Where did the baby name Millette come from in 1967?

millette alexander, actress, 1960s, baby name
Millette Alexander

So here’s an interesting semi-mystery.

Millette Alexander was an American actress who had the most success on TV soap operas. She started with small parts on The Edge of Night in the ’50s and ’60s, moved on to a nurse character on As the World Turns from 1964 to 1966, and finally played a doctor on The Guiding Light from 1969 to 1983.

It was while she was on As the World Turns playing nurse Sylvia Hill (who suffered from lupus) that the usage of the baby name Millette was nudged upward just enough to debut in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1969: unlisted
  • 1968: 8 baby girls named Millette
  • 1967: 68 baby girls named Millette [peak]
  • 1966: unlisted
  • 1965: 5 baby girls named Millette [debut]
  • 1964: unlisted
  • 1963: unlisted

So…what the heck happened in 1967?

I’m still trying to figure that out. It was definitely something audio, because a bunch of variant spellings also popped up that year (and only that year, notably):

Name196619671968
Millette.688
Malette.20*.
Milette.17*.
Melette.13*.
Mellette.6*.
Molette.5*.

Five (*) out of six of these variants were one-hit wonders. (Malette was the top one-hit wonder of the year, in fact.)

Anyone know/remember what shined a spotlight on the name Millette in 1967 specifically? Was it a TV commercial perhaps?

Source: Millette Alexander – IMDb

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