Where did the baby name Joakim come from in 2006?

Basketball player Joakim Noah on the cover of Sports Illustrated (April 10, 2006)
Joakim Noah

The name Joakim — a version of the name Joachim — first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 2006:

  • 2008: unlisted
  • 2007: unlisted
  • 2006: 10 baby boys named Joakim [debut]
  • 2005: unlisted
  • 2004: unlisted

Where did it come from?

French-American college basketball player Joakim Noah. From 2004 to 2007, he played for the University of Florida, winning the NCAA championship twice in a row (2006 and 2007). In 2006 specifically, he was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

He went on to have a successful 13-season professional career, playing the first nine of those seasons with the Chicago Bulls (2007-2016). His name returned to the SSA data during that time, and it saw peak usage around the time Joakim Noah himself was at his peak (he was an NBA All-Star in both 2013 and 2014, and named NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2014).

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

And how do you pronounce the name Joakim?

  • Joakim’s French father, Yannick Noah — who played professional tennis from 1977 to 1996 — says JOH-ah-keem. (Here’s a video.)
  • Joakim’s Swedish mother, Cécilia Rodhe — who was Miss Sweden 1978 — says YOH-ah-keem. (Here’s another video.)
  • American sports announcers tend to say joh-keem. (Yet another video.)

What are your thoughts on the name Joakim? Which spelling and/or pronunciation do you like best?

Sources: Joakim Noah – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Clipping from the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine (10 Apr. 2006)

Where did the baby name Yannick come from in the early 1980s?

Tennis player Yannick Noah
Yannick Noah

The name Yannick debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1981, and usage jumped upward a few years later, in 1983:

  • 1985: 30 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1984: 26 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1983: 30 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1982: 8 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1981: 9 baby boys named Yannick
  • 1980: unlisted
  • 1979: unlisted

The reason?

Professional tennis player Yannick (pronounced yah-neek) Noah, who was born in France in 1960, spent his childhood in Cameroon, and was discovered as an 11-year-old by tennis great Arthur Ashe.

Yannick won the French Open in 1983, and he reached career-high rankings of World No. 3 in singles and World No. 1 in doubles during the summer of 1986. But he was certainly getting press in the U.S. earlier than that.

One article from mid-1980, for instance, noted that Yannick — at that time ranked #1 in France and #12 in the world — was still seen as an anomaly in tennis:

In the United States, Yannick Noah is still a novelty. When the Frenchman plays tennis here, spectators flock to his court. Passers-by, upon seeing him, also stop. Someday, Noah hopes, Americans will watch him because he is Noah, not because he is black.

The write-up reminded me of an earlier article about another idiosyncratic tennis player, Torben Ulrich.

Speaking of being idiosyncratic…Yannick Noah, after nearly two decades of pro tennis, switched tracks and became a singer. Since then, he has scored multiple #1 hits in both France and Belgium. (Here’s Yannick’s YouTube channel.)

Usage of the name Yannick — a diminutive of Yann, a French form of John — increased again in the 2010s thanks to one of Yannick Noah’s namesakes, football player Yannick Ngakoue (who pronounces his first name yah-nihk). It saw peak usage in 2016, the same year Ngakoue joined the NFL.

Do you like the name Yannick?

P.S. While playing football at the University of Maryland, Yannick Ngakoue had a teammate named Yannik Cudjoe-Virgil. He told one reporter, “It’s not confusing. It’s pretty funny, actually. I never knew somebody’s had my name. I thought my name was very unique.” A few years later, a similar situation occurred at the University of Pittsburgh with a pair of football players named Qadree and Quadree.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Yannick Noah photo by Hans van Dijk via Nationaal Archief under CC0.

What popularized the baby name Torey in 1959?

The character Torey Peck from the TV series "Peck's Bad Girl" (1959).
Torey Peck from “Peck’s Bad Girl”

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Torey shot up in usage for baby girls in 1959:

  • 1961: 20 baby girls named Torey
  • 1960: 51 baby girls named Torey
  • 1959: 103 baby girls named Torey [peak usage]
  • 1958: unlisted
  • 1957: unlisted

Variant spellings of the name — like Tori, Torie, Tory, Torri, Torrie, Torre, and Torry — also saw higher usage that year. Torri, in fact, was the fastest-rising girl name of 1959.

To explain this one fully, we need to start with Wisconsin newspaper publisher-turned-politician George Wilbur Peck (1840-1916), who wrote a series of humorous “Peck’s Bad Boy” stories starting in the 1880s.

The main character, Henry Peck, was mischievous trickster. In fact, he became so well known in the late 1800s that the phrase “Peck’s Bad Boy” entered the language; Merriam-Webster defines it as “one whose bad behavior is a source of embarrassment or annoyance.”

The stories were later adapted for the big screen, with young Jackie Cooper playing the part of Henry. But in one of the movies, Peck’s Bad Girl (1918), the character was turned into a girl named Minnie Peck.

The main character was once again a girl in the single-season TV sitcom Peck’s Bad Girl, which aired originally from May to August, 1959. This time around, the “bad girl” was named Torey Peck, and she wasn’t mischievous so much as tomboyish. She was played by Patty McCormack of Bad Seed fame.

The show only lasted 13 episodes, but that was long enough to give Torey a sizeable boost in usage. (No doubt the rhyming name Lori, which was very trendy in the 1950s, had helped set the stage for Torey.)

Do you like the name Torey? Which spelling do you prefer?

Sources:

Where did the baby name Claudinette come from in 1960?

Beauty queen Claudinette Fouchard on the cover of JET magazine (Feb. 1960)
Claudinette Fouchard

The name Claudinette was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data in 1960:

  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: unlisted
  • 1960: 7 baby girls named Claudinette [debut]
  • 1959: unlisted
  • 1958: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Haitian beauty Claudinette Fouchard, who was declared “Miss Haiti” early in 1960, and soon after won the title of “World Sugar Queen” in Cali, Colombia. (Haiti put her image on postage stamps following that second accomplishment.)

More importantly in terms of American baby names, Claudinette appeared on the covers of both Ebony and Jet during 1960. Here’s how Jet described her:

The shapely (36-24-36) beauty speaks five languages, has attended Georgetown U., and the Sorbonne, majoring in art, music.

She was the daughter of Jean Fouchard, a diplomat and scholar who had once been Haiti’s ambassador to Cuba. Her mother’s name was Claudette.

I don’t know what kind of influence Claudinette had on Haitian baby names, but I do know that the Haitian-American wife of musician Wyclef Jean, formerly of the Fugees, is named Marie Claudinette Jean. (And their adopted daughter Angelina has the middle name Claudinelle.)

Do you like the name Claudinette?

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the cover of Jet magazine (4 Feb. 1960)