How popular is the baby name Kathlyn 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 Kathlyn.
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Over at The Public Domain Review, I found a collection of 51 novelty playing cards — several incomplete decks, mixed together — from 1916 that feature the images and names of popular movie actresses from that era.
Below are all the first names from those cards, plus where those names happened to rank in the 1916 baby name data. (Two-thirds of them were in the top 100, and over 95% fell inside the top 1,000.)
Back in the 1910s, serial films with female protagonists were very trendy.
Many of these films had titles that followed the same formula: “The (Plural Noun) of (Female Name).”
Some examples:
The Adventures of Kathlyn* (1913-1914)
The Hazards of Helen (1914-1917)
The Perils of Pauline (1914)
The Exploits of Elaine* (1915)
The Mysteries of Myra (1916)
The Adventures of Ruth (1919)
First question: Using the same formula, can you create a serial title with your own name? (You don’t need to have a female name to play along, of course.) The Enigmas of Nancy, The Nuisances of Nancy, The Entanglements of Nancy, The Nail-Biters of Nancy…not that great, but I’m sure you guys can do better.
Second question: Of the six names listed above, which one do you like best? Why?
*The baby names Kathlyn and Elaine saw jumps in usage in 1914 and 1915, respectively.
Here’s a rare, old-fashioned name that’s been given two distinct pop culture boosts over the years — one from the movies, one from the weather.
The movie connection is especially interesting because, as far as I can tell, this is probably the first name to debut on the charts thanks to an actress.
Usage of the name Francelia (pronounced fran-SEE-lee-ah) goes back to at least the 1700s. The name was most popular in the mid-1800s, especially in the Northeastern U.S. (New York state in particular). It seems to be an elaborated form of Frances (“Frenchman”) influenced by either Celia (“sky, heaven”) or Cecilia (“blind”), or both.
Francelia debuted on the SSA’s baby name list in 1912, probably thanks to early silent film actress Francelia Billington, who was born in Texas in 1895 and appeared in silent films from 1912 until the mid-1920s (and in a single talkie in 1930).
Francelia Billington wasn’t the first silent film actress to become famous, but she was the first whose name debuted on the national baby name list while she was famous. Several other silent film actresses of the 1910s also had distinctive names (e.g., Alla Nazimova, Theda Bara, Kathlyn Williams) but their names had all been listed since the late 1800s.
The SSA data from the 1910s isn’t super-reliable, so I’ve put the U.S. baby name data and the Social Security Death Index data side-by-side below. For the SSDI numbers, I only counted people who had Francelia as a first name, not as a middle.
Girls named Francelia (SSA)
People named Francelia (SSDI)
1915
6
5
1914
.
5
1913
10
10
1912
5*
10
1911
.
2
1910
.
4
1909
.
5
*Debut
One of the Francelias above was children’s literature scholar/writer Francelia Butler (née McWilliams), who was born in Ohio in 1913.
The name Francelia has remained rare in the U.S. ever since, though it did see a spike in usage in 1969 thanks to the news of Hurricane Francelia, which hit Central America in early September.
1971: 5 baby girls named Francelia
1970: 10 baby girls named Francelia
1969: 23 baby girls named Francelia (and 8 more named Francellia)
1968: unlisted
1967: 7 baby girls named Francelia
Francelia’s last appearance on the SSA’s list was in 1998, with just 7 baby girls. (To be included on the list, a name needs to be given to at least 5 babies.)
Do you like the name Francelia? Would you consider using it for a baby girl?
The word Fortune first appeared in the U.S. baby name data — both as a boy name and as a girl name — in the middle of the 1910s:
Boys named Fortune
Girls named Fortune
1917
.
.
1916
7
5*
1915
6*
.
1914
.
.
1913
.
.
*Debut
We can see a similar increase in the usage of Fortune in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) data:
1917: 6 people with the first name Fortune
1916: 10 people with the first name Fortune
1915: 9 people with the first name Fortune
1914: 2 people with the first name Fortune
1913: 3 people with the first name Fortune
So, what was the influence?
My guess is the silent film The Carpet from Bagdad, which came out in May of 1915. One of the main characters was a woman named Fortune Chedsoye (played by actress Kathlyn Williams).
According to an advertisement for the film, The Carpet from Bagdad told the story of “how a precious prayer-rug was boldly snatched from the innermost shrine of a sacred Mosque, passed from hand to hand, and of how, in its travels the rug imperiled the lives of two men and a beautiful young woman.”
Movie-going audiences would have seen Fortune’s name on-screen repeatedly, due to the intertitles.
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