How did Cambodian immigration influence U.S. baby names in the 1980s?

Cambodian refugee family (traveling to the Netherlands in 1985)
Cambodian refugee family

The Khmer Rouge, which came to power in Cambodia in April of 1975, was responsible for a genocide that claimed the lives of roughly 1.7 million people (21% of the country’s population). The majority of these people were executed; others succumbed to exhaustion, starvation, and disease.

In January of 1979, the Khmer Rouge government was finally overthrown.

In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled the country. Well over 150,000 of these refugees were resettled in the United States. Most arrived in the early to mid-1980s. (More than 27,000 came in 1981 alone.)

Did this influx of Cambodian immigrants have an impact on U.S. baby names?

Yes — Khmer names began appearing in the SSA data in the early 1980s:

197919801981
Samnang.7 boys*7 boys
Sokha..11 girls*
Mey..10 girls*
Maly..7 girls*
Bora..6 boys*
Sopheap..5 girls*
Virak..5 boys*
*Debut

Dozens of other Khmer names debuted over the course of the decade. (The SSA’s state-by-state data indicates that a number of these babies were born in California specifically.) Here’s what I’ve spotted so far:

Veasna and Sopheak were among the highest-debuting boy names of 1982 and 1985, while Sophan and Sarith were the top one-hit wonder boy names of 1985 and 1986.

Another Khmer name that caught my eye was Nary, which re-emerged in the data in 1982 and reached peak usage several years later. (It may have simply been a typo for Mary when it first appeared in the 1930s.)

I’ll also mention that Vanna — which became trendy for baby girls in the mid-1980s thanks to television’s Vanna White — happens to be a unisex Khmer name. This could explain its usage for baby boys that decade.

Other names that popped up in the data during the ’80s — names like Leng, Som, Heng, Chavy, Da, Rith, Narin, and Chany — may have been used by Cambodian families as well, though they’re also used by people of various other cultures (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Jewish).

P.S. In Khmer names, the letter-pairs “ph” and “th” make aspirated P- and T-sounds. So Sophea and Vuthy, for instance, are pronounced soh-pee-ah and voo-tee.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Aankomst 80 vluchtelingen uit Cambodja by Sjakkelien Vollebregt/Anefo via Nationaal Archief under CC0.

How did “The Thorn Birds” influence baby names?

The character Meghann "Meggie" Cleary from the TV miniseries "The Thorn Birds" (1983)
Meggie Cleary from “The Thorn Birds“

The Thorn Birds, a novel by Australian writer Colleen McCullough, was published in the spring of 1977.

Set in the Australian outback, the book followed three generations of the Cleary family from the 1910s to the 1960s. It was primarily about the forbidden love between main character Meghann “Meggie” Cleary and Catholic priest Ralph de Bricassart (who was nearly two decades Meggie’s senior).

The Thorn Birds became the best-selling book in Australian history. Curiously, though, it didn’t have a strong effect on Australian baby names.* (Neither Meghann nor Meggie has ever ranked among the top 100 girl names in either New South Wales or Queensland, for instance.)

In the U.S., on the other hand, the book wasn’t quite as popular — it was the second-best-selling book of 1977 after J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion — but Meghann debuted impressively in the U.S. baby name data the same year, and jumped into the girls’ top 1,000 one year later:

  • 1979: 374 baby girls named Meghann [rank: 517th]
  • 1978: 301 baby girls named Meghann [rank: 572nd]
  • 1977: 53 baby girls named Meghann [debut]
  • 1976: unlisted
  • 1975: unlisted

No doubt the trendiness of Megan around that time primed expectant parents to see spelling variant Meghann as a fashionable option.

Six years later, the Australian book was made into an American TV miniseries. The four-episode, ten-hour show — which starred Rachel Ward as Meggie Cleary and Richard Chamberlain as Father de Bricassart — was broadcast on ABC in March of 1983.

The televised version of The Thorn Birds was extremely popular. An estimated 110 million people tuned in to watch at least some portion of the program, making it the second-highest-rated miniseries in television history (behind Roots). It also earned 6 Emmy Awards and 7 Golden Globe Awards.

As a result, the usage of both Meghann and Meggie (which had debuted in the data in 1980) saw a marked increase:

Girls named MeghannGirls named Meggie
1985260 [rank: 688th]47†
1984236 [rank: 704th]24
1983297 [rank: 601st]42
1982166 [rank: 913th]9
1981170 [rank: 889th].
†Peak usage

The show also re-ignited the rise of Megan, and inspired the one-hit wonder Meghaan.

The character Dane O'Neill from the TV miniseries "The Thorn Birds" (1983)
Dane O’Neill from “The Thorn Birds“

Two characters featured predominantly in the final episode of the miniseries were Meggie Cleary’s adult children Justine (whose father was Meggie’s estranged husband Luke O’Neill) and Dane (whose father was de Bricassart).

