How popular is the baby name Lydia in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Lydia.
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“Dresser in Tristram Coffin House, Newburyport, Massachusetts.”
Earlier this week we talked about the original Tristram Coffyn of Nantucket, who is known to have a massive number of descendants.
He and his wife Dionis* had five children in England, then four more after relocating to the New World. Here are the names of not only all nine of their children, but also their 76 grandchildren:
Daniel, Dionis, Peter, Stephen, Judith, Susanna, Anna, Mehitable, Hepzibah, Paul
Which of the above names do you like best? Are there any you don’t like at all?
*Dionis’s name is evidently a truncated form of Dionysia, which derives from Dionysius, which originally referred to a devotee of the Greek god Dionysos. The names Dennis and Denise are also derivatives of Dionysius.
**Nantucket’s Oldest House, also called the Jethro Coffin House, was built in 1686 as a wedding gift for Jethro Coffin.
Madge
Madge Evans was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1930s. She was born in New York in 1909. Her birth name was Margherita Evans. Madge Kennedy was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1970s. She was born in Illinois in 1891. Madge was also a character name in multiple films, including The Tragedy of Ambition (short, 1914) and The Peace of Roaring River (1919).
Madlaine
Madlaine Traverse was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1920s. She was born in Ohio in 1875.
Mado
Mado was a character played by actress Lana Turner in the film Dramatic School (1938).
Mady
Mady Christians was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1940s. She was born in Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1892. Her birth name was Marguerite Maria Christians.
Magda
Magda Foy was a child actress who appeared in films in the 1910s. She was born in New York in 1905. Her birth name was Magdalena Patricia Foy. Madga was also a character played by actress Gertrude Michael in the film I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby (1940).
Mahlee Mahlee was a character played by actress Alla Nazimova in the film The Red Lantern (1919).
Mahwissa
Mahwissa was a character played by actress Eulalie Jensen in the short film West Wind (1915).
Mahyna
Mahyna was a character played by actress Betty Compson in the film She Got What She Wanted (1930).
Mai
Mai Wells was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1930s. She was born in California in 1862. Mai was also a character played by actress Myrna Loy in the film Don Juan (1926).
Malvina
Malvina Longfellow was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1920s. She was born in New York in 1889. Malvina Polo was an actress who appeared in films in the 1920s. She was born in California in 1903. Malvina was also a character name in multiple films, including Ann Vickers (1933) and Let’s Make Music (1941).
Marcelle
Marcelle Corday was an actress who appeared in films from the 1920s to the 1950s. She was born in Belgium in 1890. Marcelle Hontabat was an actress who appeared in 1 film in 1916. She was born in New York in 1897. Marcelle was also a character name in multiple films, including The Way Out (1918) and 50 Million Frenchmen (1931).
Margia
Margia Dean was an actress who appeared in films from the 1940s to the 1960s. She was born in Illinois in 1922. Her birth name was Marguerite Louise Skliris.
Maris
Maris Wrixon was an actress who appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1950s. She was born in Washington in 1916. Her birth name was Mary Alice Wrixon.
Maud
Maud Allan was an actress who appeared in 1 film in 1915. She was born in Canada in 1873. Her birth name was Beulah Maude Durrant. Maud was also a character played by actress Miriam Cooper in the film Daughters of the Rich (1923).
Maudie
Maudie Dunham was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1920s. She was born in England in 1902. Maudie was also a character name in multiple films, including Tell Your Children (1922) and Night After Night (1932).
Mayflower
Mayflower was a character played by actress Gladys Hulette in the film Secrets of Paris (1922).
Mayme
Mayme Kelso was an actress who appeared in films from the 1910s to the 1920s. She was born in Ohio in 1867. Mayme was also a character name in multiple films, including One Hundred Percent American (short, 1918) and The Mighty (1929).
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader looking for lists of old-fashioned double names. She was aiming for names like Thelma Dean, Eula Mae, and Gaynell — names that would have sounded trendy in the early 1900s. She also mentioned that she’d started a list of her own.
So I began scouring the interwebs. I tracked down lists of old-fashioned names, and lists of double names…but I couldn’t find a decent list of double names that were also old-fashioned.
I loved the idea of such a list, though, so I suggested that we work together to create one. She generously sent me the pairings she’d collected so far, and I used several different records databases to find many more.
I restricted my search to names given to girls born in the U.S. from 1890 to 1930. I also stuck to double names that I found written as single names, because it’s very likely that these pairings were used together in real life (i.e., that they were true double names and not merely first-middle pairings).
Pairings that seemed too timeless, like Maria Mae and Julia Rose, were omitted. I also took out many of the pairings that feature now-trendy names — think Ella, Emma, and Lucy — because they just don’t sound old-fashioned anymore (though they would have a few decades ago).
The result isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a decent sampling of real-life, old-fashioned double names. I’ve organized them by second name, and I also added links to popularity graphs for names that were in the SSA data during the correct time period (early 1900s).
I spotted plenty of other combinations that just didn’t happen to be written as single names in the records, so here’s a handy dandy little table to cover some of the other existing combinations…
Remember that “Julia Guglia” punchline from The Wedding Singer? It came up in conversation the other day, and it made me wonder: what other -ulia names are out there?
I don’t mean familiar Julia-variants like Giulia, Yulia, and Iulia. We already know that these exist. I mean new names coined by adding a different first letter to the tail -ulia — the same way all those different -ayden names cropped up during the -ayden craze.
So have there been -ulia names that aren’t related to Julia? Sure have. Here are the ones I found in the SSA data:
Eulia. Eulia pops up most often in the 1920s, which is when Eu- names like Eunice, Eugenia, Eula and Eulalia were relatively popular.
Kulia. This one is a borderline case. Kulia is technically a Julia-variant, being a Hawaiian form of Julia, but the initial sound is totally different. (There’s no J-sound in Hawaiian.)
Lulia. Like Eulia, Lulia saw usage in the early 1900s when similar names like Lula and Lulu were common. Unlike Eulia, Lulia has since returned to the charts, no doubt thanks to the current trendiness of Lily and the like. This name is also a Hawaiian form of Lydia.
Sulia. Sulia, which reminds me of Sula, short for Ursula, popped up once in 1991.
Tulia. Tulia, which reminds me of Tulip, has been on the charts several times since turn of the century.
Zulia. Like Sulia, Zulia has only appeared in the data once so far.
Ulia by itself has also been used as a name before, though it’s never been in the data. Going back to Hawai’i one last time, Ulia is both a Hawaiian form of Uriah and a Hawaiian word meaning “accident.”
Which of the above -ulia names above do you like best?
…And if you want to hear about even more -ulia names, here’s a video with dozens of obscure-but-real variants collected from the census:
Here’s the next installment of rare female names collected from old films (1910s-1940s).
