Not directly relevant, but what the hey: After hearing a Kim Komando radio show about 'ego-surfing,' curiosity nudged me to enter my name -- Merry Whitney -- into a Google search; it brought up more than 25,000 hits, most of which were Whitney Houston/"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (as well as several other Merry Whitneys). Merry Whitney Keen wrote: > In our branch of the family, Whitney is a unisex middle name, and we > sometimes use our middle names as our given names. Hence my uncle > Alfred Whitney Murphy, my (female) self, my daughter Mary Whitney > Kelting use(d) Whitney as a given name. My cousin Peter Whitney > Murphy, my grandson Alexander Whitney Sacchini, my grandmother's > cousin Marian Whitney Griffin, my cousin Marian Whitney Barlow, and my > nephew Graham Whitney Armstrong use it as a middle name, usually > honored only with the initial. I think there was a surge of unrelated > Whitneys in the US due to the popularity of Whitney Houston, the > singer, and perhaps civil rights leader Whitney Young (especially if > there was an uptick of black Whitneys in the 1970-80s). Celebrity > names have always enjoyed a certain popularity. I also have two > friends who are not related to me who names their daughters Whitney > because they liked my name and the distinctiveness, especially in > females, that it carried. It's a great name to have. I don't know how > many of the Whitneys on this list use Whitney as a given name, but I > have always found it terrific; people remember it, before there was > gender equality I was able to get credit cards on my own name, and it > helped get job interviews. > > Whitney Keen > > R R Kyser wrote: > >> Friends have directed me recently to a couple of online statistical >> "engines" devoted to given names, the first for the U.S. and the >> second for France: >> >> http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/ >> http://meilleursprenoms.com/ >> >> (NB: you need to have Java to use the US one. It's also there to >> sell a book.) >> >> In America, Whitney as a girl's name ranks #684, 459, 66, and 91, >> respectively, for the 1960s through 1990s, and places #448 for 2003. >> Female Whitneys peaked in the 1980s at over 1300 per million babies >> (not clear if that's all babies, or just girls), but have dropped to >> about 220/mil for 2003. (Fine with me; who wants all those unrelated >> people poaching our name?) >> >> Whitney as a boy's name cracks the top 1,000 in the 1910s, and again >> in the 1960s through 1980s. Male Whitneys peaked in the 1980s at 54 >> per million babies, then drop out of sight. >> >> Oddly, about 65 female Whitleys (per million babies) were born in the >> 1990s, the decade Whitney began to slide. I wonder if the parents >> were purposely avoiding the too-trendy Whitney-- as no doubt many >> parents of Whitneys were running from "Courtney" and "Brittany"! >> >> Whitney also made a mention in the author/sitemistress's blog for >> Thursday: >> >> "For boys, parents [ca. 1900] chose glittering dreams of >> aristocracy. Alongside John and George, we saw boys named with the >> surnames of the upper crust-- Milton, Sidney, Whitney." >> http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/2005/03/days-when-myrtles-were- >> young.html >> >> Well, not quite... little Milton and Sidney were probably named for >> the poets, whom folks actually bothered to read back then, and any >> Whitney of the day almost certainly descended from John or Henry. >> >> Whitney is now showing up as a given name in France. 1993 was the >> peak year, with 53 christened. (Did Miss Houston have a major hit >> around that time?) Except for a lone(ly) birth in the 1940s >> (probably to some Anglo-Saxon couple, and likely male), there were >> none before the late 1980s. But, zut alors!, Whitney placed 1,770th >> for the 20th century, and was at 763rd for 2000: >> >> http://meilleursprenoms.com/stats/histogram.php3?recherche=whitney >> http://meilleursprenoms.com/Etymologie/Etymologie.php3?search=whitney >> >> Enter any traditional French name in the box, and you'll notice >> rather large troughs coinciding with the World Wars. The names >> weren't being given because the children weren't being born. >> >> Cheers, >> Ron Kyser >> > > >