How popular is the baby name Nellora 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 Nellora.

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Popularity of the baby name Nellora


Posts that mention the name Nellora

Where did the baby name Nellora come from in 1919?

Nellora Powell (1895-1919)

The name Nellora appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first and only time in 1919. Notably, all of those baby girls were born in Kansas, which was the 24th-most-populated U.S. state at that time (roughly).

  • 1921: unlisted
  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: 5 baby girls named Nellora
    • All 5 born in Kansas
  • 1918: unlisted
  • 1917: unlisted

Where did the name come from?

The influence was the accidental suicide (!) of a popular Wichita society girl named Nellora Powell.

She was the energetic, outdoorsy, and “public spirited” daughter of John L. Powell, who was both the mayor of Wichita and the also president of the Wichita Wholesale Grocery Company.

On November 4, 1919 — having recently returned from a trip to Honolulu, and just weeks away from her 24th birthday — Nellora spent the day volunteering for the Red Cross.

When she got home that evening, she had a headache. The pain was bad enough that she couldn’t finish dinner, so she excused herself and headed to her bedroom to lie down. Along the way, she stopped to take some medicine.

Miss Powell had gone upstairs to an unlighted bath room and, believing that she knew just where the medicine she desired was located in the medicine closet, she reached for the bottle and swallowed some of its contents without turning on a light. She quickly discovered that she had taken carbolic acid.

She hurried back to the dining room, where her parents were still seated at the table, and said something along the lines of: “I have taken the wrong medicine; call the doctor!”

Her family started administering first aid, but by the time the doctor arrived fifteen minutes later, she’d lapsed into unconsciousness. Not long after that (at 7:40 p.m.) she was declared dead.

Her sudden death from poisoning was front-page news in Wichita the next day, and her name stayed in the Kansas papers for days to come.

Nellora’s name — which reminds me a lot of various names in the “Eleanor” family (e.g., Nell, Nora, Lenore, Lenora) — had come from her mother’s side of the family. It was the name of her maternal grandmother (b. New York, 1826) and also one of her aunts (b. Illinois, 1867).

What are your thoughts on the baby name Nellora? Would you use it?

Sources:

Interesting one-hit wonder names in the U.S. baby name data

single flower

They came, they went, and they never came back!

These baby names are one-hit wonders in the U.S. baby name data. That is, they’ve only popped up once, ever, in the entire dataset of U.S. baby names (which accounts for all names given to at least 5 U.S. babies per year since 1880).

There are thousands of one-hit wonders in the dataset, but the names below have interesting stories behind their single appearance, so these are the one-hits I’m writing specific posts about. Just click on a name to read more.

2020s

  • 2020: Jexi

2010s

2000s

1990s

1980s

1970s

1960s

1950s

1940s

1930s

1920s

1910s

1900s

  • (none yet)

1890s

As I discover (and write about) more one-hit wonders in the data, I’ll add the names/links to this page. In the meanwhile, do you have any favorite one-hit wonder baby names?

Image: Adapted from Solitary Poppy by Andy Beecroft under CC BY-SA 2.0.

[Latest update: Dec. 2023]