The Baby Name Cobina
| 28 September 2011 | Filed under Baby Names, Girl Names, Pop Culture Baby Names, Unique Baby Names |
Esther Cobb (1887-1970) was an ambitious gossip columnist known professionally, and later legally, as Cobina Wright.
She had her only child, Cobina Carolyn Wright, in 1921.
Cobina Sr. made sure to groom Cobina Jr. “for a film career capped by a spectacular marriage.”
By 1938, [Cobina Jr.] was already under contract with 20th Century Fox while also modelling and singing in nightclubs. The next year, she won the title of Miss Manhattan and was named “most attractive and talented New York girl of the 1939 season.”
One of the glamour girls of her era, Cobina Jr. was even wooed by Prince Philip in the late 1930s.
In the early 1940s, she appeared in several films (e.g. Week-End in Havana) and made the cover of Life Magazine (17 February 1941).
While Cobina was at the height of her fame, her name appeared on the SSA’s baby name list twice:
- 1939: 8 baby girls named Cobina
- 1940: n/a
- 1941: 7 baby girls named Cobina
In late 1941, at the age of 19, she got married. Several years after that, Cobina Jr. retired from acting.
Source: Eade, Philip. “The romances of young Prince Philip.” Telegraph 4 Jun. 2001.
Interesting! In the newer Archie comics, there’s a meta-series called Wendell that essentially follows the plot of the older Archie comics. Wendell’s girlfriends (in lieu of Betty and Veronica) are Brenda and Cobina, and I always wondered where “Cobina” could come from.