Here’s a crazy coincidence: While I was putting yesterday’s post on Marsheila together, I got an email from a 52-year-old Californian named Marsheela.
Here’s what she said about her name:
My mother gave me the name Marsheela after her grandmother who was Chinook Indian. She told me the name means morning glory. I was the only Marsheela around, all thru school and adulthood, I would get mixed comments from, what a beautiful name to your mother must not have liked you. Luckily my husband loved the name! I will say it was difficult thru school not having a common name.
Thank you, Marsheela!
(Marsheela would have been born in the early ’60s — several years after the 1957 Broken Arrow episode that presented the name as Native American. Was the TV show an influence here? Hard to say, though it does seem possible. Marsheela didn’t mention what her great-grandmother’s birth name was specifically.)
What a great coincidence – I saw the name listed as Native American on some sites. Between the TV finding and this interview, you have done a great job explaining Marsheila / Marsheela.
Oh what a pretty name! Kind of surprised it was a difficult name to bear sometimes, it seems so similar to popular names of the time, like Marcia/Marsha.