Where did the baby name Denby come from in 1921?

Politician Edwin Denby (1870-1929)
Edwin Denby

The name Denby first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1921:

  • 1923: unlisted
  • 1922: 7 baby boys named Denby
  • 1921: 8 baby boys named Denby [debut]
  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Politician Edwin Denby, who served as Secretary of the Navy from 1921 to 1924.

But merely being in office wasn’t what put him (and his name) in the spotlight in 1921.

That year, the U.S. Mail was beset by a series of violent robberies — at least three dozen of them, “resulting in a theft of over $6.3 million.” In early November, the Postmaster General requested support from the Marines. Edwin Denby complied by ordering 53 officers and 2,200 enlisted men to guard the nation’s mail trucks and mail trains. The rousing letter he wrote to these Marines was widely quoted in the newspapers. Here’s an excerpt:

You must be brave, as you always are. You must be constantly alert. You must, when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand and, if attacked, shoot, and shoot to kill. There is no compromise in this battle with bandits. […] I am proud of you and I believe in you with all my heart.

With Marines on duty, all mail robberies ceased. They kept watch over the mail for roughly four months before being withdrawn in March of 1922.

The English surname Denby can be traced back to any of various place names, all of which were derived from the Old Norse Danabyr, meaning “settlement of the Danes.”

What are your thoughts on the name Denby?

Sources:

Where did the baby name Omayra come from in 1969?

Puerto Rican singer Omayra Torres
Omayra Torres

Two very similar baby names, Omayra and Omaira, debuted in the U.S. data in 1969. They were used primarily in New York and New Jersey.

1968196919701971
Omayra.42*68†49
Omaira.14*31†31†
Mayra126145173163
Maira25332118
*Debut, †Peak usage

The similar names Mayra and Maira also saw higher usage in 1969, and were also particularly popular in New York.

One of my first guesses was that all four names had been influenced by Venezuelan singer Mayra Martí.

But then, after more digging, I discovered a young Puerto Rican singer/beauty queen named Omayra Torres. She put out at least two albums and won a beauty contest during the late ’60s.

Omayra's self-titled album (1968?)

Her first album was self-titled and came out prior to 1969 (I believe). Then Omayra was crowned “Reina Juvenil del Carnaval Juan Ponce de León 1969” in San Juan in February of 1969. She followed the win with her second album, Omayra…La Princesita, later in 1969.

Most people in the U.S. wouldn’t have known about Omayra, but the Puerto Rican community in and around New York City would have, and we can see this in the baby name data. (I wish we had name data for Puerto Rico itself going back to the 1960s!)

Billboard magazine mentioned Omayra in several issues during the early ’70s, as she sang in venues around San Juan, but I don’t know what became of her after that.

What are your thoughts on the name Omayra?

Sources: Reinas de Puerto Rico [PDF] by Flor M. Cruz-Gonzalez; Omayra… – Hiram Morales y El Club Del Clan

What gave the baby name Floella a boost in 1927?

Murder victim Floella McDonald of Arkansas.
Floella McDonald

The old-fashioned name Floella saw peak usage in the U.S. in 1927, and a disproportionate amount of that usage happened in the southern state of Arkansas:

  • 1929: 6 baby girls named Floella
  • 1928: 13 baby girls named Floella
    • 5 (38%) born in Arkansas
  • 1927: 26 baby girls named Floella
    • 7 (30%) born in Arkansas, 5 (19%) born in Kentucky
  • 1926: 9 baby girls named Floella
  • 1925: 10 baby girls named Floella
Graph of the usage of the baby name Floella in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Floella

Why 1927? And why Arkansas?

The answer has to do with a young girl whose murder was part of the chain of events that led to the last lynching in Little Rock.

On April 12, 1927 — amid the devastating Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 — a 12-year-old white girl named Floella McDonald visited the public library (to check out Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch). That’s the last time Floella was seen alive.

On April 30, Floella’s body was discovered in the belfry of the First Presbyterian Church in Little Rock. The local papers described the crime scene in detail, even insinuating (without proof) that Floella had been raped.

The police rounded up several suspects — all of whom were black men — but the primary suspects were always the church’s janitor, Frank Dixon, and Frank’s teenage son Lonnie. Both men denied any involvement, and no evidence linked either one directly to the crime.

Lonnie Dixon (a “blue-eyed, brown-haired mulatto”) was interrogated for almost 24 hours straight. He wasn’t permitted to eat or sleep, and there was no defense lawyer present. The ordeal ended when he gave the police an oral confession.

The police relocated both Lonnie and his father to jails outside the city, which proved prescient. Several hours after word of the confession got out, “angry mobs of whites formed outside of the state penitentiary and city hall.” Notably, several thousand people gathered at each of the two locations.

On “May 2, an Arkansas Gazette headline summed up the previous day’s developments: “Negro Youth Confesses to Brutal Crime” and “Crowd Gathers To Lynch Young Negro.””

But the mob members, try as they might, were not able to figure out which jail was sheltering the Dixons.

So tension was still running high when, on the morning of May 4, a completely unrelated event happened: a black man named John Carter allegedly attacked a white woman and her teenage daughter “in a rural area just west of Little Rock.”

Posses of white men immediately began searching for Carter, who was captured at about 5 p.m. and promptly lynched. This was followed by rioting that continued until around 10 p.m., when the governor called the National Guard.

What happened to Lonnie Dixon? His trial was held on May 19th. “The all-white jury deliberated for seven minutes — approximately the time it took for all the members to sign the guilty verdict.” He was electrocuted on June 24 — his 18th birthday.

And what about Floella McDonald? We may never know who murdered her, or why. But her memory lives on via her influence on the U.S. baby name data.

Sources:

Where did the baby name Griezmann come from in 2016?

French soccer player Antoine Griezmann
Antoine Griezmann

The unusual name Griezmann debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 2016:

  • 2018: 11 baby boys named Griezmann
  • 2017: 11 baby boys named Griezmann
  • 2016: 6 baby boys named Griezmann [debut]
  • 2015: unlisted
  • 2014: unlisted

Where did it come from?

French soccer player Antoine Griezmann (pronounced an-twahn gree-ez-man).

Though he was born and raised in France, he has strong affiliations with several European countries: his father’s family came from Germany, his mother’s family from Portugal, and he “was brought up as a footballer in Spain” (from the age of 13 onward).

He has been playing professionally since 2009, but garnered a lot of attention in 2016 specifically while playing for Atlético Madrid. That year, he won two La Liga awards — for best player and fan favorite — and was nominated for both the Ballon d’Or and Best FIFA Men’s Player.

He was also chosen to play for France in the UEFA Euro 2016. Though France was defeated by Portugal in the final, Griezmann was named Player of the Tournament and won the Golden Boot (for most goals scored). He was later declared French Player of the Year.

Griezmann’s Germanic surname, originally spelled Griesmann, could be related to the Middle High German word griez, meaning “sand” (in reference to a person who lived in a sandy location), or the Middle Low German word gris, meaning “gray” (in reference to a gray-haired person).

What are your thoughts on Griezmann as a first name?

P.S. I don’t usually publish data-based posts on Fridays, but I felt compelled to publish this one today because all three of Griezmann’s children — Mia, Amaro, and Alba — were born on April 8th (in 2016, 2019, and 2021, respectively). His son was named after his maternal grandfather, Amaro Lopes, who played professional soccer in Portugal before immigrating to France in the 1950s.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Antoine Griezmann – CdR – RM v ATL by DSanchez17 under CC BY 2.0.