Darci will be throwing her voice in Omaha next Sunday.

Darci Lynne, born Darci Lynne Farmer in 2004, won the top prize on “America’s Got Talent” in September 2017, a month before turning 13. A ventriloquist whose puppets include sweet bunny Petunia and stuttering Motown mouse Oscar, she stars at Omaha’s Orpheum Theater March 6.

Darci’s a respelling of Darcy, a surname with two origins. Darcy came to England with William the Conqueror’s knight Norman D’Arcy. He was granted vast lands in Lincolnshire. He was from Arcy, a French village whose name meant “Bear’s place” in Gaulish.

Darcys have been English aristocrats ever since. Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy of Darcy (1467-1537), was beheaded for rebelling against Henry VIII’s seizure of monasteries.

The most famous English Darcy is fictional Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen’s 1813 novel “Pride and Prejudice.” Proud but honorable Mr. Darcy is the model for romantic heroes in countless other novels and films.

In western Ireland, Darcy’s the English form of Ó Dorchaidhe, “descendant of the dark one.” Patrick Darcy (1598-1668) was a Galway lawyer who wrote the constitution for Confederate Ireland, Catholic rebels who ruled two-thirds of Ireland between 1642 and 1649.

When the custom of turning surnames into first names began during Elizabethan times, Darcy turned up among sons of British nobles. It remained rare; in 1841, the first British census found 29 men named Darcy.

Omaha has a new favorite Sonny.

The male elephant born to mother Claire at Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium Jan. 30 has been named Sonny by an anonymous donor. Half-sister Eugenia was born Jan. 7 to mother Kiki and father Callee.

Sonny’s a diminutive of “son” used to address boys or men younger than oneself. Though “son” goes back millennia to ancient Indo-European, “sonny” is surprisingly recent. The earliest example is found in 1833.

It’s hard to tell when Sonny became a nickname. It looks a lot like Lonny in 19th-century handwriting, and census takers sometimes used it for an unknown name. The 1860 census of Bloomington, Illinois, includes a German immigrant family with parents Daddy and Mammy and two boys both called Sonny. The census taker probably couldn’t understand their real names.

Exactly when the nickname became an official name is also unclear. Sonny first appeared on Social Security’s yearly name lists in 1888. However, Social Security only began in 1935, and only since the 1980s has everyone gotten a Social Security card as an infant. Many born before 1970 didn’t enter the data until they were going by a nickname which wasn’t given at birth.

It’s probable boys were being officially named Sonny by 1920, though, because the name starts showing pop culture influences. The first big boom in Sonnys began in 1928, when Al Jolson’s hit song “Sonny Boy” premiered, sung by a father whose little son “made a heaven for me here on earth.” Sonny first peaked at 470th in 1935.