How popular is the baby name Ariosa in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Ariosa.

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Popularity of the baby name Ariosa


Posts that mention the name Ariosa

Ariosa: Possible baby name?

arbuckles coffee, ariosa, advertisement,

I came across the name-like word Ariosa while doing research for the Isla Tudor post.

What did Ariosa refer to? A coffee blend sold during the late 1800s and early 1900s by Arbuckle Bros., which was a well-known East Coast coffee company at that time.

The Arbuckle brothers, John and Charles, started selling coffee that was pre-roasted and packed in convenient one-pound bags in the 1860s. (Up to that point, coffee was typically sold green and in big sacks or barrels). They also extended the shelf-life of their roasted beans by glazing them with an egg-sugar mix. Perhaps most importantly, they marketed their coffee products aggressively (and rather cleverly).

Ariosa, a blend that was introduced in 1873, ended up becoming the first coffee brand to attain national renown in the United States. Arbuckles’ Ariosa was particularly popular among Westerners, including cowboys and ranchers. It was often referred to as “the coffee that won the west.” Ariosa dominated the Western coffee market for many decades, and was available for purchase until the 1940s.

The word Ariosa caught my eye because of its resemblance to the trendy baby name Aria (now ranked 29th). It also reminded me of Liliosa, which could be considered a fanciful form of Lily (ranked 25th) or Lillian (ranked 26th).

How did the Arbuckles come up with the word “Ariosa”? No one knows for sure, but the two most popular theories suggest it’s an acronym:

  • Arbuckle + Rio + South America
  • Arbuckle + Rio + Santos (another Brazilian coffee port)

The word Ariosa is also similar to the Italian musical term arioso, which is basically operatic singing that is not quite as formal as an aria.

So has Ariosa ever been used as a baby name before? Yes, but infrequently. It has never appeared in the SSA’s baby name data, but I do see one Ariosa in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) and I’ve spotted several others on historical U.S. censuses.

What do you think — would Ariosa make a good name for babies being born today?

Sources:

  • Balthazar, Scott L. Historical Dictionary of Opera. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013.
  • Funderburg, Anne Cooper. “Cowboy Coffee.” True West 1 Jul. 2001.
  • Ukers, William Harrison. All About Coffee. New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922.
  • Williams, Jacqueline Block. “Arbuckles’.” The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, ed. by Andrew F. Smith. Oxford: Oxford Publishing Company, 2007.

P.S. Here are a few more names names associated with coffee.

Baby names for coffee lovers (Namestorm #16)

cup of coffee

I’m posting on Sunday instead of Monday this week. Why? Because today (September 29) is International Coffee Day, and I thought it would be fun to celebrate by brainstorming for baby names for coffee lovers.

Here are some coffee-inspired names I’ve come up with so far…

Kaldi

Legend has it that an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi discovered the coffee plant during the 9th century. After watching his goats become lively after eating coffee berries, he tried the berries himself, then told some local monks about the plant. The story has inspired many coffee shop owners to name their establishments “Kaldi’s Coffee” and the like.

Clement

Another legend has it that, around the year 1600, Pope Clement VIII gave coffee his official papal approval. Coffee was new to Europe, and Catholic clerics wanted it banned because they associated it with Islam. But Clement tried it and liked it, and his thumbs-up made coffee acceptable (and, soon, very popular) in Europe.

Penny

Thousands of coffeehouses opened in England during the second half of the 17th century. During the 18th century, they came to be called Penny Universities because, for the one-penny price of cup of coffee, a person could learn a great deal from the many political, commercial and philosophical discussions going on inside. Like the Kaldi legend, this story has inspired many coffee shop owners to use the name “Penny University.”

Boston; Griffin

The U.S. would have been a tea-drinking nation if not for the Boston Tea Party, which made tea drinking unpatriotic. After that historic 1773 rebellion against the King George’s tea tax, Americans switched over to coffee and never looked back. The specific location of the Tea Party was Griffin’s Wharf (which no longer exists).

Gabriel

French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu transported (maybe smuggled?) a single coffee plant from Louis XIV’s royal garden to the French colony of Martinique in 1720. The trip across the Atlantic was arduous, but both he and the plant arrived intact. Fifty years later, Martinique boasted over 18 million coffee plants — all progeny of Gabriel’s original.

Francisco

Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta of Brazil traveled to French Guiana in 1727, ostensibly to help settle a border dispute. He ended up obtaining coffee seedlings for Brazil (the real objective of his mission, likely) in a rather sneaky way: within a bouquet of flowers. Brazil went on to become the world’s largest coffee producer.

Johann; Elisabeth/Lieschen

In the 1730s, composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the “Coffee Cantata,” in which a young woman, Lieschen, argues with her father about her coffee addiction. She sings lines like “Coffee, I must have coffee” while he tries to force her to break her habit. Here’s the Coffee Cantata in English. The name Lieschen is based on Lies, pronounced LEES, a diminutive of Elisabeth (the German form of Elizabeth).

What other baby names for coffee lovers can you come up with?

Update, May 2017: How about Ariosa? It was America’s first national coffee brand.

P.S. If you liked this, you might also like the namestorms for chocolate and beer.

Sources: Coffee @ Nationalgeographic.com, History of Coffee – National Coffee Association, History of Coffee – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from A small cup of coffee by Julius Schorzman under CC BY-SA 2.0.