Lennie

Where Lennie comes from

Lennie hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #518 among girls — 11 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1884
    Peak, #349
    32 babies named Lennie — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1886
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #657.
  4. 1919
    Lennie Tristano born
    American jazz pianist and composer
  5. 1965
    Lennie James born
    British actor
  6. 2015
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Lennie James · British actor, born 1965
  • Lennie Tristano · American jazz pianist and composer, 1919–1978
  • Lennie Niehaus · American saxophonist and composer, 1929–2020
  • Lennie Hayton · American composer and conductor, 1908–1971
  • Lennie Kristensen · Danish bicycle racer, born 1968, born 1968

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.