How popular is the baby name Aleeta in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Aleeta.

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Popularity of the baby name Aleeta


Posts that mention the name Aleeta

Where did the baby name Devara come from in 1967?

The name Devara was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data back in 1967:

  • 1969: unlisted
  • 1968: unlisted
  • 1967: 7 baby girls named Devara [debut]
  • 1966: unlisted
  • 1965: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Celebrity gossip…plus a typo. :)

In early 1967, newspapers reported that TV actor Vince Edwards was going to take his ex-wife, actress Kathy Kersh, to court because she “[made] it inconvenient for him to visit their 14-month-old daughter, Devara.”

This relatively minor item landed on the front page of certain (smaller) newspapers.

As we saw the other day, though, their daughter’s first name was actually Devera — making “Devara” yet another baby name inspired by a typo. (Others include Aleeta, Bedar, Clintonia, Glenalee, Kior, Mattlock, Rainelle, Reeshemah, and Terria.)

What are your thoughts on the name Devara? Do you like it more or less than Devera?

Source: “Wants His Ex-Wife Punished.” Salina Journal 15 Mar. 1967: 1.

What gave the baby name Aleeta a boost in 1933?

Aleeta & Mertis Fleming, 1933

In 1933, the relatively rare baby name Aleeta saw an isolated spike in usage:

  • 1935: unlisted
  • 1934: unlisted
  • 1933: 17 baby girls named Aleeta [peak]
  • 1932: unlisted
  • 1931: unlisted

What gave it a boost that year?

Aleeta Fleming, a 28-year-old “farm wife” from northeastern Ohio who was in the news starting on August 6th. A physician had recently determined that her 4-month-old son, Mertis, Jr., had died of strangulation. Following that revelation, Aleeta “glibly” confessed to the murder of not just Mertis, Jr., but also to the murder of an earlier son, Willis, who she’d poisoned as a baby in January of 1932.

The next day, she repudiated her confession and instead blamed her 55-year-old husband Mertis, who “disliked boy babies,” for the deaths:

Mrs. Fleming said her husband gave all his affection to their 3-year-old daughter, Beatrice, and complained to her that the boys fretted too much…[She] was quoted by the sheriff as asserting her husband threatened to kill her unless she made away with the boy babies.

Both parents ended up pleading guilty to second degree murder. In early November, both were sentenced to life in prison.

Interestingly, the spelling “Aleeta” seems to be a newspaper typo. In all the records I’ve seen (e.g., Willis’s death certificate, Mertis’s death certificate, the 1930 U.S. Census, the 1940 U.S. Census) the name is spelled “Alleta.”

Do you like the name Aleeta?

P.S. Beatrice, who spent her childhood in an orphanage, “worked as a foster parent with Indian children out west” as an adult.

Sources:

  • “Admits the Killing of her Infant Sons.” Lincoln Star 6 Aug. 1933: 17.
  • “Held in Slaying of two Children.” Evening Independent [Massillon, Ohio] 7 Aug. 1933: 1.
  • “Mother Admits Poisoning Babies.” Defiance Crescent 7 Aug. 1933: 1.
  • “Parents Who Killed 2 Children Sentenced.” Nevada State Journal 3 Nov. 1933: 4.
  • Beatrice M. Fleming obituary

What gave the baby name Aletta a boost in 1935?

The novel "Aletta Laird" (1935) by Barbara Webb
Aletta Laird” by Barbara Webb

The relatively rare name Aletta has been in the U.S. baby name data since the 1890s, but it saw a distinct spike in usage in 1935:

  • 1937: 13 baby girls named Aletta
  • 1936: 28 baby girls named Aletta
  • 1935: 37 baby girls named Aletta [peak usage]
  • 1934: 5 baby girls named Aletta
  • 1933: 10 baby girls named Aletta

In fact, Aletta’s sudden increase made it the second-highest relative rise of 1935, after Norita.

So what gave it a nudge?

The Barbara Webb story Aletta Laird, which was both serialized in the newspapers and released as a book in 1935.

I haven’t had a chance to read Aletta Laird — a “[r]omantic historical fiction” set in “old Bermuda, at the time of the American Revolution” — but here’s a description of how it begins:

Aletta Laird came to St. George’s in the Spring of 1775 to rejoin her father. Almost immediately after stepping ashore, she incurred the wrath of the tyrannical Governor, bought and Indian slave to save him from death by flogging, and learned that her father had died in prison as a traitor to his King. She also met the two men who were to lay siege to her heart, one the nephew of the Governor, the other a rebel American captain.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Aletta?

Sources:

Image: “Aletta Laird” in the Philadelphia Inquirer Public Ledger on June 2, 1935

P.S. Interestingly, the very similar name Aleeta saw peak usage just a couple of years earlier…