How popular is the baby name Betty in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, see baby names similar to Betty and check out all the blog posts that mention the name Betty.
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The Endurance sinking in Antarctica, 1915I’m in the middle of Alfred Lansing’s 1959 book Endurance, which tells the story of Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917).
One intriguing detail Lansing mentions early on is that, of the 5,000+ people who applied to be part of the expedition, three were women: Peggy Pegrine, Valerie Davey, and Betty Webster.
They applied together in a single letter dated January 11, 1914. In the letter, they referred to themselves as “three sporty girls” who were “willing to undergo any hardships that you yourselves undergo.”
The names of these “sporty girls” aren’t particularly sporty, but which of the three — Peggy, Valerie, or Betty — do you like best?
Yasmini
Yasmini was a character played by actress Gertrude Messinger in the film Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (1917).
Yester
Yester was a character played by actress Gertrude Michael in the film The Hidden Menace (1938).
Yetiva
Princess Yetiva was a character played by actress Adrienne Kroell in the short film Cinderella (1912).
Yetive Princess Yetive was a character played by actress Beverly Bayne in the film Graustark (1915) and by actress Norma Talmadge in the remake Graustark (1925).
Yola
Yola d’Avril was an actress who appeared in films from the 1920s to the 1950s. She was born in France in 1907. Yola was also a character played by actress Sari Maritza in the film Monte Carlo Madness (1932).
Gloria Swanson as Zaza (1923)Looking for an under-the-radar girl name with a retro feel?
A few years ago I combed though a bunch of IMDb pages looking for interesting female names associated with old films (1910s-1940s).
Most of the names I spotted — names like Mabel, Maisie, Hazel, Hattie, Elsie, Selma, Bessie, and Betty — were ones I expected to see. But I did manage to collect thousands of rarities, many of which have never appeared in the SSA data before.
Want to check out all these unusual names? I thought so! To make things interesting I’ll post the Z-names first and go backwards, letter by letter.
Enjoy!
Zabette
Zabette de Chavalons was a character played by actress Bebe Daniels in the film Volcano! (1926).
Zabie
Zabie Elliot was a character played by actress Mary Alden in the film The Broken Butterfly (1919).
Zada
Zada L’Etoile was a character played by actress Sylvia Breamer in the Cecil B. DeMille-directed film We Can’t Have Everything (1918).
Zadee
Zadee Burbank was an actress who appeared in films during the 1910s and 1920s. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1867 with the name Sarah Pyle Watt.
Zarmi
Zarmi was a character played by actress Julie Suedo in the three short films The Queen of Hearts (1923), The Man with the Limp (1923), and The Golden Pomegranates (1924).
Zarrah
Zarrah was a character played by actress Violet Horner in the film A Daughter of the Gods (1916).
Zena
Zena Dare was an actress who appeared in films during the 1920s and 1930s. She was born in England in 1887. Zena Keefe was an actress who appeared in films during the 1910s and 1920s. She was born in California in 1898. Zena was also a character name in multiple films, including The Code of Honor (short, 1916) and The New York Peacock (1917).
Zorina Vera Zorina, often credited simply as Zorina, was an actress who appeared in films during the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in Germany in 1917 with the name Eva Brigitta Hartwig.
Zuletta
Zuletta was a character played by actress Lucille Young in the film The Spell of the Poppy (1915).
Zulika
Zulika was a character name used in multiple films, including The Greed of Osman Bey (short, 1913) and How the Earth Was Carpeted (short, 1914).
Zulima
Zulima was a character played by actress Blanche Cornwall in the film Fra Diavolo (1912).
While looking at multiples from 1944 last month, I found sources claiming that both Mary & Marjorie Vaughan and Lois & Lucille Barnes were the “original” twins in the ads for Toni Home Permanents (tagline: “Which twin has the Toni?”).
Many sets of twins were involved in the Toni ad campaigns of the ’40s, though, so I’m not sure if any single set of twins can be called the “original” twins. For example, a November 1949 issue of LIFE included a full-page Toni ad with six sets of twins:
Eleanor and Jeanne Fulstone of Nevada
Betty and Barbara Land of Virginia
Barbara and Beverly Lounsbury of New Jersey
Joan and Jean McMillan of Texas (pictured)
Marjorie and Mary Vaughan of Indiana
Charlotte and Antoinette Winkelmann of New York
Let’s pretend you’re about to have twin girls, and you have to give them one of the name-pairs above. Which pair do you choose?
Oodles of multiples — eight sets of twins, one set of triplets, six sets of quadruplets, and one set of quintuplets — were featured in an early 1944 issue of LIFE magazine. Most of these multiples had been born in the 1920s and 1930s.
Curious about the names? I knew you would be! Here they are, along with ages and other details.
Twins:
Marjorie and Mary Vaughan, 19.
Lois and Lucille Barnes, 21.
Betty and Lenore Wade, early 20s.
Robert “Bobby” and William “Billy” Mauch, 22.
They had starred in the 1937 movie The Prince and the Pauper.
Blaine and Wayne Rideout, 27.
They had been track stars at the University of North Texas in the late 1930s along with another set of twins, Elmer and Delmer Brown.
Charles and Horace Hildreth, 41.
Horace was elected Governor of Maine later the same year.
Ivan and Malvin Albright, 47.
Auguste and Jean Piccard, 60.
“Honors as the world’s most distinguished pair of twins must go to Jean and Auguste Piccard, stratosphere balloonists, who are so identical that not everyone realizes there are two of them.”
Triplets:
Diane Carol, Elizabeth Ann, and Karen Lynn Quist, 11 months.
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