I bet you know a Linda. I bet she is somewhere between the ages of 52-74.
No, I’m not testing my psychic abilities, I just know that Linda was a wildly popular name for girls in the United States from 1941-1963. So I just did some math.
In fact, Linda ranked in the top three for sixteen years, from 1944-1960, and was numero uno for six years running from 1947-1952.
Why you ask? What’s the fascination with the name Linda? I mean, it’s a lovely name…in Spanish it means beautiful…but why number one for six years straight?
Linda ranks 6th for number of years at the top, but 5th overall for those named between 1914-2013 with 1,447,270.
Actually, six years at the top isn’t really a big deal (see the chart), but for two things: Linda broke the Mary streak, and Linda seems to be the only popular name attributed to a cultural craze.
THE IMPACT OF POP CULTURE
Buddy Clark
You may know the song “Linda,” it was a huge hit for Buddy Clark back in February 1947. Yes, 1947, the same year that the name Linda hit number one with American parents for the first time!
This story has an interesting twist: the song was written in 1942 for one-year-old Linda Eastman. The same Linda Eastman that would grow up to marry a guy named Paul McCartney – you may have heard of him?
The lyrics aren’t aimed at the toddler set—at all—so how did this come about?
Songwriter Jack Lawrence was close friends with his attorney, Lee Eastman. Eastman asked Lawrence to write a song inspired by his new daughter’s name.
According to Lawrence, as he shopped the song to publishers in 1942, he found they liked the song, but were puzzled by the choice of the name Linda, because it wasn’t a popular name—for the adult women at the time! They even suggested other names to use, but Lawrence wouldn’t budge; he’d written the song for little Linda. So it took some time to get published:
Would you believe that nothing happened with my “Linda” song until…1946? My attorney friend called to tell me that one of his clients, Charlie Barnett was starting a company and in return for publishing rights, agreed to record “Linda.” Okay, I said. And then a weird thing happened. Somehow, Ray Noble got an advance copy of the song, fell in love with it… and recorded it with Buddy Clark singing the vocal. After all those years of going nowhere, “Linda“ was an overnight sensation.
…And so the Linda Generation was born!
Linda Eastman McCartney
Jack Lawrence, songwriter
WHY AM I WRITING ABOUT LINDA?
Yes, my mother’s name is Linda. I didn’t know about the song until several years ago when my grandmother asked, “can you find me a copy of the song Linda, by Buddy Clark? You know that’s why your mother is named Linda.” How had I gone 30+ years not knowing this little nugget? (And thank you iTunes!)
I have to say, my thoroughly modern mind was a little shocked the first time I heard the song, specifically the intro…definitely from another time and place! My reaction was “RUN LINDA! RUN!”
Check out the video (MTV ain’t got nuthin’ on this!), and see what you think:
Hello Creeper! And that tie??? I’d be running from the tie alone.
WHY DO NAMES BECOME POPULAR?
Studies show it is “herd mentality”—people go with what others do—and change is simply random. When you look at the top five names over time, you see a name move up the list, like Linda from 1942-1946, and when it reaches Number One people are hooked and it stays there for years.
The final analysis on Linda?…compared to Mary, Jennifer, and Emily, the fad burned hot and fast.
A flirty song arrived at just the right moment to give Linda the boost to unseat pious Mary (temporarily), making it a rather unique trend!
Are you a Linda? Might you join the LINDA Club? And how about the song, what do you think? Let me know in the comments! Come on over to Facebook and see what’s new there too!
Me and my Linda…back in the day!
SOURCES:
McLellan, Dennis, “Jack Lawrence dies at 96; songwriter did lyrics for ‘Tenderly’ and ‘Beyond the Sea’,” LA Times, March 18, 2009, http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jack-lawrence18-2009mar18-story.html
United States Social Security Administration, Official Site, http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/top5names.html, accessed January 21, 2015.
United States Social Security Administration, Official Site, http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/decades/century.html, accessed January 21, 2015.
Wikipedia, Linda McCartney, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_McCartney, accessed January 21, 2015.
Sounes, Howard. Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney,Cambridge, MA, De Capo Press, p. 173.
I love the things I learn from your blog each week, thanks for the education.
I actually enjoyed the song and thought it was romantic, not creepy. Would love to hear how their first date went!
Stay well my friend.
Glenda I’m glad you like the blog–and the song! It’s actually one of my favorites. For me, the idea of someone waiting for me to walk by every day would freak me out a little, that’s all! 🙂 I think it’s funny how Linda’s playing hard-to-get is just an act–she was pretty easily swayed in the end! I love the oldies, they don’t make ’em like that anymore!
The song . . . ahhh, a little cheesy, and yes Linda was easily swayed wasn’t she! 😉 It was a popular name back then, but in recent years you rarely hear of someone naming their daughters Linda. I was actually surprised that while you were coaching pom that there was a Linda on one of your squads, among all the Heathers!
