, 73; One of the World’s Oldest Identical Quadruplets.” Los Angeles Times 7 Nov. 2003.
  • “Morlok Quadruplets Ready to Make Debuts on Stage.” Reading Eagle 5 Aug. 1936: 5.

Image: Clipping from the Brownsville Herald (15 Sept. 1935)

Popular baby names in Sweden, 2010

Flag of Sweden
Flag of Sweden

Sweden’s top baby names have been released!

The winners last year were Oscar and Maja (which is pronounced like Maya).

Here are Sweden’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2010:

Girl names

  1. Maja, 895 baby girls (1.6% of all baby girls)
  2. Alice, 867
  3. Julia, 823
  4. Linnéa, 750
  5. Wilma, 742
  6. Ella, 737
  7. Elsa, 724
  8. Emma, 722
  9. Alva, 711
  10. Olivia, 703
  11. Molly, 677
  12. Ebba, 661
  13. Klara, 638
  14. Nellie, 592
  15. Agnes, 588
  16. Isabelle, 583
  17. Ida, 577
  18. Elin, 570
  19. Ellen, 545
  20. Moa, 542
  21. Emilia, 522
  22. Nova, 515
  23. Alma, 506
  24. Saga, 490
  25. Amanda, 475
  26. Isabella, 467
  27. Lilly, 460
  28. Alicia, 456
  29. Astrid, 441
  30. Matilda, 433
  31. Tilde, 431 (tie)
  32. Tuva, 431 (tie)
  33. Stella, 416
  34. Elvira, 412 (tie)
  35. Felicia, 412 (tie)
  36. Tyra, 409
  37. Hanna, 408
  38. Sara, 404
  39. Vera, 399
  40. Thea, 380
  41. Freja, 378
  42. Lova, 372
  43. Meja, 359 (tie)
  44. Selma, 359 (tie)
  45. Signe, 352
  46. Ester, 339
  47. Lovisa, 336
  48. Ellie, 328
  49. Lea, 308 (tie)
  50. Tilda, 308 (tie)

Boy names

  1. Oscar, 1,108 baby boys (nearly 1.9% of all baby boys)
  2. William, 1,032
  3. Lucas, 1,026
  4. Elias, 888
  5. Alexander, 887
  6. Hugo, 873
  7. Oliver, 810
  8. Theo, 804
  9. Liam, 782
  10. Leo, 764
  11. Erik, 741 (tie)
  12. Viktor, 741 (tie)
  13. Emil, 729
  14. Isak, 712
  15. Axel, 692
  16. Filip, 685
  17. Anton, 627
  18. Gustav, 617
  19. Edvin, 609
  20. Vincent, 598
  21. Arvid, 596
  22. Albin, 581
  23. Ludvig, 580
  24. Melvin, 562
  25. Noah, 554
  26. Charlie, 531
  27. Max, 529
  28. Elliot, 509
  29. Viggo, 499
  30. Alvin, 488
  31. Alfred, 480
  32. Adam, 474 (tie)
  33. Theodor, 474 (tie)
  34. Olle, 464
  35. Wilmer, 458
  36. Benjamin, 457
  37. Simon, 453
  38. Nils, 431
  39. Noel, 417
  40. Jacob, 414
  41. Leon, 411
  42. Rasmus, 405
  43. Kevin, 400
  44. Linus, 394
  45. Casper, 380 (tie)
  46. Gabriel, 380 (tie)
  47. Jonathan, 377
  48. Milo, 373
  49. Melker, 369
  50. Felix, 367

In the girls’ top 10, Olivia replaced Ebba.

In the boys’ top 10, Theo, Liam and Leo replaced Erik, Victor, and Axel.

Newbies to the girls’ top 100 were Tove, Minna, Majken, Annie, Juni, Hedvig and Novalie. Drop-outs were Malva, Victoria, Fanny, Alexandra, Rut, Miranda and Johanna.

Newbies to the boys’ top 100 were Frank, Ebbe, Elvin, Julian and Ivar. Drop-outs were Dante, Mattias, Jesper, Dennis and Ruben.

The girl names that made the biggest jumps from 2009 to 2010 were Tove, Minna and Novalie. Those that dropped the furthest were Kajsa, Emelie and Cornelia.

The boy names that made the biggest jumps from 2009 to 2010 were Frank, Elvin and Milo. Those that dropped the furthest were Carl, Marcus and Jonathan.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Sweden (public domain)

[Latest update: Dec. 2024]

What turned Pebbles into a baby name in 1963?

The character Pebbles Flintstone from the TV series "The Flintstones" (1960-1966)
Pebbles Flintstone from “The Flintstones“

Today’s Google Doodle is a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the cartoon The Flintstones, which first aired on September 30, 1960. So I thought I’d help celebrate by posting about Pebbles, the Flintstones-inspired baby name.

The Flintstones originally featured Fred and Wilma Flintstone, along with their neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble. The couples’ babies, Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble, weren’t introduced until 1963 — Pebbles in February, Bamm-Bamm in October.

And, the same year, the unusual name Pebbles appeared for the very first time in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1965: 14 baby girls named Pebbles
  • 1964: 31 baby girls named Pebbles
  • 1963: 31 baby girls named Pebbles [debut]
  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: unlisted

While the name never became popular, its usage did increase slightly both in the early to mid-1970s and in the late ’80s to early ’90s. Why?

  • In October of 1971, Pebbles breakfast cereals (e.g., Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles) were introduced to the market. The TV commercials featured various Flintstone characters.
  • In the late 1980s, several songs by dance-pop singer Perri “Pebbles” Reid became top-5 hits on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. (One of those songs was “Mercedes Boy.”)

What are your thoughts on the name Pebbles? Would you consider using it?

Update, Mar. 2015: Looks like Pebbles Flintstones may have been named via contest. (Either that, or the “contest” was for marketing purposes only.) From a Neatorama article about The Flintstones: “In 1963, a new angle was added to the show with the birth of Pebbles Flintstone, Fred and Wilma’s daughter. In anticipation of her birth, a huge nationwide contest was held to “name the Flintstone’s baby.”

Update #2, Sept. 2020: M Cain’s comment below inspired me to research the Pebbles name contest a bit more. The following story, which I found in Joseph Barbera’s 1994 autobiography My Life in ‘Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century, suggests to me that the contest was rigged.

[The idea] — to give the Flintstones a baby — set off two days of uncharacteristically rancorous meetings at the studio debating the sex of the offspring. After much collective hair pulling, we decided: It’s a boy.

Relieved at having reached a decision at last, I turned to other matters. A few days later, I took a phone call from Ed Justin, our merchandising man in New York.

“I hear the Flintstones are having a baby.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Boy or girl?”

“It’s a boy! Fred Jr.–A chip off the old rock!”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’ve got the vice president of Ideal Toy here, and the only dolls they’re doing are girls. We could have had a hell of a deal if it had been a girl.”

“It is a girl,” I said. “Her name is…Pebbles. A pebble off the old rock.”

Some ideas develop after days of meetings. Others are born in the flash of a dollar sign set off by a single phone call.

Sources: A Flintstones World, SSA

Image: Screenshot of The Flintstones