Where did the baby name Myraline come from in 1924?

Photo of 18-month-old Myraline Allen and her mother (October, 1924).
Myraline Allen and her mother

The uncommon name Myraline was a one-hit wonder in the U.S. baby name data mid-1920s:

  • 1926: unlisted
  • 1925: unlisted
  • 1924: 6 baby girls named Myraline [debut]
  • 1923: unlisted
  • 1922: unlisted

Where did it come from?

A precocious toddler from Covington, Kentucky.

Her name was Myraline Allen, and she was an 18-month-old who, according to the newspapers, “already knows the alphabet and identified and plainly spoke each name when asked by different spectators in a recent extensive test.”

I can’t find any other record of Myraline, so I can’t tell you what became of her. But I can make an educated guess that the babies named after Myraline in 1924 were from small towns, as this was a photo distributed by the Autocaster service, which provided content and advertising to rural newspapers.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Myraline?

Source: “Your Baby Can Be Wonder Baby Too, if…” Highland Recorder 3 Oct. 1924: 3.

Where did the baby name Jefre come from in 1961?

Newspaper article about the family of actor Jeremy Slate (1961)
The Slate family

Early in the 2010s, I published a list of the top debut names per year. In the middle of the 2010s, I published a list of the top one-hit wonder names per year and noted that four names made both lists: Narice, Saford, Gevan, and Jefre.

A few months after putting up the second list, I covered Saford. But I didn’t write about any of the other names until last week’s post on Gevan. After that one, I decided that it was time to finally post about the other two, so today we’ll do one and next week we’ll look at the other.

Out of the four names, Jefre had the most impressive debut:

  • 1963: unlisted
  • 1962: unlisted
  • 1961: 21 baby boys named Jefre [debut]
  • 1960: unlisted
  • 1959: unlisted

It appeared right around the time the name Jeffrey was at peak usage, so it would be easy to write off Jefre as a spelling variant of then-stylish Jeffrey.

But there’s more to the story.

Actor Jeremy Slate (birth name: Robert Bullard Perham) was one of the stars of the short-lived TV show The Aquanauts (1960-1961), about a pair of divers in Southern California.

One Sunday in mid-July, 1961, newspapers across the country ran a story about the swimming habits of Jeremy’s young family, which consisted of his wife Beverly and their four children: Jamie (girl), Jason, Jeremy Jr., and Jefre. It wasn’t long — just two pages — but it included two big photographs, both featuring eight-year-old Jefre.

Ironically, the piece came out about a month and a half after the very last episode of The Aquanauts aired. (And it wasn’t even being called The Aquanauts at that point; a few months before being canceled, the series was re-titled Malibu Run.)

So that explains the sudden appearance/disappearance of “Jefre” in the U.S. baby name data. What are your thoughts about this name? Do you like it, or do you prefer a more common spelling?

Sources:

Popular baby names in Finland, 2019

Flag of Finland
Flag of Finland

According to Finland’s Digital and Population Data Services Agency, the most popular baby names in the country last year were Aino and Leo.

Here are Finland’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2019:

Girl Names

  1. Aino, 278 baby girls
  2. Aada, 271
  3. Sofia, 255
  4. Eevi, 254
  5. Olivia, 246
  6. Lilja, 238
  7. Helmi, 236
  8. Ellen, 228
  9. Emilia, 223
  10. Ella, 220

Boy Names

  1. Leo, 380 baby boys
  2. Elias, 344
  3. Oliver, 332
  4. Eino, 318
  5. Väinö, 310
  6. Eeli, 267
  7. Noel, 259
  8. Leevi, 249
  9. Onni, 241
  10. Hugo, 195

The top girl name, Aino — rhymes with rhino — means “the only one.” It’s a poetic variant of the Finnish word ainoa, meaning “only” or “sole.” The name was invented by writer Elias Lönnrot for a character in the 19th-century Finnish epic poem the Kalevala. Originally, the character had been nameless and referred to simply as “the only daughter” (aino tyttönen) or “the only sister” (aino sisko).

In the girls’ top 10, Lilja, Ellen, and Emilia replaced Venla, Emma, and Isla.

In the boys’ top 10, Hugo replaced Niilo.

Among Finland’s Swedish-speakers (5% to 6% of the total population) the top baby names are Saga and Emil.

The top two names in Finland were the same (Aino and Leo) back in 2017, but they changed to Eevi and Eeli in 2018.

Sources: Names – Digital and Population Data Services Agency, Aino (mythology) – Wikipedia, Aino – Wiktionary

Image: Adapted from Flag of Finland (public domain)

Money for “Muhammad” in Egypt

A charity in Egypt will give money to local parents who name their newborns “Muhammad,” “Mahmoud,” or “Ahmed” in honor of the prophet Muhammad. (All three names are derived from the same Arabic root, hamida, meaning “to praise.”)

The charity, located in a village in Gharbia governorate, will give each participating family a monthly stipend of 300 Egyptian pounds (a little over $19 U.S.) for one year.

Why? The charity gave two reasons. The first was to offer some financial support to families during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second was to counter “the blasphemous campaign…in France to disorder the prophet’s prestige” — a reference to the current tensions between France and the Muslim world over caricatures of Muhammad.

Sources: In Egyptian village: Monthly salary for newborn named after Prophet Muhammad, Macron says he understands Muslims’ shock over Prophet cartoons, Behind the Name