What gave the baby name Tracy a boost in 1970?

The Cuff Links' album "Tracy" (1969)
The Cuff Links album

After rising for decades, the usage of Tracy (as a girl name) looked like it might plateau in the late 1960s. Instead, it rose steeply for two years in a row, reaching the girls’ top 10 for the first and only time in 1970:

Girls named TracyBoys named Tracy
197211,436 [rank: 19th]2,538 [rank: 111th]
197114,329 [rank: 13th]2,076 [rank: 144th]
197018,465† [rank: 10th]1,777 [rank: 162nd]
196915,108 [rank: 17th]2,169 [rank: 141st]
196812,742 [rank: 25th]2,655 [rank: 111th]
†Peak usage

Interestingly, when the female usage spiked, the male usage dipped. You can see both the spike and the corresponding dip on the name’s popularity graph:

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

Several other spellings (Tracey, Traci, and Tracie) also saw peak usage in 1970.

So, what was drawing attention to the name Tracy in the late 1960s?

The bubblegum pop song “Tracy,” which was performed by The Cuff Links (a studio band) and released in July of 1969. It peaked at #9 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in late October.

Here’s what the song sounds like:

Another influence may have been the character Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo (played by actress Diana Rigg) from the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which was released in December of 1969. (Thank you to Sharky for letting me know about this character!)

What are your thoughts on the name Tracy?

P.S. Diana Rigg also played the part of Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones…

Sources: Tracy (The Cuff Links song) – Wikipedia, Billboard Hot 100 for the week of 25 Oct. 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (film) – Wikipedia, SSA

What gave the baby name Cherylene a boost in 1946?

Cherylene Robison and her mother, Rona
Rona and Cherylene Robison

The baby name Cherylene saw peak usage in the U.S. in 1946:

  • 1948: 11 baby girls named Cherylene
  • 1947: 20 baby girls named Cherylene
  • 1946: 56 baby girls named Cherylene
  • 1945: unlisted
  • 1944: 7 baby girls named Cherylene

The name Cheryl was very trendy in the mid-1940s, and 1946 happened to be the first year of the post-war baby boom. But I think there’s a more specific reason for Cherylene’s impressive usage.

The reason?

A two-month-old Australian baby named Cherylene Robison, whose picture was published in a number of U.S. newspapers that January.

Doctors in Australia had determined that Cherylene needed life-saving cranial surgery. (Her fontanelle had not closed.)

So Cherylene and her mother, Rona, took a multi-leg “mercy flight” from Perth to Oakland (via Brisbane and Honolulu) courtesy of the U.S. military.

While they traveled east by plane, Cherylene’s father, American ex-serviceman Robert J. Robison, traveled west by train (from Kansas) to meet them.

Soon after the baby arrived, she was examined by doctors at the University of California Hospital in San Francisco. They concluded that she did not need an operation after all.

At the time of the 1950 U.S. Census, the Robison family was living together in San Mateo, California, and 4-year-old Cherylene had two younger siblings, Teresa and Reginald.

What are your thoughts on the name Cherylene?

P.S. Some of the 1960s usage of the name may have been influenced by child actress Cherylene Lee (b. 1953). She had a role in the 1963 John Wayne movie Donovan’s Reef, for instance.

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the Press Democrat (24 Jan. 1946)

What gave the baby name Marisol a boost in 1970?

Marisol Malaret, Miss Universe 1970
Marisol Malaret

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Marisol saw a spike in usage in 1970:

  • 1972: 639 baby girls named Marisol [rank: 346th]
  • 1971: 806 baby girls named Marisol [rank: 327th]
  • 1970: 897 baby girls named Marisol [rank: 311th]
  • 1969: 398 baby girls named Marisol [rank: 487th]
  • 1968: 286 baby girls named Marisol [rank: 566th]

Why?

Because of Puerto Rican beauty queen Marisol Malaret, who was crowned Miss Universe in Miami Beach, Florida, in July of 1970.

Notably, she was the first delegate from Puerto Rico to win the title. (There have since been four more Puerto Rican winners.)

Close to 60% of the usage of the name occurred in New York and New Jersey — the two states in which “nearly three-quarters of all Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. resided” in 1970.

