How popular is the baby name Winona 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 Winona.

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Popularity of the baby name Winona


Posts that mention the name Winona

Where did the baby name Wynonna come from in 1985?

Wynonna Judd's debut album "Wynonna" (1992)
“Wynonna” (1992)

The name Winona has been in the U.S. baby name data since the very beginning, but the specific spelling Wynonna didn’t show up until the mid-1980s:

  • 1987: unlisted
  • 1986: 6 baby girls named Wynonna
  • 1985: 5 baby girls named Wynonna [debut]
  • 1984: unlisted
  • 1983: unlisted

What was the influence?

Country singer Wynonna Judd. She and her mother, Naomi Judd, formed The Judds in the early ’80s and the duo won a Grammy Award in 1985 for the song “Mama He’s Crazy.”

The name saw peak usage in 1993, not long after Wynonna began her solo career.

Wynonna’s birth name was Christina Ciminella. She was inspired to change her name after her mother, previously known as Diana Ciminella, became Naomi Judd in the early ’70s following a divorce. (‘Judd’ was her maiden name, but ‘Naomi’ was brand new.)

She chose the name ‘Wynonna’ because she liked the song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” which mentions Winona, Arizona.

(Naomi tried to persuade her younger daughter, Ashley, to change her name as well — to ‘Ramona,’ because of its similarity to ‘Wynonna.’ She wasn’t interested, but she did start to use the surname ‘Judd.’)

The name dropped out of the data in the early 2000s, but has come back recently:

  • 2017: 20 baby girls named Wynonna
  • 2016: 5 baby girls named Wynonna
  • 2015: unlisted

Why? Because of the supernatural Western TV series Wynonna Earp, which debuted on Syfy in 2016.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Wynonna? Do you like the spelling?

Source: Millard, Bob. The Judds: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

A smattering of Mormon baby names

Jessie Jensen published her annual Mormon baby names post a few weeks ago. Some highlights:

  • Dallin/Dallen, tied for “Most Mormon name.” Dallin H. Oaks is a prominent member of the LDS church and a former president of BYU.
  • Rexalyn: “Ask your doctor if Rexalyn™ is right for you.”
  • Roczen, which has popped up in Australia recently as well. The influence is probably German motorcycle racer Ken Roczen.
  • Tannin, the “Absolute Worst Name This Year” thanks to the Biblical sea monster association. (For what it’s worth, I thought Zoei was worse.)

One commenter mentioned the historical Malan family of Ogden, Utah. Most of the 16 children were given alphabetical names:

  • Alexis Bartholomew (b. 1873)
  • Claudius Daniel (b. 1875)
  • Ernest Francis (b. 1876)
  • Jeremiah (b. 1878)
  • Gideon Highly (b. 1879)
  • Inez Jane (b. 1881)
  • Kit (b. 1883)
  • Lawrence Maxwell (b. 1884)
  • Nahum Oscar (b. 1886)
  • Parley Quince (b. 1888)
  • Ray Stephen (b. 1890)
  • Teresa Una (b. 1890)
  • Verna Winona (b. 1893)
  • X Y Zella (b. 1895)
  • Benjamin (b. 1896)
  • Louise Pauline (b. 1898)

Another commenter mentioned an aunt “named OE, it was pronounced oh-EEE, just like the letters,” who was born in Utah in early 1900s. (Reminds me of Io.)

Have you come across any interesting Mormon names lately?

Two Sioux names: Winona and Chaska

No doubt you’re familiar with the name Winona, which means “first-born daughter” in Sioux. But are you pronouncing it correctly?

In pronunciation, Winona is accented on the middle syllable, and the first and last syllables have the short vowel sounds. The first, however, is often incorrectly given the long sound, as in wine; it should be short, as in win, or may be quite rightly given the sound of long e, as we.

Winona is a diminutive of the Sioux word wino (pronounced weeno), meaning “woman.”

Even more interesting? There’s a male equivalent: Chaska.

Chaska means “first-born son” and was also used as a first name by the Sioux. But this one is even trickier to pronounce properly:

The word is pronounced by the Sioux…with the English sound of ch (as in charm), and with the long vowel sound in the last syllable, as if spelled kay; but common usage of the white people has given erroneously the French pronunciation (ch as in charade) with the last syllable short, like Alaska.

So: chas-kay, not shas-ka.

What do you think of the name Chaska?

Source: Upham, Warren. Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance. Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1920.

The baby name Tayna

Tayna, faint galaxy from early universe

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes recently spotted the faintest object ever seen in the early universe. The galaxy they spotted existed 13.8 billion years ago — only 400 million years after the Big Bang.

The research team nicknamed the galaxy Tayna, which means “first-born child” in Aymara, the language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes.

I’m not sure if tayna was ever used as a personal name among the Aymara, but I think there’s a possibility it was. After all, the word winona (meaning “first-born daughter”) was traditionally used as a name for first-born daughters among the Dakota Sioux.

The name Tayna has been given to hundreds of baby girls in the U.S., with usage peaking in the mid-1970s. (This usage mirrors the rise and fall of the more popular choice Tanya.)

What do you think of Tayna as a baby name? Does the cool definition offset the inevitable Tanya-confusion?

Source: NASA Space Telescopes See Magnified Image of Faintest Galaxy from Early Universe
Image: NASA, ESA, and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile