or How I Spent an Afternoon Jumping around on the Internet Trying to Get something for a J Post.
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to see if I could find any real-life June Cleavers. This idea was spurred by the release of the 1950s census data by the US government on April 1st. However, while the data may have been released, it's not available yet on Heritage Quest or Ancestry, where it will be easily searchable. But I did find data for 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses. As it turns out, there weren't that many June Cleaver's out there; in fact, not more than a couple of handfuls over the years. And none of them lived in Mayfield, where the Cleaver family of TV fame resided. :)
So instead, I used Social Security records to look at popular baby names through the years to see how popular the name June has been. As it turns out, June never made it into the top 20. The name was in its heyday in the 1930s when it was ranked in the mid-40s in popularity. What I consider old fashion names, such as Hazel and Mabel, are making a resurgence these days, but June has not caught on that way.
So when June didn't provide much data, I started looking at any names using the Social Security website starting with J. And do you know what I figured out? There are many more popular boy names that start with J than there are girl names. In the top 20, James and John have been popular for decades, along with Joseph, Jeffery, Jon, Jack, Jay, Jim, Jimmy, Joe, Jason, Joshua, Jonathan, Jason, Justin, Jacob, and Jackson.
When I examined the same time, 1950-2020, I found fewer girl names starting with J in the top 20. In fact, none showed up until 1970, when Jennifer was on the list along with Jessica, and those remained popular for the next 30 years. However, in the 21st century, no J female names have been in the top 20.
BTW, when I checked out the popularity of my real name, it was less popular than June, never making it into the top 100 and sometimes not even making it into the top 1000.
Do you have a popular name? What do you think about it?
My parents, according to my mother, tried to name us names that would not be targeted in school by bullies. Tom, Bill and then there's me. I don't know where they came up with my name. I hate it so much I thought of changing my name, using my middle name instead. I could still do that.
ReplyDeleteI had one of those names that was okay, but not popular. I never thought about changing it, but I wasn't always thrilled with it when I was younger. My son changed his name when he entered middle school, in that he told all of his teachers his new name and they used it. We never changed here at home, and eventually he went back to his given name.
DeleteI'm not sure what you real name is, but if it's Strayer, I like that. But I'm sure that it has caused problems at times.
No, that's just my user name.
DeleteMy name Afshan is not very common. In whole world there may be 100s that's all..old fashioned names yes are gaining popularity again
ReplyDeleteDropping by from a to z http://afshan-shaik.blogspot.com/
Just a few hundred in all of the world is indeed a rare name.
DeleteI do not have a popular name but I do have a common name. Kinda sums up my life!
ReplyDeleteWe have two Anne-with-an-E family members so it's popular in my family, at least. Did you read/watch Anne of Green Gables when you were younger? She wanted to be called "Cordelia" because she didn't like her name. :)
DeleteAnn(e) is certainly a popular name in our generation-especially as a middle name. I don't know how popular it is today, but I am going to stay away from the name ranking site because it is very easy to spend a lot of mindless time there. :)
DeleteI am the fourth child of a family whose kid's names all start with "K". My mom told me that it wasn't initially her intention to do that, but after the first two she kept up the tradition. I like my name and always have, and it (or various formulations of it) remain somewhat popular near where I live (I say that because there always seem to be multiple people named "Kris" at my job and most of them are in their 20s or 30s .... so younger than I am .... ).
ReplyDeleteI like your name, too. If we were really to talk about a letter naming theme, we could talk about the Duggars with their 20 J names. They could have been a J post all by themselves, but I don't think they need their name brought up any more these days.
DeleteI love how you came up with the topic for this post! :) There is a June in my extended family who has a sister named Aprille (neither of them born in those months) and I always thought the 3rd sister should have been named May, but, she wasn't! LOL.
ReplyDeleteBless is my blog name (shortened from Bless My Mess); my real name isn't an English name. It wasn't a common name (I knew of only one other person with that name and that's because her adoptive parents asked my mother if they could use my name); I have always liked my name.
My name is familiar to most people, but not very common. I was named after a neighbor who was friends with my parents. I finally met her (that I could remember) at my father's funeral. I was thrilled to see my namesake.
DeleteThat's interesting about the names, especially that there are so many more popular boy names that start with J. It seems like my name was fairly common during the 80s, but never one of the top ones. I don't hate it, but I don't love it. I've always wished they had named me Emily.
ReplyDeleteEmily and Emma were quite popular names, so you would have had good company if that had been your name.
DeleteLOL, I didn't realize you had aliases that you write under for you and your family. Brilliant! I don't use any one else's name in my family other than me for privacy so I appreciate you doing the same!
ReplyDeleteHow cute to look at the popular names like you did starting with the letter J. I don't know of any Junes so obviously, like you found out, it was not very popular.
Betty is not a popular name. A lot of people use it as a nickname for Elizabeth but my first name is actually Betty Jean; I don't have a middle name. I don't care for Betty Jean so I dropped the Jean a long time ago though for official records I'm listed as Betty Jean. My daughter has a not so popular girl name. My son has a rather popular boy's name but it doesn't start with a J.
I actually looked up a short while ago how popular the name Winslow was. It is very unpopular. He was actually named for the city of Winslow in Arizona (think Eagles song "Take it Easy".
Very nice post!
betty
I know several Betty's including my mother. These days nicknames aren't used so much, so Betty isn't used as much for Elizabeth.
DeleteNow I'm sing the Eagles song and that's not a bad thing-except for those around me. :)
Besides using aliases, I have very few pictures here where you can see someone's face unless it's decades old when someone was a child. If you see an adult face, I always get permission before I post it to respect someone's privacy.