What turned Blade into a baby name in the early 1980s?

The character Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) from the movie "Blade Runner" (1982)
Rick Deckard from “Blade Runner”

The name Blade first emerged in the U.S. baby name data in 1982:

  • 1984: 8 baby boys named Blade
  • 1983: unlisted
  • 1982: 7 baby boys named Blade [debut]
  • 1981: unlisted
  • 1980: unlisted

Why?

I think the influence was the 1982 movie Blade Runner, which was based on the dystopian sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick.

The movie was set in Los Angeles in 2019. The main character, Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), worked as a “blade runner” — a police officer tasked with tracking down and killing genetically-engineered humans known as “replicants” (which were designed to work in space colonies, but sometimes escaped to Earth).

This is one of several cases in which a baby name seems to have been inspired by a movie title as opposed to a movie character. Another example is Seattle, which debuted the year after Sleepless in Seattle came out.

The baby name Blade went on to see a steep rise in usage during the first half of the 1990s, no doubt thanks to the Young and the Restless character Alexander “Blade” Bladeson (played by Michael Tylo). The character appeared on the soap opera from early 1992 to late 1995.

The character Blade (played by Wesley Snipes) from the movie "Blade" (1998)
Blade from “Blade”

Blade never managed to crack the boys’ top 1,000, but it did reach and maintain its highest level of popularity from the mid-’90s through the first years of the 2000s.

  • 2003: 89 baby boys named Blade
  • 2002: 112 baby boys named Blade (peak popularity)
  • 2001: 103 baby boys named Blade
  • 2000: 95 baby boys named Blade
  • 1999: 99 baby boys named Blade

During most of this period, the primary pop culture influence would have been the movie character Blade, who was featured in a trilogy of superhero/horror films: Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), and Blade: Trinity (2004).

Blade (played by Wesley Snipes) was an African-American dhampir (half-human, half-vampire) whose mission was to hunt and kill vampires. His birth name was Eric Brooks; his nickname was a reference to his proficiency with bladed weapons such as swords and daggers. (Like Black Panther, Blade originated as a Marvel comic book character.)

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

Sources: Blade Runner – Wikipedia, List of The Young and the Restless characters (1990s) – Wikipedia, Blade (character) – Wikipedia, Blade (Eric Brooks) – Marvel, SSA

Images: Screenshots of Blade Runner and Blade

What popularized the baby name Kiana in the 1990s?

Fitness instructor Kiana Tom
Kiana Tom on “Kiana’s Flex Appeal“

The baby name Kiana started picking up steam in the late 1980s. The name’s rise accelerated through the first half of the 1990s, and it reached peak popularity in 1996:

Girls named Kiana (U.S.)Girls named Kiana (HI)
19981,371 [rank: 226th]49 [rank: 9th]
19971,507 [rank: 198th]47 [rank: 11th]
19961,585† [rank: 190th]56 [rank: 8th]
19951,535 [rank: 192nd]41 [rank: 17th]
19941,117 [rank: 249th]39 [rank: 23rd]
1993712 [rank: 358th]36 [rank: 31st]
1992633 [rank: 402nd]38 [rank: 25th]
1991333 [rank: 658th]20 [rank: 65th]
†Peak usage

The name was particularly trendy in the state of Hawaii.

Here’s a visual of the national usage:

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

What was drawing attention to the name Kiana during those years?

Fitness personality Kiana Tom.

It all started in the mid-1980s, when ESPN began broadcasting fitness shows. Their first, Bodies in Motion hosted by Gilad Janklowicz, premiered in 1985. Their second, Getting Fit with Denise Austin, followed two years later.

Their third, BodyShaping, started airing in 1988 and was originally hosted by 6-time Ms. Olympia Corinna “Cory” Everson. As the series evolved, though, hosting duties were transferred to Kiana Tom (who’d been one of Cory’s assistants) and bodybuilder Rick Valente.

Kiana Tom — who is of Chinese, Hawaiian, and Irish descent, and who typically did her beach workouts in a bikini — proved so popular with viewers that, in 1995, she was given her own fitness show: Kiana’s Flex Appeal on ESPN2.

She also hosted several other programs (such as ESPN Summer Sizzle) and gave acting a try (appearing in the fourth Universal Soldier film with Jean-Claude Van Damme, for instance) during the 1990s.

In a 2001 interview, she mentioned that she knew about dozens of her namesakes:

[A]t least 83 children have been named Kiana now — that’s the ultimate compliment!

She was born Joanne Kiana Tom in Hawaii in 1965. Her middle name is the Hawaiian form of the name Diana.

What are your thoughts on the name Kiana? (Do you like it more or less than the homophone Qiana?)

P.S. DePrise Brescia was another BodyShaping regular…

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Kiana’s Flex Appeal

What gave the baby name Tovah a boost in the late 1970s?

