How popular is the baby name Nicolae 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 Nicolae.

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Popularity of the baby name Nicolae


Posts that mention the name Nicolae

What gave the baby name Ileana a boost in 1926?

Princess Ileana (1909-1991)
Princess Ileana

About ninety years ago, the baby name Ileana saw a sudden spike in usage:

  • 1928: 8 baby girls named Ileana
  • 1927: 31 baby girls named Ileana
  • 1926: 44 baby girls named Ileana
  • 1925: 6 baby girls named Ileana
  • 1924: 6 baby girls named Ileana

In fact, Ileana was the fastest-rising baby name of 1926.

What drew attention to the name that year?

Princess Ileana of Romania, the youngest surviving child in the Romanian royal family.

Toward the end of 1926, 17-year-old princess Ileana (pronounced ee-LYA-nah, roughly) accompanied her mother, Queen Marie, and one of her brothers, Nicolae, on a tour of the United States (and Canada). The three of them were fixtures in the U.S. news for a number of weeks.

Prince Nicholas, Princess Ileana and Queen Marie in October of 1926
The Romanian royals upon arrival in the USA (Oct. 1926)

They left France on the night of October 12 aboard the SS Leviathan. En route to America, Princess Ileana, “brimful of enthusiasm,” told reporters that “she was looking forward to the purchase of an American automobile, having learned to drive before leaving Bucharest.”

They were greeted with a ticker tape parade upon their arrival in New York on October 18. The next day, they dined with President Coolidge at the White House in Washington, D.C.

Soon after, the royals and their entourage began a transcontinental journey aboard a luxury train (the Royal Roumanian) that was described as a “traveling palace.”

The train will follow closely the trail of Lewis and Clark on their 1803-06 historic expedition of the Northwest through the Red River Valley, through the Yellowstone Valley, will cross the American Rockies into the Inland Empire, to Spokane and to the Columbia River and Cascade Mountains.

Along the way, they hit a slew of cities — usually just briefly. Americans followed their every move, day by day, via the newspapers.

Their many stops included:

  • Niagara Falls on Oct. 26
  • North Dakota (where they watched a rodeo) on Nov. 1
  • Washington state (where they toured a lumber camp) on Nov. 4
  • Colorado (where they visited Buffalo Bill’s grave) on Nov. 10
  • Indiana (where they toured a steel mill) on Nov. 16

The media focused on the queen, of course, but Ileana and Nicolae were mentioned in nearly every article as well. (Though Ileana did become the primary focus on November 17 — the day she got into a minor car accident in Grant Park, Illinois.)

The royals had planned to visit several southern states as well, but Queen Marie decided to cut the trip short in mid-November upon hearing that the health of her husband, King Ferdinand, was failing. So they sailed out of New York and back to Europe at the earliest opportunity (aboard the RMS Berengaria on November 24).

The Romanian name Ileana is thought to be a variant of Elena/Helena. Incidentally, the most famous Romanian Ileana isn’t the princess, but the mythological figure Ileana Cosânzeana.

What are your thoughts on the name Ileana? Do you like it?

Sources:

Image: Photograph in San Pedro Daily News 1 Nov. 1926: 3.

Nicolae Ceausescu & his brother, Nicolae Ceausescu

Notorious Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989) was one of nine surviving siblings:

  1. Niculina Ceausescu
  2. Marin Ceausescu
  3. Nicolae Ceausescu
  4. Florea Ceausescu
  5. Nicolae Ceausescu
  6. Ilie Ceausescu
  7. Maria Ceausescu
  8. Elena Ceausescu
  9. Ion Ceausescu

Did you catch it? Nicolae is listed twice. The first one is the dictator, the second one is his younger brother, born when the first Nicolae was about 6.

Ceausescu biographer John Sweeney writes off the repetition: “His parents had more children than they knew names.”

But here’s how Alice Miller, psychologist and child abuse expert, explains it:

To my question as to how a brother could also be christened Nicolae, I repeatedly received the reply that the father was drunk “as usual” at the time the child was named. By all accounts, he had simply forgotten that he already had a son named Nicolae — though no one could explain to me how Ceausescu’s mother could also forget that fact. This information seemed to arouse little surprise in Bucharest.

She also says the situation “throws light on the dictator’s obsessive desire for revenge,” which must have come from his “insatiable determination to gain at last the recognition completely denied him as a child.”

I haven’t found anything to verify Alice’s version of the story but, if true, it’s rather depressing. Naming and drinking do not mix. (Robert could have told you that.)

Sources:

  • Miller, Alice. Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth. New York: Dutton, 1991.
  • Sweeney, John. The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu. London: Hutchinson, 1991.