# Origin of American names twofer: Lori and Tyrone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 12, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844 "2010-10-12T00:57:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/1 "2010-10-12T00:57:33Z")
How did Lori become such a popular name in the United States? What part of the world did it originate in? There is a county in Ireland called Tyrone which means in Irish (Gaelic) the _land of Owen/Eoin/Eoghan_. I’ve not heard tell of many Irish people with this name but it seems common enough in America. Is the American name derived from the place name or of a separate origin? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/2 "2010-10-12T01:06:17Z")
The [Name Voyager](http://www.babynamewizard.com/name-voyager) graph for Tyrone shows its popularity neatly parallels the career of [Tyrone Power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Power). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/3 "2010-10-12T01:14:39Z")
Tyrone was probably made popular because of the actor Tyrone Power: > **[Tyrone - Name Meaning, What does Tyrone mean?](https://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Tyrone)** > > Thinking of names? Complete 2021 information on the meaning of Tyrone, its origin, history, pronunciation, popularity, variants and more as a baby boy name. He was one of a long line of Tyrone Powers, the earliest of which was born in Ireland: > **[Tyrone Power (Irish actor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Power_(1795-1841))** > > William Grattan Tyrone Power (20 November 1797 – 17 March 1841), known professionally as Tyrone Power, was an Irish stage actor, comedian, author and theatrical manager. He was an ancestor of the American actor Tyrone Power and is also referred to as Tyrone Power I. > Born in Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, Ireland, Power was the son of Tyrone Power, reported to be “a minstrel of sorts”, by his marriage to Maria Maxwell, whose father had been killed while serving in the British Army during the ... This one actually had Tyrone as a middle name, as you can see. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/4 "2010-10-12T01:17:03Z")
Lori probably arose as a variant of Laura: > **[Lori - Name Meaning, What does Lori mean?](https://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Lori)** > > Thinking of names? Complete 2021 information on the meaning of Lori, its origin, history, pronunciation, popularity, variants and more as a baby girl name. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/5 "2010-10-12T01:20:17Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The [Name Voyager](http://www.babynamewizard.com/name-voyager) graph for Tyrone shows its popularity neatly parallels the career of [Tyrone Power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Power). He died in the late '50s and it reached its peak in the '70s. Could that one celebrity count for every Tyrone born since 1950? Am I right in my perception of Tyrone as a predominantly African-American name? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/6 "2010-10-12T04:05:57Z")
The first “Tyrone” I thought of was Tyrone Green, Eddie Murphy’s “C-I-L-L my landlord” character on Saturday Night Live. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/7 "2010-10-12T05:41:11Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Am I right in my perception of Tyrone as a predominantly African-American name? Well, you’re not _alone_ in that perception. I can’t find a link now, but I remember reading a few years ago that Irish immigrants to the US were being warned not to name their child Tyrone because he would be likely to face discrimination from potential employers who would assume he was black. (That’s what the article said. Don’t shoot the messenger.) ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/8 "2010-10-12T05:56:38Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > > [@RealityChuck](#): > > > > The [Name Voyager](http://www.babynamewizard.com/name-voyager) graph for Tyrone shows its popularity neatly parallels the career of [Tyrone Power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Power). > > He died in the late '50s and it reached its peak in the '70s. Could that one celebrity count for every Tyrone born since 1950? Am I right in my perception of Tyrone as a predominantly African-American name? Not all of them, of course. The actor first made the name popular and it snowballed from there. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/9 "2010-10-12T07:46:38Z")
I suspect that what happened was this: Tyrone Power became famous. Tyrone was a somewhat rare first name in Ireland that was traditional in his Irish-American family. Americans started naming their babies Tyrone because of the actor Tyrone Power. The name became moderately common in the U.S., even among those who didn’t much care about Tyrone Power. It became particularly common among African-Americans for some reason. At that point other Americans quit naming their babies Tyrone. There are other cases of this happening where a name that has no long tradition among a particular ethnic group in the U.S. for some odd reason suddenly becomes particularly popular in that ethnic group. Other Americans then quit using that name for their babies. Often then the members of that ethnic group later quit using that name themselves for their babies also because it now seems too obviously tied to that ethnic group. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/10 "2010-10-12T08:29:30Z")
There is a pronunciation difference. The name “Tyrone” seems to be pronounced “TIE-rone”, while the county name is always pronounced "tuh-RONE or “t’RONE” with the stress firmly on the second syllable. First generation Irish immigrants might call their son Tyrone if they were especially patriotic- but they wouldn’t prononce it the same as most Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/11 "2010-10-12T09:06:12Z")
