According to the U.S. baby name data, Sharman was the fastest-rising girl name of 1948, the second-fastest of 1949, and saw its highest usage in 1950:
- 1953: 44 baby girls named Sharman
- 1952: 63 baby girls named Sharman
- 1951: 76 baby girls named Sharman
- 1950: 160 baby girls named Sharman [rank: 669th]
- 1949: 126 baby girls named Sharman [rank: 771st]
- 1948: 30 baby girls named Sharman
- 1947: 8 baby girls named Sharman
- 1946: unlisted
What was the influence?
American socialite Sharman Douglas.
Her father served as the U. S. ambassador to the Court of St. James’s from early 1947 to late 1950. While the family lived in England, Sharman became famous for her close ties to the British royal family — particularly Princess Margaret. (They were roughly the same age.)
Here’s what the American newspapers were saying about Sharman in mid-1947:
An eager, flaxen-haired teenager from Tucson, Ariz. has become Britain’s debutante of the year. The common people and the socially elect have fallen under her spell. She is tall, lithe Sharman Douglas, 19-year-old daughter of U.S. Ambassador and Mrs. Lewis W Douglas. Apart from the two royal princesses, she is undoubtedly the most photographed girl in all Britain, screen stars included.
The press followed “Charmin’ Sharman” the entire time she was overseas.
In late 1948, for instance, the papers reported that she was dating two men — the Marquess of Blandford and the Marquess of Milford-Haven — both of whom had been linked to Princess Margaret. In mid-1949, it was reported that her father “had cut down on [her] social life” after a London columnist brought up the possibility of Sharman and Princess Margaret falling for the same man.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Sharman?
Sources:
- “British Study Likely Romance.” Billings Gazette 18 Jul. 1949: 8.
- “English Nobleman to Visit U.S.–Business Or Romance?” Sandusky Register 14 Oct. 1948: 16.
- “Life Visits U.S. Ambassador to Britain.” Life 27 Oct. 1947: 150-156.
- Sharman Douglas – Wikipedia
- Wace, Barbara. “Sharman Douglas Captivates British Society in First Season.” Corpus Christi Caller-Times 12 Aug. 1947: 9.
- SSA
Image: Clipping from Life magazine (27 Oct. 1947)
For someone who was the “most photographed girl” in Britain at the time, it shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise that usage for Sharman as a girl name rose in the UK (the first instance of a female Sharman that I can find and compare being born in 1943, before it was a masculine surname-transferred name). Below are the number of baby girls being given this name in England & Wales from 1947-1961 (taken from the FreeBMD Birth Index):
1947 – 3 baby girls
1948 – 7 baby girls
1949 – 25 baby girls
1950 – 57 baby girls
1951 – 42 baby girls
1952 – 28 baby girls
1953 – 21 baby girls
1954 – 16 baby girls
1955 – 19 baby girls
1956 – 13 baby girls
1957 – 17 baby girls
1958 – 11 baby girls
1959 – 8 baby girls
1960 – 6 baby girls
1961 – 3 baby girls
Disregarding its second rise in the US in 1967 – caused by Charlie Walker’s song “Don’t Squeeze My Sharmon” which did not occur in the England & Wales data, by the late-1970s, it had become rarely used there, much like in the US. By then, fewer than 3 baby girl Sharmans were born every year.
Thank you for finding and posting all that England/Wales data for Sharman, m4yb3_daijirou! Very cool to see how the rise in usage was mirrored over there.
I know a Sharman! The mother of a family I went to school with, probably born around 1960. I never knew where it might have come from, so thank you.
My name is Sharman. I was born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1951. My mother called me after the American socialite Sharman Douglas. My name is rarely pronounced correctly apart from my close friends and relatives.
Thank you for this information. It was very interesting.
Thank you for stopping by, Sharman!