How popular is the baby name Woodrow 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 Woodrow.

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Popularity of the baby name Woodrow


Posts that mention the name Woodrow

North Carolina family with 16 children

kinderfest

Jonathan Jasper “Jack” Sullivan married Bertha Phillips in early 1909. The North Carolina farm couple went on to have sixteen children — nine sons and seven daughters. Their names, in order, were…

  1. Cretta (born in 1910)
  2. Leland (1912)
  3. Rosa (1913)
  4. Woodrow (1916)
  5. Wilmar (1918)
  6. Joseph (1919)
  7. Dorothy (1921)
  8. Virginia (1923)
  9. Irving (1924)
  10. Blanche (1925)
  11. C.D. (1927)
  12. Geraldine (1928)
  13. Marverine (1930)
  14. Billy (1932)
  15. Tom (1934)
  16. Gene (1938)

Here’s more about Gene’s name:

Gene Autry Sullivan, the youngest of the children and the one who organizes the [family] reunion each year, said he was told he was named after legendary cowboy movie star Gene Autry “because his parents had run out of names by then.”

(The Sierra post includes a photo of Gene Autry.)

Source: Barnes, Keith. “The Sullivan family’s 16 children.” Wilson Times [North Carolina] 29 Aug. 2018.

Where did the baby name Haile come from in 1935?

Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975)
Haile Selassie

Haile debuted as a boy name in the U.S. baby name data in 1935, showed up again the next year, then it dropped out of the data entirely until the 1970s.

  • 1937: unlisted
  • 1936: 7 baby boys named Haile
  • 1935: 11 baby boys named Haile [debut]
  • 1934: unlisted
  • 1933: unlisted

What put this name on the map in the 1930s?

Haile Selassie (pronounced HIE-lee suh-LAS-ee), the emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to the mid-1970s.

He was born into a noble family in 1892 with the name Tafari Makonnen. In 1917, he was given the title Ras, meaning “head” or “chief” in Ge’ez (the ancient Semitic language used as the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church). When he ascended to the throne, he took the regnal name Haile Selassie — Haile meaning “power of” and Selassie meaning “trinity” in Ge’ez.

So what brought him to the attention of Americans in the mid-1930s?

War.

In October of 1935, following months of conflict between Fascist Italy and Ethiopia, Italian forces under Benito Mussolini finally invaded Ethiopia, triggering the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1937).

Several months later, Selassie was declared Time‘s latest “Man of the Year.” The magazine had this to say about Selassie:

In 1935 there was just one man who rose out of murky obscurity and carried his country with him up & up into brilliant focus before a pop-eyed world. But for the hidden astuteness of this man, there would not now be the possibility of another world war arising out of idealism generated around the League of Nations in behalf of Ethiopia. […] If by some unhappy chance the Italo-Ethiopian war should now spread into a world conflagration, [he] will have a place in history as secure as Woodrow Wilson’s. If it ends in the fall of Mussolini and the collapse of Fascism, his Majesty can plume himself on one of the greatest feats ever credited to blackamoors.

In May of 1936, Selassie was forced into exile. The next month, he appealed to the League of Nations for help, giving a memorable speech (“a magnificent but futile gesture” according to the NYT) that ominously ended: “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.” He wasn’t able to return to his country until the early 1940s, when the world was embroiled in WWII.

The Rastafari religion, which developed in Jamaica in the 1930s after Selassie’s coronation, holds that “Haile Selassie is God, and that he will return to Africa members of the black community who are living in exile as the result of colonisation and the slave trade.”

What are your thoughts on the name Haile? (Do you think most people who see it would mistake it for a variant of Hailey?)

P.S. Both Tafari and Selassie have surfaced in the U.S. baby name data as well.

Sources:

Image: Haile Selassie in 1934 (public domain)

Where did the baby name Carranza come from in 1914?

Mexican revolutionary/president Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920)
Venustiano Carranza

The intriguing name Carranza was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data back in 1914:

  • 1916: unlisted
  • 1915: unlisted
  • 1914: 5 baby boys named Carranza
  • 1913: unlisted
  • 1912: unlisted

Data from the U.S. Social Security Death Index likewise indicates that the name saw higher usage that year:

  • 1917: 2 people with the first name Carranza
  • 1916: 6 people with the first name Carranza
  • 1915: 3 people with the first name Carranza
  • 1914: 9 people with the first name Carranza
  • 1913: 3 people with the first name Carranza
  • 1912: none
  • 1911: none

What was drawing attention to the Spanish surname Carranza around that time?

My guess is Venustiano Carranza, one of the leaders of the ongoing Mexican Revolution (1910-1920).

Carranza became the provisional president of Mexico following the overthrow of Victoriano Huerta in the summer of 1914. (He went on to become the constitutional president in 1917.)

