Where did the baby name Twiggy come from in 1967?

Twiggy in a "Twiggy Lashes" magazine advertisement (1967)
Twiggy Lashes ad

English model Twiggy (birth name Lesley Hornby) hit the scene in the mid-1960s as a skinny teen with drawn-on lower lashes she called “twigs.”

Twiggy’s claim that she was “the world’s first supermodel” may be an exaggeration, but she did take the United States by storm when she first visited in the spring of 1967 to promote her line of Twiggy Dresses.

So it’s no surprise that 1967 was the year the name Twiggy debuted in the U.S. Social Security Administration’s baby name data:

  • 1969: unlisted
  • 1968: unlisted
  • 1967: 12 baby girls named Twiggy [debut]
  • 1966: unlisted
  • 1965: unlisted

Twiggy’s name turned out to be a one-hit wonder, but Twiggy herself went on to be nominated for a Tony (for playing Edith Herbert in the musical “My One and Only”) and to be a judge on the popular reality TV show America’s Next Top Model, among other things.

Sources:

Celebrity baby name: Locklyn Kyla

American actor Vince Vaughn
Vince Vaughn

Actor Vincent “Vince” Vaughn — best known for his roles in comedy movies like Swingers (1996), Dodgeball (2004), and Wedding Crashers (2005) — and his wife Kyla welcomed their first child a few days ago, on December 18.

What did they name their baby girl? Locklyn Kyla.

Locklyn looks like it’s based on the male name Lachlan (sometimes spelled Lochlan, and other ways).

And Kyla, of course, is mom’s first name, which is nice to see. Fathers regularly pass down their names, but mothers not so much, which is too bad.

What are your thoughts on this combo?

Update: The name Locklyn debuted (as a girl name) in the U.S. baby name data in 2011!

Update #2: In the summer 2013, the couple welcomed their second child, a son. He was named Vernon Lindsay Vaughn after his paternal grandfather, Vernon Lindsay Vaughn. (Vince grew up in a family full of V-names, in fact. His sisters are Victoria and Valeri.)

Sources:

Image: Vince Vaughn in Los Angeles, California (2015) by Gage Skidmore under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Where did the baby name Morella come from in 1923?

The characters Theodora and Hector (played by Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino) from the movie "Beyond the Rocks" (1922)
Theodora and Hector from “Beyond the Rocks“

The rare name Morella has only appeared in the U.S. baby name data a handful of times, starting in 1923:

  • 1925: unlisted
  • 1924: unlisted
  • 1923: 5 baby girls named Morella [debut]
  • 1922: unlisted
  • 1921: unlisted

Data from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) shows a similarly small spike in usage that year:

  • 1925: 2 people with the first name Morella
  • 1924: 0 people with the first name Morella
  • 1923: 5 people with the first name Morella
  • 1922: 0 people with the first name Morella
  • 1921: 1 people with the first name Morella

What was the influence?

A secondary character from the silent film Beyond the Rocks (1922), which happens to be the only movie that featured Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson together as co-stars.

The main character, Theodora (played by Swanson), was a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage to an middle-aged millionaire. She couldn’t help but fall in love with the dashing Hector, Lord Bracondale (played by Valentino) — especially after he rescued her twice (first from drowning, then from falling off a cliff in the Alps).

Morella Winmarleigh (played by Gertrude Astor), however, wished to have Hector all to herself. So, toward the end of the film, she tried to thwart their relationship by retrieving two of Theodora’s outgoing letters — one to Hector, the other to the millionaire husband — and switching the contents before returning them to the mailbox.

Though Morella wasn’t one of the good guys in the film, audiences would have seen her unusual name on-screen repeatedly, thanks to the intertitles. And that was enough to have a slight influence on U.S. baby names. (The names Hector and Theodora, both of which ranked well inside the top 1,000 in the early 1920s, were seemingly unaffected.)

The film was based on the romance novel Beyond the Rocks (1906) by Elinor Glyn.

What are your thoughts on the name Morella?

Sources: Beyond the Rocks (1922) – TCM, Beyond the Rocks (film) – Wikipedia, SSA

Popular and unique baby names in Scotland (UK), 2010

Flag of the United Kingdom
Flag of the United Kingdom

Scotland’s General Register Office has just released its latest list of baby names. A total of 4,086 girl names and 2,999 boy names were registered in Scotland in 2010. Here are the top five names for each gender:

Boy NamesGirl Names
1. Jack
2. Lewis
3. James
4. Logan
5. Daniel & Ryan (tie)		1. Sophie
2. Olivia
3. Ava
4. Emily
5. Isla

If different spellings of the same name had been combined instead of counted separately, “Callum/Calum would be in fifth place as would Aimee/Amy.”

An article about Scotland’s strangest baby names didn’t deliver (Unique? Romeo? Come on…) so I decided to throw my own list together:

Boy NamesGirl Names
Alexandreau-Le-Prince
Amiogho
Anamol
Bourdieu
Cezary
Clivejakson
Deejay
Deco
Gizzy
Halcro
Riley-Boy
Slessor		Bagryana
Beenie-Ann
Bindi
Chalcedony
Demi-Debbie
Felicity-Cecily
Grazielli
Lhlyaijana
Mhyrnn
Snædis
Winkie
Zvikomborero

A few possible sources of inspiration: French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Bulgarian poet Elisaveta Bagryana and Brazilian reality TV star Grazielli Massafera.

Finally, just one Avery was born in Scotland this year. Care to guess the gender of baby Avery?

Sources: Babies’ First Names 2010 and Table 4 (the full list of names)

Image: Adapted from Flag of the United Kingdom (public domain)