In grade school I remember hearing "Tiffany" on the role call time and again. It was a name as familiar to me as Michael or Jennifer, says Lani Axman on www.helium.com. I was born in 1980, around the same time that the name of Tiffany reached its height of popularity. My parents, on the other hand, studied reading, writing, and arithmetic with young ladies named Mary, Linda, or Barbara and had probably never met a Tiffany. What happened between my parents' births and mine to bring Tiffany out of the woodwork and onto the birth certificates of so many newborn babies?
The story actually started long before my parents squeezed and screamed their way into life. The name of Tiffany can be traced back to the Greek-"theophania" meaning a "manifestation from God" or "epiphany." Ancient Greeks in Delphi celebrated the Theophania as a festival celebrating the return of Apollo-the Sun God-after his long winter absence. Early Christians used the term "theophania" in reference to the traditional "Feast of the Epiphany" commemorating the January 6 arrival of the three magi at the bedside of the infant Jesus. The anglicized Tiffany appeared originally as a surname. A type of light silk had taken on the name of "tiffany," and the name eventually transferred to its purveyors.
The first Tiffany to enter the annals of U.S. history was Humphrey Tiffany. His tragic demise in 1685 was remembered through a couplet: "Squire Tiffany and Mistress Low
By a stroke of lightning into eternity did go." His horse ride from Swamsea to Boston may have been cut short, but his name had only begun its gallop into fame.
Humphrey's descendant, Charles Lewis Tiffany, and John B. Young opened Tiffany & Young on Broadway in 1837. Originally a stationary and fine goods store, the establishment grew to become Tiffany & Co. in 1853. The name of Tiffany would never again be the same. It was now fine jewelry and silver, rather than silk that consumers would forever associate with the name.
Yet even these grand achievements weren't enough to bring the name of Tiffany into vogue as a first given name for females. This achievement belongs to Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the celebrated film, Breakfast at Tiffany's. This 1961 academy award winning film thrust the name of Tiffany into the hearts of thousands upon thousands of Americans.
Before 1961, Tiffany didn't make a blip on the baby name radar screen, but in 1962 Tiffany jumped into the top 1000 names, ranked at 784. It climbed over the next decade to be 61st and reached its peak between 1980 and 1984 where it hovered around 14th, having skyrocketed into the top 20 girl names in the United States. Tiffany has declined in popularity since then but still remains far above its pre-1962 position.
The American band, Deep Blue Something, got it right in their 1995 smash hit, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"-"what about Breakfast at Tiffany's?" What was it about Breakfast at Tiffany's that turned this surname into a baby name sensation? Tiffany had become irrevocably intertwined with Hepburn's glamor and style as well as the lifestyle and high quality associated with Tiffany & Co. For the next two decades, the name of Tiffany held that aura and appeal. Parents chose it again and again, whether consciously hoping their daughters would grow to be beautiful and sophisticated, or whether they simply, "kinda liked it," as Deep Blue Something says.
For those of us born between 1980 and 1984, the name had long since lost its aura of sophistication. Tiffany was common and everywhere. It was the American pop star who flared into fame and fizzled. It was the girl next door with freckles and pigtails or the one who got pregnant in 10th grade. As we have grown and some of us have become mothers, we have let Tiffany fall further and further down the list in favor of names like Madison and Olivia, each with their own etymological history and unique rise to fame. Tiffany may fizzle out like the American pop star, receding back into the sea of surnames. Or Tiffany could come back - names do tend to re-surge - as the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of all those Tiffanys honor their matriarchs in name. "That's one thing [she's] got."
