Where did the baby name Terrea come from in the early 1950s?

Terrea Lea's album "Folk Songs" (1956)
Terrea Lea album

Usage of the unisex name Terry was rising fast for both genders during the ’40s and ’50s, but I think the debuts of Terrea and Terria in the early ’50s had a more specific explanation than the trendiness of Terry.

Girls named TerreaGirls named Terria
195610†
[9 born in CA]		18
1955.10
1954915
1953616
1952.17*
19516.
19505*
[all born in CA]		.
1949..
1948..
*Debut, †Peak usage

I think the influence was Missouri-born folksinger Terrea Lea, who was closely associated with the Southern California folk scene starting in the early ’50s — long before folk music became trendy in the U.S. in the mid-’60s.

Terrea Lea was born Bette June Nutz in Liberty, Missouri, in 1922. I’m not sure how she chose her stage name or when she started using it, but she was being mentioned as “Terrea Lea” in Billboard magazine by mid-1950 and was appearing on television, performing on radio, and putting out singles by 1951. In April of 1951, Billboard described her as “local TV folk chirper billed as the fem[inine] Burl Ives.”

Her own Terrea Lea Show could be heard on the East Coast radio by 1952, but the newspapers often misspelled her name (e.g., “Terria Lea,” “Terrea Lee”) in the broadcast schedules. Typos like these, combined with the fact that the shows were (of course) audio only, probably account for why the name Terria was the top debut name of 1952.

Misspelling of "Terrea Lea" in Billboard magazine (1952)
Misspelling (Billboard, 1952)

In 1956 and 1957, Terrea Lea put out her first two full-length albums. In late 1958, she and some friends opened a coffee house in West Hollywood called The Garret. (The name was inspired by Puccini’s La bohème.) She regularly performed there, and it was frequented by popular folk singers of the day, including Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. The Garret existed until 1971.

There’s a website dedicated to The Garret, and the guest book includes six comments from people named after Terrea Lea. They are: Terra Lea, Terrea Lee, Terrea Lea (b. 1954, Calif.), Terrea Lea (b. 1951, Oregon), and Terria Leigh. Another comment is from someone whose son has the middle name Garret.

What are your thoughts on the name Terrea?

Sources:

Baby name story: Egedah

buses

In 1938, a woman identified as Mrs. Aaron Stricker gave birth to a baby girl while riding an Egged bus to the Beilinsohn Hospital near Tel Aviv.

She and her husband decided to name the baby Egedah (or Eggedah) in honor of the bus line.

The Egged Transportation Company, in turn, presented the baby girl with a free lifetime bus pass.

The name of the company, egged, is Hebrew for “union.”

Sources:

Where did the baby name Diron come from in 1965?

Football player Diron Talbert
Diron Talbert

The name Diron first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1965:

  • 1967: 7 baby boys named Diron
  • 1966: 8 baby boys named Diron
    • 5 born in Texas
  • 1965: 9 baby boys named Diron [debut]
    • 6 born in Texas
  • 1964: unlisted
  • 1963: unlisted

Why?

Because of college football player Diron Talbert.

Diron, a defensive tackle, played at the University of Texas from 1964 to 1966. He was a letterman all three years.

After college, he played in the NFL for fourteen seasons — four with the Angeles Rams, ten with the Washington Redskins. (In fact, in the 1970s, “Diron” popped up in the Washington, D.C.-specific baby name data a couple of times.)

What are your thoughts on the baby name Diron?

Sources: Diron Talbert – Wikipedia, Diron Talbert (2005) – Hall of Honor – University of Texas Athletics, SSA

The Lamar family of Georgia

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar I (b. 1797)
Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar I

John and Rebecca Lamar married in the mid-1790s and lived on a 1,000-acre cotton plantation near Milledgeville, Georgia. They welcomed a total of nine children, four sons and five daughters, whose names were…

  1. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus (b. 1797)
  2. Mirabeau Buonaparte (b. 1798)
  3. Thomas Randolph (b. 1800)
  4. Evalina (b. 1803)
  5. Jefferson Jackson (b. 1804)
  6. Amelia (b. 1807)
  7. Louisa Elizabeth (b. 1807)
  8. Mary Ann (b. 1814)
  9. Loretto Rebecca (b. 1818)

The boys were named by their paternal uncle, Zachariah — a self-taught bachelor who also lived on the plantation and who,

like many of the men in the old plantation times, gave himself up to the ideal world of literature and history […] So when son after son was born to the head of the house this bookish enthusiast claimed the privilege of naming his infant nephews after his favorite of the moment, and the amiable and doubtless amused parents consented. Thus Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, Mirabeau Buonparte, Jefferson Jackson, Thomas Randolph, and Lavoisier Legrand (a grandchild) indicate how his interest shifted from history to politics, and from politics to chemistry.

Oldest son Lucius (named for Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus) went on to become a judge. Two of his own sons — Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II and Jefferson Mirabeau Lamar — had careers in law as well. In fact, Lucius II served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888 to 1893.

Second son Mirabeau (named for the Comte de Mirabeau and Napoleon) also went into law initially. Later he got into politics, and ended up becoming the second president of the Republic of Texas. (He was also the first vice president, under Sam Houston.)

I couldn’t find anyone in the family’s third generation named “Lavoisier Legrand,” but one of Mary’s sons was named Lucius Lavoisier (middle name in honor of French chemist Antoine Lavoisier).

Sources: