The curious name Capucine first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in the early 1960s:
- 1964: 8 baby girls named Capucine
- 1962: 8 baby girls named Capucine
- 1961: 5 baby girls named Capucine [debut]
- 1960: unlisted
- 1959: unlisted
Where did it come from?
French actress/model Capucine (pronounced kah-pu-seen, roughly).
Her first English-language film, Song Without End, was released in mid-1960. The film was about 19th-century Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, and Capucine played a fictionalized version of Polish princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who was romantically linked to Liszt. The role earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
The film’s trailer introduced Capucine to American audiences by emphasizing the uniqueness of her name:
Capucine — a name to whisper, a name to shout, a name to remember.
Capucine — one of France’s great beauties.
Capucine’s birth name was Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre. When she started to model professionally as a teenager, she was given the name Capucine — the French word for the nasturtium flower (which is shaped like the hood of a Capuchin monk’s robe). According to Capucine’s Song Without End co-star Dirk Bogarde, “[s]he couldn’t remember who pinned it on her — Chanel, Givenchy or just a publicist somewhere.”
At the end of the ’60s, Capucine appeared alongside fellow model Donyale Luna in the film Fellini Satyricon.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Capucine?
Sources:
- Bogarde, Dirk. Cleared for Take-Off: A Memoir. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.
- Capucine – Wikipedia
- Song Without End (1960) – IMDb