What popularized the baby name Lara in the 1960s?

Yesterday we looked at the baby name Laura, which saw a curious dip in usage from 1965 to 1967:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Laura in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Laura

You know what was happening at the very same time? A drastic increase in the usage of the very similar name Lara, which suddenly jumped into the top 1,000 in 1966:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Lara in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Lara

Here’s the data, side-by-side:

Girls named LauraGirls named Lara
196818,743 (rank: 11th)1,295 (rank: 227th)
196715,817 (rank: 15th)945 (rank: 277th)
196615,549 (rank: 19th)236 (rank: 618th)
196516,213 (rank: 18th)65 (rank: 1,376th)
196418,974 (rank: 14th)57 (rank: 1,512th)

So…what caused Lara to suddenly skyrocket (and thereby steal some of Laura’s thunder)?

Movie poster for Doctor Zhivago (1965)

The film Doctor Zhivago, which was released at the very end of 1965 and which, accounting for inflation, currently ranks as the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S.

Doctor Zhivago, based on the 1957 Boris Pasternak novel of the same name, was a drama set in Russia during the early 1900s — primarily around the time of WWI and the Russian Revolution. The main character was married physician/poet Yuri Zhivago (played by Omar Sharif), who was having an affair with Larisa “Lara” Antipova (played by Julie Christie), the wife of a political activist.

But it was more than just the character — we can’t ignore the influence of the film’s leitmotif “Lara’s Theme.” After Doctor Zhivago came out, it was turned into a Grammy-winning pop song, “Somewhere, My Love,” that name-checked the character in the lyrics:

Lara, my own, think of me now and then
Godspeed, my love, till you are mine again

Renditions of both versions of the song ended up peaking on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” list during the summer of 1966: Ray Conniff’s “Somewhere, My Love” at #9, and Roger Williams’ “Lara’s Theme” at #65.

Ironically, the names Lara and Laura are not related. Laura comes from the Latin name Laurus, meaning “laurel,” whereas the Russian name Lara is a short form of the Greek myth name Larisa, which may have been inspired by the ancient city of Larisa.

The movie also seems to have given a boost to the name Yuri (which had debuted a few years earlier thanks to cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin). And it must be connected somehow to the 1980 debut of the one-hit wonder name Zhivago. (Perhaps it was airing on TV around that time?) “Zhivago” isn’t a Russian surname, incidentally — it’s a Church Slavonic word meaning “the living.”

Getting back to Lara…the name’s popularity declined after the 1960’s, but, so far, it has never dropped out of the top 1,000. (The uptick in usage in 2001-2002 corresponds to the release of the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which starred Angelina Jolie.)

Which name do you prefer, Lara or Laura? Why?

Sources: Doctor Zhivago (film) – Wikipedia, Doctor Zhivago – Orthodox England, Lara’s Theme – Wikipedia, Top 10 Highest-Grossing Films of All Time in the US, Ray Conniff – Billboard, Roger Williams – Billboard, Ray Conniff – Grammy.com, Laura – Behind the Name, Lara – Behind the Name

P.S. A woman named Lara after the Zhivago character was mentioned in Name Quotes #78.

2 thoughts on “What popularized the baby name Lara in the 1960s?

  1. I prefer Laura for the simple reason that most everyone knows how to pronounce the name. I also heard Lara, pronounced “Larra”, but I’ve also heard “Laira”, similar Sarah. It is a small thing, but having your name mispronounced, and/or having to correct people’s pronunciation, gets really irritating over the years. Also, as I mention in the comments after the Laura post, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books were favorites of my childhood.

  2. I prefer Laura because pronunciation is more uniform and because of Laura Ingals Wilder

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