Dimples are indentations that occur on a surface (as on certain people’s cheeks when they smile). A friend of mine once mentioned she knew a woman with the name Dimples. I thought this must be an isolated case, but it turns out I was wrong.
Dimple (the singular form) consistently ranked among the 1,000 most popular girl names in the nation from the mid-1910s through the mid-1920s. It managed to pop up on the list several times before and after this period as well.
Here are some raw figures:
- 79 baby girls were named Dimple in 1924.
- 77 baby girls were named Dimple in both 1919 and 1926.
- 75 baby girls were named Dimple in 1920.
I can’t figure out what the influence might have been. (My best guess was Shirley Temple, but she wasn’t born until 1928, and her film “Dimples” didn’t come out until 1936.)
The only notable thing I discovered while researching this name was the Bollywood actress Dimple Kapadia–sister of Simple, mother of Twinkle. (Can any Bollywood aficionados out there tell me whether these names are genuine? I’m dying to know.)
Update: Twinkle’s Wikipedia page, which has been revised since I published this post, now indicates that she was born with the name Tina.