The transition from Huerta to Carranza happened during the months of 1914 that the U.S. military was occupying the Mexican port city of Veracruz. Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize Huerta’s government, but did eventually recognize Carranza’s (in late 1915).

The Spanish surname Carranza can be traced back to the Basque place-name Karrantza — both a valley and a village in the province of Biscay (Vizcaya) in northern Spain.

And Carranza’s interesting first name? It’s based on the Latin word venustus, meaning “lovely, comely, charming.” Venustus is derived from Venus, the name of the Roman goddess of love.

What are your thoughts on Carranza as a first name?

Sources:

Image: Venustiano Carranza

Over 100 baby names for 100 years of the U.S. National Park Service

Grand Canyon National Park poster (NPS)

The U.S. National Park Service has a birthday coming up!

When the NPS was created on August 25, 1916, there were only 35 national parks and monuments. (The world’s first, Yellowstone, had been established in 1872.)

Nowadays the agency oversees 411 units. These units are located in the 50 states and beyond, and include national monuments (82), national historic sites (78), national parks (59), national historical parks (50), national memorials (30), national battlefields (11), national seashores (10), national lakeshores (4), national scenic trails (3), and more.

Let’s celebrate the upcoming centennial with more than 100 baby names that pay tribute to the national parks specifically:

Lassen Volcanic National Park poster (NPS)
  • Garland for Garland County, Arkansas, where Hot Springs National Park is located.
  • Gates for Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve.
  • Guadalupe for Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
  • Gunnison for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
    • The park was established in 1999, and Gunnison debuted on the baby name charts the very same year. Did one event cause the other?
  • Jackson for Jackson Hole, where much of Grand Teton National Park is located.
  • Jarvis for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve’s Mt. Jarvis.
  • Jefferson for Dry Tortugas National Park’s Fort Jefferson.
  • John for Virgin Islands National Park’s St. John Island.
  • Joshua for Joshua Tree National Park.
  • Kenai for Kenai Fjords National Park.
    • The derivation of Kenai is unknown, but it could come from either Dena’ina Athabascan (“big flat” or “two big flats and river cut-back” or “trees and brush in a swampy marsh”), Russian (“flat barren land”), or Iniut (“black bear”).
  • Kingston or Kingsley for Kings Canyon National Park.
  • Lake for any of the parks featuring lakes, such as Crater Lake National Park, Voyageurs National Park, Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, etc.
  • Lamar for Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Buffalo Ranch.
  • Lassen for Lassen Volcanic National Park.
  • Lata for the National Park of American Samoa’s Lata Mountain.
  • Lehman for Great Basin National Park’s Lehman Caves.
  • Lewis for Glacier National Park’s Lewis Range.
  • Livingston for Glacier National Park’s Livingston Range.
  • Manning for Saguaro National Park’s Manning Cabin.
  • Mara for Joshua Tree National Park’s Oasis of Mara.
    • In the Serrano language, Mara means “the place of little springs and much grass.”
  • Martin for Katmai National Park & Preserve’s Mt. Martin.
  • Maui for the island of Maui, where Haleakala National Park is located.
  • Mauna for Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park’s Mauna Loa.
  • Miguel for Channel Islands National Park’s San Miguel Island.
  • Olympia for Olympic National Park.
Zion National Park poster (NPS)
  • Parker, Parks, Park, or Parke as a tribute to all national parks.
  • Pele as a symbol of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.
  • Prairie for any of the parks featuring a prairie, such as Badlands National Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, etc.
  • Pratt for Guadalupe Mountains National Park’s Pratt Cabin.
  • Rainier for Mount Rainier National Park.
  • Ranger as a tribute to all national parks and park rangers.
  • Reef for Capitol Reef National Park.
  • Rhodes for Biscayne National Park’s Old Rhodes Key.
  • Rocky for Rocky Mountain National Park.
  • Roosevelt for Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
  • Rosa for Channel Islands National Park’s Santa Rosa Island.
  • Royale or Royal for Isle Royale National Park.
  • Valley for any of the parks featuring a valley, such as Cuyahoga Valley, Death Valley, Kobuk Valley, etc.
  • Verda or Verdell for Mesa Verde National Park.
  • Virginia for Virgin Islands National Park.
  • Zion for Zion National Park.

For all you national park lovers out there: What other park-inspired names can you come up with?

Sources: List of national parks of the United States – Wikipedia, Quick History of the National Park Service, National Park System (U.S. National Park Service), Kenai Fjords National Park Profile 2015 (PDF)
Images (all from the LOC): Grand Canyon National Park poster, Lassen Volcanic National Park poster, Zion National Park poster

[Latest update: July 2023]