View Message

This is a reply within a larger thread: view the whole thread

[Opinions] Re: Looking for Names That Were Popular in 1950s Georgia (U.S.)
The British name expert Leslie Dunkling has a chapter on Black American names in his book "First Names First". In it he includes a list of the top 20 names of students at all-Black universities or colleges in the USA in 1975, which would for the most part be names of persons born between 1953 and 1957. His list of the top women's names is:Deborah
Sandra
Patricia
Beverly
Cynthia
Barbara
Mary
Denise
Jacqueline
Catherine
Betty
Janice
Carolyn
Linda
Marsha
Gail
Joyce
Brenda
Gwendolyn
Constance
Karen
MarilynNow, you must remember that since the above are the names of college students they are the names favored by middle class or educated Black parents in the 1950s and not necessarily identical to a list that would include names given by less educated parents. However, it is true, as others have stated, that back in the 1950s the names of Blacks and Whites in general were more similar in the USA than they were after the 1960s.The one name in the above list which is probably the most different from the population as a whole in its popularity was Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950, making her the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, which made her incredibly well-known by educated Black parents in the USA, and inspired many of them to name their daughters Gwendolyn or Gwen, which then became much more popular names for Blacks than Whites in the US for a few decades. This is sort of ironic given the etymology of Gwendolyn.

Replies

That is so interesting regarding the popularity of Gwendolyn and Gwen among Black parents!