A Linda Club?!?!
Yes! They have annual conventions, this year it’s in Linda, CA. You should join! 😉 Imagine being in a room full of Lindas…
Linda wasn’t on the Heather squad, she graduated the year before–but yes, it went from being super-popular to almost unheard of! (Kind of odd that I remember the year all those girls graduated. And I do.)
This is so interesting to me!!
My Dad, Ken, won a local Radio station singing contest in Fond du Lac , WI around 1948. He recorded the song
“Linda”. I was born in 1951 and named for that song.
Many special memories of our Dad singing it to me!
What a great story! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I’m a Linda. Used to hate the name but actually like it now
My father named me Linda because of this song but he sang another verse that said”when I can’t go to sleep I never count sheep. I count all the charms about Linda”
My Dad has been gone many years now but I wonder if he made that verse up himself ir if it was part of yhe original song.
What a sweet memory! That is the first line of the song (after the talking intro). The video in this post is a shortened version of the song–missing a whole minute!
Thanks for sharing your story!
Also a Linda. My dad sang the same words. Must be part of the song.
My dad also sang that same verse to me.
Yes! My Dad sang me that verse as well. To continue to the next line, “And lately it seems, in all of my dreams, I count all the charms about Linda.”
<3
Great post – I had just discovered the bump in Linda’s popularity while browsing through the SSA baby names database (don’t ask). I figured it had to be a famous Linda that was causing it, but I couldn’t think of any film or pop stars from the 40’s named Linda. Your post answered the “why” for the peak popularity bump (I didn’t know about the song). I knew of later bumps, like the Jennifer bump in the 1970’s after the movie “Love Story, but I had no idea about the Linda phenomenon, especially that the song was written for Linda Eastman.
But here’s another mystery: why was Linda rocketing up the popularity charts just prior to the release of the song? After 50 years of hovering around the 300th most popular girl’s name, Linda starts a move in popularity in the early 1930’s and then really takes off in popularity starting around 1935:
YEAR RANK
1880 305
1890 248
1900 293
1910 336
1920 352
1930 299
1931 269
1932 219
1933 216
1934 182
1935 165
1936 97
1937 48
1938 31
1939 15
1940 8
The popularity of names ebbs and flows, often sparked by some popular culture reference. Maybe the rise of Linda in the 1930’s doesn’t have any particular spark, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. If you have any clues about this, I’d love to hear them.
By the way, here’s a link to a great FiveThirtyEight article on baby names and peak popularity: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-tell-someones-age-when-all-you-know-is-her-name/
Thanks.
Well John, you piqued my curiosity! It turns out there were two movies released that coincide with the spike. The first in 1935 called Accent on Youth, starred Sylvia Sidney as Linda Brown. The second in 1936, Wife vs. Secretary, starring big guns Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow. Loy’s character was Linda! I would bet money this caused the sharp rise in “Lindas” over 1935-36, priming the masses (that “herd mentality”) to really fall in love with “Linda” when the song came out ten years later.
YEAR RANK PTS CHANGE % CHANGE
1930 299
1931 269 30 11%
1932 219 50 23%
1933 216 3 1%
1934 182 34 19%
1935 165 17 10%
1936 97 68 70%
1937 48 49 102%
1938 31 17 55%
1939 15 16 107%
1940 8 7 88%
Thanks so much for your comment and the link, and Happy New Year!
Love it
Thanks Linda! 🙂
My. Mother named me Linda after the film star Linda Darnell
I also was named after Linda Darnell, one of my dads favorite film actresses, my mum insisted on the Lynda spelling though.
Good for Mum—-thanks for sharing the story of your name!
Christina
My mom used to sing that song to me when I was little, but a different verse about counting sheep. I was born in a generation which doesn’t have many Lindas. I am forever hearing, “Oh, my mom/aunt/grandmother is named Linda.” I think I would have made a better Lindsay.
Hello from a 1952 UK Linda
Hi Linda–Thanks for checking in from the UK! 🙂
My mother named me “Linda Susan”. because Shirley Temple named her daughter Linda Susan.. My mother was a big fan of Shirley Temple back then.
I didn’t know Shirley Temple named her daughter Linda–thanks for sharing that nugget! 🙂
I grew up in a wonderful neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. There were 5 Linda’s I played with (counting myself). We were all called by our first and middle names to keep us all straight. My friends were Linda Mary, Linda Jane, Linda Marie, Linda Ann and myself, Linda Sue. It wasn’t until my family moved to the suburbs and I started attending high school that I was able to go by my first name only. I came across very few Linda’s there. In recent years, I’ve started hearing the name alot. However, it is not babies or toddlers sporting the name, it’s us older generation!
My Dad always sang this song to me. ?
And, it was recorded by Jan and Dean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiT4y-Kt4k4