A few girls called June

It’s June 1st today and the beginning of summer and apparently, despite all the cool and dismal weather we’ve had so far this year, things are going to get hotter in June. Well, that will be nice. The name of June was inherited from the Romans, of course, their month name was Iunius, and many European languages have inherited a version of it, as well as us.

I was thinking about this, and thinking about the girls name, June.  I can remember a few girls called June at school, but not sure there were many the same age as me or younger, and so I looked it up. According to the Office for National Statistics, on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being the most popular, there were not many or maybe any baby Junes before the 1920’s, when it appeared at the 80th most popular (or in the 80’s). By the 1930’s there was a massive surge, up into the top ten! Sadly it had peaked, and was in decline in the 40’s and 50’s, and vanished almost completely after that. Mind you, although there was a smattering of Loises, we don’t feature at all! You can check your name on the ONS site:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/babynamessince1904howhasyoursperformed/2016-09-02

I also looked to see if there were other famous people who I might know called June, apart from June Whitfield, the actress (1925-2018) In fact there weren’t many I recognised except June Carter Cash, Johnny’s wife. One interesting item about the given name June, which I learned from Wikipedia:

As a boy’s name, June reached a peak in 1922 at 697th, but then also declined and left the top 1000 list in 1939.

It’s quite a nice name, I wonder if it will become fashionable again as many old names are? Maybe I should write about someone called June.