How did Hungarian immigration influence U.S. baby names in the 1950s?

On October 23, 1956, university students in Budapest staged a demonstration against Communist rule in Hungary. The march quickly escalated into a full-scale, country-wide uprising.

Weeks later, the rebellion was crushed by Soviet forces.

In the aftermath of the ill-fated Hungarian Revolution of 1956, approximately 200,000 Hungarians (2% of the population) fled the country. More than 35,000 of these refugees were resettled in the United States in late 1956 and during the first half of 1957.

Did this influx of Hungarian immigrants have an impact on U.S. baby names?

Yes, though not a large one.

Many of Hungary’s traditional names (e.g., Ádám, Anna, Martin, Júlia, Paula, Sámuel) don’t stand out in the SSA data, but several unmistakably Hungarian names did see increased usage in 1957. The rises of Zoltan (Zoltán), Laszlo (László), and Katalin were the most conspicuous:

	Boys named Zoltan	Boys named Laszlo	Girls named Katalin
1959	13	19	6
1958	8	20	13
1957	15	13*	6*
1956	.	.	.
1955	.	.	.

Also notable is the debut of Imre (pronounced EEM-reh) in 1958 — the year that former Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy was executed by the Soviets. (President Eisenhower said that Nagy’s death “shocked the conscience of the Free World.”)

Other Hungarian names that emerged in the data during the last years of the ’50s and the first years of the ’60s include Miklos (Miklós), Ildiko (Ildikó), Zsolt, and Csilla (a literature name based on the word csillag, meaning “star”).

P.S. I believe the debuts of Zsazsa (in 1957) and Attila (in 1958) had more to do with pop culture than with immigration, but I could be wrong. What do you guys think?

Sources:

• Wikipedia: Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Imre Nagy
• About Hungarian immigration to the U.S. – Embassy of Hungary, Washington
• Operation Safe Haven: The Hungarian Refugee Crisis of 1956 – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
• Percival, Matthew. “Hungarian revolution, 60 years on: How I fled Soviet tanks in a hay cart.” CNN 23 Oct. 2016.
• “Nagy execution shocks world, President says.” Blade Tribune 19 Jun. 1958: 1.
• Behind the Name
• SSA

Image: Adapted from A szovjet csapatok ideiglenes kivonulása 1956. október 31-én by Fortepan/Nagy Gyula under CC BY-SA 3.0.