Girls named Marisol (NY)Girls named Marisol (NJ)
1971305112
1970395 (44.0%)130 (14.5%)
196917952

The Miss Universe pageant doesn’t include a talent competition, but it does feature a national costume competition. Marisol’s costume was inspired by the phrase La perla del Caribe (translation: “the pearl of the Caribbean”) — a poetic name for the island of Puerto Rico.

Speaking of the island, Marisol flew home about a week after the pageant. Here’s how the New York Times described the scene:

Thousands of proud, cheering Puerto Ricans jammed the Isla Verde airport today and lined the six-mile route to the capital building to welcome home Marisol Malaret Contreras, Miss Universe of 1970.

I suspect that the baby name Marisol saw higher usage in Puerto Rico as well in 1970, but I don’t know for sure, because the SSA’s data for Puerto Rico only goes back to 1998. (The name Zuleyka got a boost in Puerto Rico in 2006, the year Zuleyka Rivera became the country’s fifth Miss Universe winner.)

What are your thoughts on the name Marisol? (Do you like it more or less than Zuleyka?)

P.S. The first runner-up at Miss Universe 1970, Deborah Shelton (Miss USA), went on to become an actress. She’s best known for playing Amanda “Mandy” Winger on the TV series Dallas.

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of the TV broadcast of the 19th Miss Universe pageant

What gave the baby name Candida a boost in 1971?

Tony Orlando and Dawn's album "Candida" (1970)
Dawn album

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Candida — which comes from the Latin word candidus, meaning “shining white” — saw a jump in usage (and entered the top 1,000 for the first time) in 1971:

  • 1973: 163 baby girls named Candida [rank: 802nd]
  • 1972: 170 baby girls named Candida [rank: 798th]
  • 1971: 222 baby girls named Candida [rank: 687th]
  • 1970: 95 baby girls named Candida
  • 1969: 30 baby girls named Candida

What gave it a boost that year?

The song “Candida” (pronounced kan-DEE-dah), which was sung by Tony Orlando…but credited to a non-existent group called Dawn.

(Orlando, an executive at Columbia Records, recorded the song for a competitor, Bell Records. Not wanting to jeopardize his career, he asked that Bell not reveal his name. “Dawn” was chosen because it was the name of the daughter of Bell executive Steve Wax.)

“Candida” was released in July of 1970. It peaked at #3 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in early October.

Here’s what it sounds like:

In an interview, one of the co-writers of the song, Toni Wine, explained how she came up with the name Candida:

We knew we wanted a Spanish girl’s name. Rosita had been taken. Juanita was a hit. Maria had happened. We knew we wanted to write a Latin-flavored song […] We needed a three-syllable word, and all those girls were gone. So Candida had been a name that I had toyed with, and there she became a reality.

The name of the fictitious group also influenced expectant parents: Dawn, already a top-100 girl name, entered the girls’ top 20 for the first time in 1970.

Speaking of Dawn…after it scored a second #1 hit, “Knock Three Times,” Tony Orlando decided to give up his day job and make Dawn a reality. He recruited a pair of backup singers, Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson, and the three of them started touring.

Telma Hopkins, Tony Orlando, and Joyce Vincent Wilson on the "Tony Orlando and Dawn Show" (1975)
Telma Hopkins, Tony Orlando, and Joyce Vincent Wilson

Together, the trio scored two more #1 hits:

  • “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” (1973), as Dawn featuring Tony Orlando, and
  • “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)” (1975), as Tony Orlando and Dawn.

They also hosted a musical variety series, The Tony Orlando and Dawn Show, which was broadcast on CBS from mid-1974 until late 1976. The New York Times described the series as “mildly hip, in a safe middle-of-the-road sort of way. It’s slick. It’s disarmingly hokey. Imagine, if you will, Sonny & Cher filtered through Lawrence Welk.”

While the show was on the air, the baby names Tony, Orlando, Telma, and Candida all saw discernible (if slight) upticks in usage.

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

P.S. The name Telma saw another uptick while Telma Hopkins, who went on to become an actress, was starring on the sitcom Getting By (1993-1994).

Sources:

Second image: Screenshot of The Tony Orlando and Dawn Show (episode from 1975)