What happened to the baby name Monica in the late 1990s?

White House intern Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky

After ranking among the top 100 girl names in the U.S. for more than three decades, the name Monica suddenly dropped out of the top 100 in 1998:

  • 2001: 1796 baby girls named Monica [rank: 182nd]
  • 2000: 1,992 baby girls named Monica [rank: 167th]
  • 1999: 2,134 baby girls named Monica [rank: 151st]
  • 1998: 3,229 baby girls named Monica [rank: 105th]
  • 1997: 4,223 baby girls named Monica [rank: 79th]
  • 1996: 4,326 baby girls named Monica [rank: 82nd]

The name’s decline in usage was even steeper the following year (-34% in 1999 vs. -24% in 1998). Here’s a visual:

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

What was negatively influencing the name Monica in the late 1990s?

White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, who’d been married to Hillary Clinton since 1975, began an affair with Lewinsky during his first term in office. They had a total of ten sexual encounters over the course of sixteen months (from late 1995 to early 1997).

News of the affair broke in January of 1998.

Clinton initially denied the relationship (under oath). It wasn’t until August that he finally acknowledged that he’d had “inappropriate intimate contact” with Lewinsky.

President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky (in Feb. 1997)
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

Ongoing coverage of the “Monica Lewinsky scandal” (as it was called) dominated the headlines during 1998 and, in October, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about Lewinsky’s impact on other women named Monica:

It’s as if the reputations of Monicas everywhere have been stained by the notorious Lewinsky. “Before this, everyone would say, ‘Monica — what a pretty name,'” Monica Gardner, a 34-year-old bond buyer from Arlington, Va., recalls wistfully. “Now, it’s embarrassing.”

Bill Clinton was impeached (for committing perjury and obstructing justice) in December. He was acquitted of the charges in February of 1999.

The following month, an impressive 70 million people tuned in to watch Barbara Walters interview Monica Lewinsky on 20/20. A poll conducted the next day “found that 72% of [respondents] still have a generally unfavorable impression of [Lewinsky], down just slightly from a high of 78% in September.”

Two weeks later, Lewinsky was on the cover of Time magazine. When the Time interviewer stated, “You’re probably the most famous woman in the world right now,” Lewinsky responded, “Unfortunately.”

What are your thoughts on the name Monica?

P.S. The name’s decline might have been even steeper if not for several less-controversial ’90s associations, such as fictional character Monica Geller (from Friends), tennis player Monica Seles, and mononymous R&B singer Monica (whose duet with Brandy, “The Boy Is Mine,” topped Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart for 13 weeks straight in mid-1998).

Sources:

Images: Adapted from Monica Lewinsky (US DOD) and Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky on February 28, 1997 (White House)

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

Jamelle Holieway (Sooners Illustrated, Nov. 1987)
Jamelle Holieway

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Jamelle saw elevated usage for several years during the 1980s:

  • 1989: 34 baby boys named Jamelle
  • 1988: 93 baby boys named Jamelle
  • 1987: 89 baby boys named Jamelle
  • 1986: 74 baby boys named Jamelle
  • 1985: 22 baby boys named Jamelle

What was influencing this name?

College football player Jamelle Holieway, who, in early 1986, became the first true freshman quarterback to win a national championship.

In October of 1985, during his first year at the University of Oklahoma, Holieway took over for starting QB Troy Aikman (who’d broken his ankle during the fourth game of the season). The Sooners went on to achieve an overall record of 11-1 (following their Orange Bowl win against Penn State on New Year’s Day) and place first in the NCAA rankings.

The Holieway-led Sooners also went 11-1 in 1986 and 1987, placing third in the NCAA rankings both years.

Holieway wasn’t able to continue playing at the same level during his senior year, however, due to having torn his ACL during the ninth game of the previous season.

What are your thoughts on the name Jamelle?

P.S. One of the 1987 babies named Jamelle was Holieway’s own son, Jamelle Lionel, born in December.

P.P.S. In 2019, Clemson University’s Trevor Lawrence became the only other true freshman quarterback (so far) to win a national championship.

