Melissa - Popularity

Popularity

Melissa was not a popular name in the United States until the 1950s. Very popular during the decades from the 1960s through the 1990s, today Melissa is somewhat of a rare baby name; in 2010, fewer than 2,500 girls were given the name, compared with around 10,000 in 1993 and well over 30,000 at the name's peak popularity in 1979. In 2007, Melissa was the 137th most popular name for girls born in the United States, dropping steadily from its peak of second place in 1977. It was among the top ten most popular names for girls from 1967 to 1984. The name "Melissa" was also the name of a song by the Allman Brothers, which has enjoyed renewed popularity in the 2000s (decade) due to its feature in a commercial for Cingular/AT&T Wireless cell phone company and the use of it in a scene in Brokeback Mountain. "Melissa" was also prominently featured in the 2005 film House of D. Famous celebrities such as Melissa Joan Hart, have used the name.

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Famous quotes containing the word popularity:

    Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’
    —Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords, that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)