The names Justine and Dane both saw increased in usage in 1983:

Girls named JustineBoys named Dane
1985939 [rank: 266th]1,003 [rank: 230th]
1984665 [rank: 346th]638 [rank: 306th]
1983522 [rank: 413th]831 [rank: 252nd]
1982313 [rank: 583rd]398 [rank: 419th]
1981310 [rank: 594th]334 [rank: 453rd]

In the case of Justine, however, the increase is only partially attributable to character Justine O’Neill; actress Justine Bateman of the popular sitcom Family Ties, which had premiered six months before The Thorn Birds aired, was also influencing baby names that year.

Finally, while neither the book nor the miniseries could reverse the decline of Ralph, we do know that Father de Bricassart had at least one namesake: football player D’Brickashaw Ferguson, born in New York in late 1983.

*We don’t have comprehensive historical baby name data for Australia — which, in terms of population, was about 15 times smaller than the U.S. in the late ’70s — so it’s hard to know exactly how much influence the publication of The Thorn Birds had on Australian baby names.

Sources:

Image: Screenshots of The Thorn Birds

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

Actor Cornel Wilde in the movie "A Song to Remember" (1945)
Cornel Wilde in “A Song to Remember“

According to the U.S. baby name data, the rare name Cornel more than sextupled in usage in 1946 (which was the first year of the post-war baby boom):

  • 1948: 47 baby boys named Cornel
  • 1947: 59 baby boys named Cornel [rank: 907th]
  • 1946: 38 baby boys named Cornel
  • 1945: 6 baby boys named Cornel
  • 1944: 5 baby boys named Cornel

This jump qualified Cornel as the year’s fastest-rising boy name, in terms of relative increase. One year later, the name reached peak usage.

What was drawing attention to the name Cornel in the mid-1940s?

Hungarian-American actor Cornel Wilde, who attained stardom with his portrayal of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin in the early 1945 film A Song to Remember. (The role earned Wilde his first and only Academy Award nomination.)

The “muscular and dashing” actor went on to star opposite Gene Tierney in the late 1945 melodrama Leave Her to Heaven, the second-highest-grossing film of the year. He also played the lead roles in the swashbucklers A Thousand and One Nights (1945) and The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946).

Wilde was born Kornél Lajos Weisz in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1912. After his family immigrated to the United States in 1920, his name was Anglicized to Cornelius Louis Wilde.

What are your thoughts on the name Cornel?

P.S. A Song to Remember was what inspired young pianist Wladziu Liberace to start putting a candelabrum atop his piano…

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of A Song to Remember

How did the movie “Aladdin” influence U.S. baby names?

The title character from the movie "Aladdin" (1992)
Aladdin from “Aladdin“

The animated Disney movie Aladdin, based on the Middle Eastern folk tale of the same name, was released in theaters in November of 1992.

Set in the fictional desert city of Agrabah, the film followed a street urchin named Aladdin (voiced by Scott Weinger) who, with the help of a genie summoned from a magic lamp, set out to win the heart of the sultan’s daughter, Princess Jasmine (voiced by Linda Larkin).

Aladdin became the highest-grossing movie of 1992. It went on to win multiple Oscar and Grammy Awards in early 1993.

It also had an influence on U.S. baby names. The rare name Aladdin, for instance, quadrupled in usage the year after Aladdin came out:

  • 1995: 6 baby boys named Aladdin
  • 1994: 13 baby boys named Aladdin
  • 1993: 24 baby boys named Aladdin (peak usage)
  • 1992: 6 baby boys named Aladdin
  • 1988: 5 baby boys named Aladdin

The titular character’s name is a form of Ala al-Din, which means “excellence of the faith” in Arabic.

The character Jasmine from the movie "Aladdin" (1992)
Jasmine from “Aladdin“

The name Jasmine saw a significant increase in usage the same year:

  • 1995: 10,279 baby girls named Jasmine [rank: 25th]
  • 1994: 11,713 baby girls named Jasmine [rank: 23rd]
  • 1993: 12,062 baby girls named Jasmine [rank: 23rd]
  • 1992: 10,478 baby girls named Jasmine [rank: 28th]
  • 1991: 11,525 baby girls named Jasmine [rank: 24th]

Jasmine was one of the fastest-rising girl names of 1993, in fact.

In the original tale, the princess’ name was Badr al-Budur, which means “full moon of full moons” in Arabic. Disney decided to rename the character, choosing Jasmine “because of the popularity of the actress Jasmine Guy at the time.” (Guy was also behind the trendiness of the name in the late ’80s, incidentally.)

Princess Jasmine’s pet tiger Rajah (pronounced rah-zhah) seems to have been influential as well. The name Rajah (which derives from the royal title Raja) reached peak usage for both baby boys and baby girls in 1994:

Girls named RajahBoys named Rajah
1996.6
1995177
199420†24†
199357
1992.7
†Peak usage

The name Jafar, which refers to the film’s primary antagonist (voiced by Jonathan Freeman), similarly peaked in popularity in 1994:

  • 1996: 17 baby boys named Jafar
  • 1995: 14 baby boys named Jafar
  • 1994: 33 baby boys named Jafar (peak usage)
  • 1993: 13 baby boys named Jafar
  • 1992: 7 baby boys named Jafar

The Return of Jafar, a direct-to-video Aladdin sequel that was released in May of 1994, was likely drawing extra attention to the villain’s name that year.

Sources:

Images: Screenshots of Aladdin