Actress Tovah Feldshuh in the TV miniseries "Holocaust" (1978)
Tovah Feldshuh in “Holocaust“

The name Tovah appeared for the first time in the U.S. baby name data in 1976. It saw its highest-ever usage several years later, in both 1979 and 1980:

  • 1981: 31 baby girls named Tovah
  • 1980: 37 baby girls named Tovah
  • 1979: 37 baby girls named Tovah
  • 1978: 31 baby girls named Tovah
  • 1977: unlisted
  • 1976: 6 baby girls named Tovah [debut]
  • 1975: unlisted

What was drawing attention to the name around that time?

Stage and screen actress Tovah Feldshuh, who began appearing on Broadway, on television, and in the movies (in that order) during the 1970s.

The name’s 1976 debut could be due to Feldshuh’s dozen appearances (as supporting character Martha McKee) on the popular daytime soap opera Ryan’s Hope from May to August of that year.

The name’s peak usage followed Feldshuh’s Emmy-nominated role as Helena Slomova, a Jewish resistance fighter from Prague, in the memorable TV miniseries Holocaust. The four-part miniseries was originally broadcast in April of 1978, and then rebroadcast in September of 1979.

Tovah Feldshuh was born Terri Sue Feldshuh in New York City in 1952. The first part of her stage name comes from her Hebrew name, Tovah, which is the Hebrew word for “good.” (The feminine form of the word/name can also be transcribed Tova. The masculine form is Tov.)

What are your thoughts on the name Tovah?

P.S. The director of the TV miniseries Holocaust, Marvin J. Chomsky, also co-directed the TV miniseries Roots (1977).

Sources: Tovah Feldshuh – Wikipedia, Holocaust (miniseries) – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Screenshot of the miniseries Holocaust

What gave the baby name Kermit a boost in 1901?

Presidential son Kermit Roosevelt (1889-1943)
Kermit Roosevelt (in 1902)

In November of 1900, Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election.

In September of 1901, less than a year later, President McKinley was assassinated and succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt’s second son, Kermit, had turned 11 a month before the election, and was still 11 when his father became president of the United States.

His rare first name, Kermit, debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1900 and saw a sizeable boost in usage the very next year. In fact, Kermit was the fastest-rising baby name of 1901 (in terms of relative increase).

  • 1903: 12 baby boys named Kermit [rank: 679th]
  • 1902: 16 baby boys named Kermit [rank: 547th]
  • 1901: 17 baby boys named Kermit [rank: 481st]
  • 1900: 6 baby boys named Kermit
  • 1899: unlisted
  • 1898: unlisted

The earliest decades of the SSA data tend to under-count actual usage, so, for comparison, here’s data from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for the same period of time:

  • 1903: 107 people with the first name Kermit
  • 1902: 118 people with the first name Kermit
  • 1901: 64 people with the first name Kermit
  • 1900: 12 people with the first name Kermit
  • 1899: 1 person
  • 1898: 2 people

But there’s more to the story than that, because later spikes in the name’s usage also seem to line up with events in Kermit Roosevelt’s life.

Graph of the usage of the baby name Kermit in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Kermit (SSA data)

From March 1909 to June 1910, Kermit accompanied his father on an expedition to Africa. Various photos of Kermit (including the one below) ran in the newspapers both before and during the trip. The SSA data indicates that the name ranked 175th and 193rd, respectively, in 1909 and 1910 — the only two times it’s ever placed inside the boys’ top 200.

Kermit Roosevelt's photo in a newspaper (Sept. 1908)
Newspaper photo of Kermit (Sept. 1908)

In June of 1914, Kermit married Belle Wyatt Willard, the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to Spain. (Kermit and his father had also just returned from a perilous five-month trip to the Amazon basin, but the newspapers didn’t seem as interested in the second expedition as they were in the wedding.) The same year, the name nearly doubled in usage.

In July of 1918, Kermit’s youngest brother, Quentin, was killed in combat during WWI. Months later, in January of 1919, his famous father died suddenly in his sleep. The name Kermit saw a steep rise in usage in 1918, followed by peak usage (in terms of absolute numbers of babies) in 1919.

(Incidentally, dozens of baby boys were named either “Quentin Kermit” or, more often, “Kermit Quentin” during the first decades of the 1900s. One example: Kermit Quentin Turner, born in Oklahoma in 1919.)

For seven months during 1925, Kermit and his eldest brother, Ted, went on an expedition to the Himalayas. The newspapers (again) seemed only moderately interested in the trip, but the name Kermit did see slightly higher usage in the mid-1920s.

And it saw another uptick in 1943, the year that Kermit Roosevelt — who, during the 1930s, had been hit hard by the Great Depression and also became an alcoholic — committed suicide in Alaska after being medically discharged from the U.S. Army.

Kermit’s name — which was also the middle name of his mother, Edith Kermit Carow — ultimately honored Edith’s uncle, merchant and shipowner Robert Kermit.

The surname Kermit is an Anglicized form of the Manx surname Kermode, which in turn is a form of the Irish surname Mac Diarmada. The Irish surname is derived from the Irish personal name Diarmaid, which is of unknown etymology.

What are your thoughts on the name Kermit?

Sources:

Images: Adapted from Kermit Roosevelt and Jack, the dog (public domain); clipping from the Warren Sheaf (3 Sept. 1908)