TV Mom Names

Sharper and steelier than Martha, but with the same underused vintage appeal.

When Deborah seemed too formal in the laid-back sixties, Debra stepped in as a pared-down alternative, but the pendulum is about to swing back.

It will be a long time before Carmela shakes the image of TV's Sopranos wife.

Sam as a name standing on its own was given to only 12 girls in 2015, versus over 500 boys. But as a short form it's appealing and down-to-earth for both sexes, and heard far more often: There were over 5000 baby girls named Samantha in the US in one recent year and more than 10,000 boys named Samuel, so you will hear the name Sam a lot more often than you might guess judging by the numbers for this short form. Like Charlie, Sam is a nickname that works equally well as a girls' name as a boys'.

Charles Addams invented the name Morticia for the mother in his cartoon series "The Addams Family." The name comes from the word mortician—very appropriate for this macabre mom.

Shirley Temple almost single-handedly lifted the gloom of the Great Depression, and in tribute (and perhaps wishing for a similarly curly-headed, dimpled darling of their own), thousands of parents of that generation gave their little girls her name. In 1935, Shirley was the second most popular girls' name in the country with more than 42,000 babies named Shirley.

Marcia is the most common version of this group of names in the U. S., now found more often among moms and grandmas than babies. Marsha was a Top 100 name in the 1950s, when Marcy was its common go-by name.

Cookie is most often used as a dog name, and it should stay that way.

Forever -- or at least for a while -- linked to the onetime "Domestic Goddess", Roseanne Barr.

Lacks the cachet of some newer place-names.

Famously the name of Samantha's mother on Bewitched.

Peg is a nostalgic turn-of-the-last-century nickname, sociable but slight. Like near-identical twin Peggy, Peg is in mothballs.

This simplified spelling of Claire does not improve on the more popular version.