What gave the baby name Madonna a boost in the mid-1980s?

Madonna in the music video for "Material Girl" (1985)
Madonna in a music video

From the early 1900s to the late 1960s, Madonna was one of the top 1,000 girl names in the United States. In terms of rankings, it was most popular in the 1930s; in terms of raw numbers of births, it was most popular in the ’50s and ’60s.

The name has been in decline ever since, but it did see a sudden spike in usage in 1985:

  • 1987: 61 baby girls named Madonna
  • 1986: 70 baby girls named Madonna
  • 1985: 146 baby girls named Madonna
  • 1984: 63 baby girls named Madonna
  • 1983: 23 baby girls named Madonna

In fact, it almost landed back inside the top 1,000 that year. (It ranked 1,033rd, just seven babies shy of 1,000th place.)

Here’s a visual:

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

What gave it a boost?

Mononymous pop superstar Madonna (birth name: Madonna Louise Ciccone).

The singer was born into a Catholic family in Michigan in 1958. She was named after her mother. (Her five siblings are named Anthony, Martin, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.)

Madonna rose to fame in the mid-1980s with a string of catchy hits:

  • “Holiday,” which peaked at #16 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in January of 1984
  • “Borderline,” which peaked at #10 in June of 1984
  • “Lucky Star,” which peaked at #4 in October of 1984
  • “Like a Virgin,” which peaked at #1 for six weeks starting in December of 1984
  • “Material Girl,” which peaked at #2 in March of 1985
  • “Crazy for You,” which peaked at #1 in May of 1985
    • It was written for the movie Vision Quest, in which Madonna had a cameo.
  • “Angel,” which peaked at #5 in June of 1985
  • “Into the Groove,” which was never technically released as a single
    • It was featured in the movie Desperately Seeking Susan, in which Madonna had a leading role.
  • “Dress You Up,” which peaked at #5 in October of 1985

She also got a lot of exposure on MTV. One of her most memorable MTV moments was the suggestive “Like a Virgin” performance at the very first Video Music Awards (in September of 1984):

In 1991, during a Vanity Fair interview, Madonna posed the question: “How could I be anything else but what I am having been named Madonna?”

Her name is based on the word madonna (which meant “my lady” in Old Italian). Today it’s associated with the Virgin Mary — hence its usage as a given name in Catholic families — but, centuries ago, it was simply a polite form of address similar to madame or milady. (Madonna’s first child, a daughter born in 1996, was also given a Virgin Mary-associated name: Lourdes.)

What are your thoughts on the name Madonna? Would you use it?

P.S. Coincidentally, the primary male characters in two of Madonna’s early movies — Vision Quest and Who’s That Girl — had nearly the same (rather uncommon) first name: Louden/Loudon.

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of the music video for “Material Girl” (1985)

Where did the baby name Louden come from in 1986?

The character Louden Swain from the movie "Vision Quest" (1985)
Louden Swain from “Vision Quest“

The name Louden first appeared in the U.S. baby name data the mid-1980s:

  • 1988: unlisted
  • 1987: 9 baby boys named Louden
  • 1986: 8 baby boys named Louden [debut]
  • 1985: unlisted
  • 1984: unlisted

What put it there?

The coming-of-age movie Vision Quest (1985), which told the story of amateur wrestler Louden Swain.

Louden Swain (played by actor Matthew Modine) was a high school senior in Spokane. He had two goals: to quickly lose 23 pounds so that he could wrestle undefeated Washington state champion Brian Shute (played by Frank Jasper), and to win the affections of an older woman named Carla (played by Linda Fiorentino).

The title of the film is a reference to the Native American “vision quest” — a rite of passage undertaken by adolescent boys that involved (among other things) a period of fasting.

The movie was based on the 1979 novel of the same name by author Terry Davis.

What are your thoughts on the name Louden?

P.S. Did you know that pop singer Madonna made her first movie appearance in Vision Quest? She played a singer at a local bar. The music video for her song “Crazy for You” [vid] features clips of the film.

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Vision Quest

How did John Lennon’s murder influence U.S. baby names in 1981?

Musician John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono in Amsterdam (Mar. 1969)
John Lennon and Yoko Ono (in 1969)

John Lennon — a founding member of the massively popular English rock band The Beatles, and the voice behind hits like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (1963), “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964), “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967), “Come Together” (1969), and, as a solo artist, “Imagine” (1971) — was shot and killed by a fan outside his New York City apartment building on December 8, 1980.

What followed was a worldwide outpouring of grief.

In lieu of holding a memorial service, Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, asked fans to remember him with a silent vigil on December 14 (the following Sunday).

Millions around the globe participated.

By far the biggest crowd gathered at Central Park in New York. More than 100,000 people … braved stinging cold to listen to recorded music and pray in silence at 2 p.m. EST.

[…]

Simultaneously, somber crowds in Philadelphia, Memphis, Tenn., Raleigh, N.C., Atlanta, Hartford, Conn., Concord, N.H., Cincinnati, Columbia, S.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and numerous other communities across the nation fell silent for 10 minutes.

The following year, the baby names Lennon and Yoko both saw an uptick in usage:

Babies named LennonGirls named Yoko
198322 boys14
198222 boys14
198148 boys + 6 girls*24†
198015 boys11
19799 boys.
*Gender-specific debut, †Peak usage

So what do “Lennon” and “Yoko” mean?

John Lennon’s Irish surname can be traced back to either the Irish word lon, meaning “blackbird,” or the Irish word leann, meaning “cloak, mantle.”

And Yoko Ono’s Japanese forename is written using a pair of kanji characters meaning “ocean” and “child” — though the name can be written with other characters as well.

These days, the name Yoko remains rare among U.S. babies (though not as rare as Ringo).

The name Lennon, on the other hand, has become quite popular. It now ranks well inside the top 1,000 for both baby boys and baby girls. (Female usage surpassed male usage in 2014.)

P.S. Did you know that Yoko Ono, who was born into an affluent family, went to school with future Japanese emperor Akihito?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from John Lennon and Yoko Ono photo by Eric Koch via Nationaal Archief under CC0.

What gave the baby name Hanni a boost in 1980?

Olympic skier Hanni Wenzel
Hanni Wenzel

The name Hanni first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1976. When it popped up again four years later, it was given to nearly three dozen baby girls:

  • 1982: 10 baby girls named Hanni
  • 1981: 15 baby girls named Hanni
  • 1980: 34 baby girls named Hanni [peak usage]
  • 1979: unlisted
  • 1978: unlisted
  • 1977: unlisted
  • 1976: 8 baby girls named Hanni [debut]
  • 1975: unlisted
  • 1974: unlisted

What’s the influence here?

Alpine skier Hannelore “Hanni” Wenzel, who twice represented the tiny country of Liechtenstein at the Olympics.

At the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, she won her country’s very first Olympic medal, a bronze in the slalom.

At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, she became her country’s first Olympic champion by winning gold in both the slalom and the giant slalom. She also won silver in the downhill.

Hanni’s four medals represent 40% of Liechtenstein’s total 10 Olympic medals — all of which were won in alpine skiing. Two more were won by her brother, Andreas “Andi” Wenzel, and the most recent was won by her daughter, Christina “Tina” Weirather, in 2018.

Hanni was born in West Germany, but relocated with her family to Liechtenstein when she was a child.

The German name Hannelore (pronounced ha-nuh-lo-ruh) is a combination of Hanne, a diminutive of Johanna, and Lore, a diminutive of Eleonore, the German spelling of Eleanor.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Hanni? (Do you like it more or less than Hannelore?)

Sources:

Image: Hanni Wenzel trading card