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the cover of Sooners Illustrated (14 Nov. 1987)

What gave the baby name Michelle a boost in 1966?

The Beatles' album "Rubber Soul" (1965)
Beatles album

The French name Michelle was already a top-20 girl name in the U.S. when it suddenly saw a massive increase in usage in the mid-1960s:

  • 1968: 33,222 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 2nd]
  • 1967: 30,826 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 3rd]
  • 1966: 27,158 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 4th]
  • 1965: 16,215 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 18th]
  • 1964: 16,182 baby girls named Michelle [rank: 23rd]

Michelle’s jump of nearly 11,000 baby girls from 1965 to 1966 easily qualifies as the steepest girl-name rise of the year. In fact, the jump currently ranks 10th on the list of top girl-name rises of all time.

So, what was drawing extra attention to the name Michelle in 1966?

“Michelle” by the Beatles. The love ballad — and the only Beatles song to feature French lyrics — was a track on the British band’s sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, which came out in December of 1965.

Here’s what “Michelle” sounds like:

“Michelle” was never released as a single in the U.S., so it never ranked on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. Despite this, it was played frequently on the radio, and ended up winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in March of 1967.

The song started out as a French-sounding ditty that Paul McCartney would play at parties in Liverpool during the late 1950s (when Left Bank bohemian culture was trendy in England). In the mid-1960s, at the suggestion of John Lennon, Paul developed the ditty into a proper song. He wrote the lyrics around the French feminine name Michelle, and came up with the rhyming phrase ma belle (“my beauty”) and the lyrics sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble (“are the words that go very well together”) with some help from a French-speaking friend.

Thanks largely to the song, the name Michelle was one of the top five girl names in the nation from 1966 to 1974. Though it ranked second a total of four times, it never managed to take the top spot. (It was denied by Lisa during the late 1960s, then Jennifer during the early 1970s.)

What are your thoughts on the name Michelle? (Do you know anyone named after the song “Michelle”?)

P.S. Coincidentally, Paul McCartney was married for nearly three decades to Linda Eastman, whose first name inspired the 1946 song “Linda,” which turned Linda into the fastest-rising girl name of all time from 1946 to 1947.

Sources: Michelle (song) – Wikipedia, Michelle – The Beatles Bible, SSA

What gave the baby name Gilda a boost in the mid-1940s?

The title character from the movie "Gilda" (1946)
Gilda from “Gilda“

The baby name Gilda achieved its highest ranking in 1927, thanks to shimmying Gilda Gray. But it didn’t reach peak numerical usage until two decades later:

  • 1948: 281 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 479th]
  • 1947: 346 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 441st]
  • 1946: 305 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 442nd]
  • 1945: 68 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 920th]
  • 1944: 61 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 994th]

Why did the usage of Gilda more than quadruple in 1946 (which, admittedly, was the first year of the baby boom)?

Because of the hit movie Gilda, which was released in April of that year.

The movie was a “dark and twisted love story” set in Buenos Aires. It involved gambler Johnny Farrell (played by Glenn Ford), who worked for casino owner Ballin Mundson (played by George Macready), whose new wife just so happened to be Johnny’s ex-lover Gilda (played by Rita Hayworth).

A classic of film noir, Gilda featured Hayworth as the quintessential “noir woman,” a duplicitous temptress and an abused victim in equal measure.

Hayworth’s portrayal of the the seductive Gilda turned the actress “into one of the cinema’s most unforgettable and enduring sex goddesses.”

Several months after the release of Gilda, the world’s fourth atomic bomb detonation (the first during peacetime) occurred above Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Servicemen had nicknamed the bomb Gilda — a nod to Hayworth’s status as a bombshell — and stenciled “Gilda” on the side of the explosive. They even affixed an image of Rita Hayworth (cut out of Esquire magazine) below the stenciled name.

This spontaneous tribute earned Miss Hayworth nearly as much international publicity as the fearsome “Gilda” got for itself by exploding on schedule. To Miss Hayworth’s studio it amounted to the most literally earth-shaking free plug in the history of the world.

Which name do you like more, Gilda or Rita?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Gilda