Where did the baby name Shalimar come from in 1954?

The character Shalimar from the movie "Princess of the Nile" (1954)
Shalimar from “Princess of the Nile

The name Shalimar first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1954:

  • 1958: unlisted
  • 1957: 6 baby girls named Shalimar
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted
  • 1954: 5 baby girls named Shalimar
  • 1953: unlisted

The inspiration here was not the famous perfume created by Guerlain in the 1920s, but a movie called Princess of the Nile released in mid-1954. It starred Debra Paget as an Egyptian Princess named Shalimar (who sometimes went incognito as a dancing girl known as Taura).

This was a few years after the Debra Paget movie Broken Arrow boosted Sonseeahray into the data, and a few years before Debra started outranking Deborah on the popularity charts.

But the word Shalimar is not Egyptian. It comes from the famous Shalamar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan. The gardens were created in the mid-1600s by Shah Jahan (who also built the Taj Mahal). “Shalamar” was derived from the Arabic phrase shah al-‘imarat, meaning “master of buildings.”

Source: Princess of the Nile (1954) – TCM, The meaning of ‘Shalimar’

Image: Screenshot of Princess of the Nile

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