How popular is the baby name Doral 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 Doral.

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Popularity of the baby name Doral


Posts that mention the name Doral

What gave the baby name Doral a boost in 1970?

Doral advertisement, 1973
Doral cigarettes

In 1970, the rare name Doral saw peak usage, according to the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1972: 6 baby girls and 6 baby boys named Doral
  • 1971: 7 baby girls and 12 baby boys named Doral
  • 1970: 12 baby girls [peak] and 17 baby boys named Doral [peak, both genders]
  • 1969: 11 baby girls and 7 baby boys named Doral
  • 1968: unlisted

The same year, the even rarer name Embra made its first and only appearance:

  • 1972: unlisted
  • 1971: unlisted
  • 1970: 6 baby girls named Embra [debut]
  • 1969: unlisted
  • 1968: unlisted

What influenced these names?

Believe it or not, the answer is cigarettes. Two different brands of cigarettes.

Doral cigarettes and Embra cigarettes were both put on the market by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in mid-1969. Doral was launched nationally in June, and Embra was introduced in test markets in August.

Doral (pronounced doh-RAL; rhymes with “corral” and “morale”) was marketed as a flavorful low-tar cigarette. The tagline was: “Taste me!”

Embra commercial, 1969/1970
Embra cigarettes

Embra was “designed to appeal to women” — just like Virginia Slims, which had been launched a year earlier. The tagline was: “Embra. For my woman.”

This advertising approach did not appeal to the market. The industry found that women typically do not smoke cigarettes to please men.

As a result, Embra was pulled out of test markets in mid-1970.

Doral, on the other hand, is still available to this day.

Putting aside the strong association with smoking for a moment…which of these brand names do you think makes a better baby name?

Sources:

Mystery baby name: Caster

Graph of the usage of the baby name Caster in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Caster

The top two debut names of 1953 were Trenace (for girls) and Caster (for boys). And you know what? Both have me stumped.

We’ve already talked about Trenace, so here are some details about Caster:

  • 1957: unlisted
  • 1956: 5 baby boys named Caster
  • 1955: 11 baby boys named Caster
  • 1954: 16 baby boys named Caster
  • 1953: 21 baby boys named Caster [debut]
  • 1952: unlisted

Caster doesn’t seem to be a variant of some other name (like Casper, or Lancaster). So I’m assuming this usage corresponds to someone named Caster — either real or fictional — who was in the public eye for several years in a row.

The tricky thing is, of course, that any online search for the name “Caster” turns up all sorts of extraneous stuff — fishing, furniture, music (stratocaster), sports (sportscaster), and so forth.

Still, I was able to track down a few clues.

Records suggest that the majority of these 1950s Casters had middle names that started with D. Here’s a Caster D. born in 1953, and another Caster D. born in 1957.

And every single D-middle I tracked down included the letter L and/or the letter R. Some examples: Dell, Derrell, Derrel, Derriel, Daryl, Deryl, Derald, Derra, Doria, and Doral. A handful of people even had combination names like Casterdale or Casterdell (b. 1953).

Finally, it looks like most of the people named Caster D. were born in the South.

Do you have any idea where the name Caster might have come from?