The baby name Elaine, which was already on the rise in the early 1900s, more than doubled in usage in 1915 specifically:
- 1917: 1,281 baby girls named Elaine [rank: 160th]
- 1916: 1,236 baby girls named Elaine [rank: 161st]
- 1915: 1,212 baby girls named Elaine [rank: 155th]
- 1914: 568 baby girls named Elaine [rank: 221st]
- 1913: 411 baby girls named Elaine [rank: 238th]
Why?
Because of fictional character Elaine Dodge — the protagonist of a trio of weekly Hearst-Pathé serials that came out one after the other:
- The Exploits of Elaine (14 installments released from December of 1914 to March of 1915),
- The New Exploits of Elaine (10 installments released from April to June of 1915), and
- The Romance of Elaine (12 installments released from June to August of 1915).
Just like The Perils of Pauline, the three “Elaine” serials could be read in print and seen on film concurrently. Installments were published in the newspapers on Sundays, then premiered at the motion picture houses on Mondays.
Elaine Dodge, an adventurous young woman, teamed up with scientist/detective Craig Kennedy and reporter Walter Jameson to track down various bad guys — a shadowy criminal called “the Clutching Hand” in the first serial, a Chinese gang leader named Wu Fang in the second, and a foreign agent named Marcius Del Mar in the third.
In all three pictures, Elaine was played by actress Pearl White (who’d become famous as the star of The Perils of Pauline).
What are your thoughts on the name Elaine?
P.S. In mid-1915, The Exploits of Elaine was published as a standalone book. The second and third serials were combined into a single volume in 1916.
Sources:
- Wikipedia: The Exploits of Elaine, The New Exploits of Elaine, The Romance of Elaine
- Essay on “The Exploits of Elaine” [PDF] – Margaret Hennefeld (LOC)
- Drew, William M. The Woman Who Dared: The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2023.
- SSA
Image: Clipping from Moving Picture World (16 Jan. 1915)