It used to be fairly standard in the U.S. to pronounce it like this: \> "tuh-RONE or “t’RONE” with the stress firmly on the second syllable It’s only in more recent years, and it’s mostly among African Americans, that it has been more common to pronouce it like this: \> “TIE-rone” ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/12 "2010-10-12T10:03:40Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > It used to be fairly standard in the U.S. to pronounce it like this: > > \> "tuh-RONE or “t’RONE” with the stress firmly on the second syllable > > It’s only in more recent years, and it’s mostly among African Americans, that it has been more common to pronouce it like this: > > \> “TIE-rone” I only know one person called Tyrone, and he’s not black or Irish. He pronounces it “TIE-r@n” (with a schwa in the unstressed syllable). That’s in the UK Midlands. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/13 "2010-10-12T13:04:16Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I suspect that what happened was this: > > Tyrone Power became famous. Tyrone was a somewhat rare first name in Ireland that was traditional in his Irish-American family. > > Americans started naming their babies Tyrone because of the actor Tyrone Power. > > The name became moderately common in the U.S., even among those who didn’t much care about Tyrone Power. > > It became particularly common among African-Americans for some reason. > > At that point other Americans quit naming their babies Tyrone. Other than the racial angle, this basic process is true for most names. Other than the perennials (e.g., David, Michael, Charles, John), it boils down to: 1. Someone with an unusual name becomes known to the public (movie star, protagonist of a popular book, sports star, etc.). 2. People start using the name. 3. As the name becomes popular, other people start seeing these examples and naming their children with that name. 4. The process snowballs. 5. People decide the name is too common and start using different names. The name drops in popularity. It may become rare again, or it may become perennial – though not at the same level. This seems to happen more often with female names than male ones. Sometimes the first step isn’t clear cut, but often enough it is (e.g., Linda). ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/14 "2010-10-12T13:30:57Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Lori probably arose as a variant of Laura: > > [Lori - Name Meaning, What does Lori mean?](http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Lori) There was a somewhat abombinable period in ca. the 1970s when diminutive forms of female names began to be spelled with a terminal “i” as opposed to “ie,” and in some cases to be assigned as given names. Hence the rash of Jennis, Jacquis, and Loris. I side with the Ireland----\>Tyrone Power----\>black version of Tyrone, which jibes with everything I’ve seen. N.B. Tyrone does not seem to be very popular among blacks in recent decades, it probably would have peaked/begun to recede a few decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/15 "2010-10-12T17:35:32Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Other than the racial angle, this basic process is true for most names. Other than the perennials (e.g., David, Michael, Charles, John), it boils down to: > > 1. Someone with an unusual name becomes known to the public (movie star, protagonist of a popular book, sports star, etc.). > 2. People start using the name. > 3. As the name becomes popular, other people start seeing these examples and naming their children with that name. > 4. The process snowballs. > 5. People decide the name is too common and start using different names. The name drops in popularity. It may become rare again, or it may become perennial – though not at the same level. > > This seems to happen more often with female names than male ones. Sometimes the first step isn’t clear cut, but often enough it is (e.g., Linda). Wendy is another example. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/16 "2010-10-13T05:36:47Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > The name “Tyrone” seems to be pronounced “TIE-rone”, while the county name is always pronounced "tuh-RONE or “t’RONE” with the stress firmly on the second syllable. I’ve often heard the county name pronounced “tie-RONE”. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/17 "2010-10-13T16:01:55Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > > [@irishgirl](#): > > > > The name “Tyrone” seems to be pronounced “TIE-rone”, while the county name is always pronounced "tuh-RONE or “t’RONE” with the stress firmly on the second syllable. > > I’ve often heard the county name pronounced “tie-RONE”. So have I, some people also use something akin to the Irish pronunciation “Tier-own”. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/18 "2010-10-13T18:11:39Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Other than the racial angle, this basic process is true for most names. Other than the perennials (e.g., David, Michael, Charles, John), it boils down to: > > 1. Someone with an unusual name becomes known to the public (movie star, protagonist of a popular book, sports star, etc.). > 2. People start using the name. > 3. As the name becomes popular, other people start seeing these examples and naming their children with that name. > 4. The process snowballs. > 5. People decide the name is too common and start using different names. The name drops in popularity. It may become rare again, or it may become perennial – though not at the same level. > > This seems to happen more often with female names than male ones. Sometimes the first step isn’t clear cut, but often enough it is (e.g., Linda). Class also plays a role in the drop of a name’s popularity as does scandal if a public figure with that particular first name gets into trouble. “Brittany” (and it’s variants like “Britney”) is perfect example of a name whose popularity has dropped drastically because of these factors. It used to be a stereotypical yuppie monicker for girls but now it’s got such a white-trash reputation, _nobody_ would seriously consider naming their newborn daughter that. As for the second factor, “Richard” was a perennial male name for years until Richard Nixon’s presidency and Watergate when it took a sharp dip in popularity. I don’t know if it’s recovered since then. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/19 "2010-10-13T19:30:41Z")
**ruadh** , aye, but by Dubs, not Ulstermen 😉 My point was really that it it is the second syllable that is stressed. I’m not sure how to type things phonetically properly. The first syllable is (to my ears) somewhere in the tie teer tuh t’ family, but not quite any of them. I know what it sounds like, and I know how to say it, I’m just not good at transcribing it. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844/20 "2010-10-13T19:49:54Z")
All the Tyrones I know pronounce it tie-RONE, with the emphasis on the second syllable. I am 36. Most of the Tyrones I know are about 10 years older than me at least. I guess many of the black community has abondoned the name. Kids of my own generation were more likely to be named Tywan or Tyquan or Tyrell or some other such made up name. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-names-twofer-lori-and-tyrone/556844.md?page=2)