Martha Barnette gets a call from Martha Barnett, her Canadian tocaya who’s missing an “e” at the end of her last name. On the Global News website, you can see that the name Martha, perhaps now an anomaly in Canada, peaked in popularity around the late 1950s. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Martha’s Tocaya”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Martha Scheinman. I’m calling from Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Well, welcome. How can we help you?
Well, turns out my maiden name is Martha Barnette.
No!
Oh, really?
It is. And so that was one of the first things that I thought was really very interesting. Yours, I believe, has an E at the end. Mine does not.
Oh my gosh. No, well, you know, actually, the Barnetts didn’t have an E on the end until we moved from the mountains to the town, and my Aunt Mazo added an E because she thought it looked French.
So it could well be that you and I are related, because originally we were without the E.
Yeah, except that the story of how my family name became Barnette is kind of interesting. My grandfather came from Russia just around the turn of the century, and of course he came with a different last name that was changed at Ellis Island by the immigration officials.
Okay.
And the name they gave him was Barnette.
Oh, really?
Okay.
And we know the other name. We’ve always known the other name, and it’s a bit of a family story. It’s a bit of family lore.
What’s the other name?
It was Benach, B-E-N-A-C-H, very different.
Oh, how interesting.
But, yeah.
Well, Martha Barnette, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Did you call just to hear each other’s voices?
I’m enjoying hearing Martha Barnette’s voice, frankly. It’s very nice. It’s the Martha Club.
Did you have a question, Martha?
I did. Well, I’ve always wondered, too, about the name Martha. Now, having moved to Canada from the U.S. when I was about 14, I knew a lot of Marthas in the United States, but never met a Martha in Canada.
And I would speculate maybe that was because Martha was popular in the United States because of Martha Washington. I have no idea if that’s true or not true, but that’s really my question.
And it took until really 10, 15 years ago I did begin to meet a few Marthas. But I would have gone 20 years. I never even met one.
And Martha, how old are those Marthas?
The Marthas I met would be 50s, 60s now. And now I know those children. People are now naming their little children Marthas.
Oh, they are.
They’re coming back.
Yeah.
They are up here.
Yep, they are up here.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s just like my wardrobe. I just wait for the fashions to come back. You know, I just wear the same thing.
Me too.
You hold on to things long enough, then they’re very much in style again.
Exactly.
Well, I’m hoping that that will happen with Martha, although I’ve always thought of it as an old-fashioned name. In fact, my parents told me it was an old-fashioned name. It goes back to the Bible, actually.
If you look on the Global News website, a couple years ago, they analyzed the name database for Ontario, the province, and came up with a chart, and you can type in any common name, and it will give you a chart of the frequency of that name being used.
And Martha had a really great peak around the late 1950s and was actually pretty heavily used in the 1950s and 1960s to name baby girls. And then it’s declined very much since then.
So it doesn’t surprise me at all that the Marthas that you are meeting do have that name. But it also shows that the name was common in Canada, at least in that province.
Oh, that’s really interesting. I’ll have to look that up.
Now, I don’t know how it compares to all the other names that were given. And certainly in French pink in Canada, I’m sure it’s very different, but at least in that province.
Interesting.
And I think I remember reading that in this country, Martha had its peak back in the 1880s.
Yeah.
So there’s a couple of websites where you can do name trends, baby names, that sort of thing. You can graph the Social Security database.
Martha had a rank in the 1950s of the 49th most common name. And then in 2012, it was the 730th most common name. So it’s dropped dramatically.
Aren’t actually that many names and like the top thousand is a pretty steady kind of list grant. By the way was when I was born in 1970 was the 270th most common name and in 2013 it’s the 168th most common name.
Oh, so moving on up.
Well, no, actually it’s declining again in the early 200s. Late 1990s it had another heyday.
Oh yeah, so it’s, you know, there’s tons of data out there for this. And we can show that Martha peaked in the 1950s 1960s but I think the name we’re talking about.
The name. Yes. No, I think as people, it’s true. It’s also true. As individuals. When you were three, you were at your best.
That’s right. It’s all been downhill since then.
No, no, no. Martha, I think we’re about to have another heyday. I can just feel it. Martha Barnette, it is such a thrill to have you on our show.
Well, it’s been really fun for me.
Great. Well, thank you for calling. Maybe we can get a Grant Barrett to call us. There are a couple. One was just elected judge in Calaveras County.
That’s right.
Thanks, Martha.
Okay.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
