How popular is the baby name Barbarella 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 Barbarella.

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Popularity of the baby name Barbarella


Posts that mention the name Barbarella

Keith Richards named his baby after Marlon Brando

Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones (in 1965)
Keith Richards

In August of 1969, Rolling Stones guitarist/songwriter Keith Richards and his girlfriend, model/actress Anita Pallenberg, welcomed their first child, a baby boy. They named him Marlon.

Why Marlon?

In his 2010 memoir Life, Richards explained:

Marlon’s full name is Marlon Leon Sundeep. Brando called up while Anita was in hospital, to compliment her on [her role in the movie] Performance. “Marlon, that’s a good name. Why don’t we call him Marlon?”

It’s a curious that they chose “Marlon” given the fact that, during the filming of the 1968 movie Candy, Marlon Brando had tried to seduce Anita, “and, when that failed, tried to seduce Anita and me together.” Maybe the choice had more to do with the timing of the phone call…?

In any case, Richards and Pallenberg (who also had a role in the movie Barbarella) would go on to have two more children: daughter Dandelion Angela in 1972, and son Tara in 1976.

Sources:

Image: Keith Richards 1965 by Olavi Kaskisuo

How did Virna Lisi influence baby names in the 1960s?

Italian actress Virna Lisi (1936-2014)
Virna Lisi

When Italian actress Virna Lisi started appearing in American films in the mid-1960s, American audiences took notice.

How do we know? Well, the baby name Lisi appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first time in 1965, and, the same year, the baby name Virna re-emerged in the data (after a decades-long absence) with its highest-ever usage.

Girls named VirnaGirls named Lisi
196721.
1966115
196538†8*
1964..
1963..
*Debut, †Peak usage

(It should be noted, of course, that Lisa was the #1 baby name in the nation from 1962 to 1969. No doubt this made the similar — but much rarer — name Lisi sound rather stylish during that decade.)

Virna Lisi was born Virna Lisa Pieralisi in Ancona, Italy, in 1936.

Her father had wanted to call her Siria (“Syria”), but that country’s colonial ruler, France, was at loggerheads with Mussolini and the births registrar accordingly refused to accept the name. The exasperated Pieralisi then made up Virna on the spot.

She started acting as a teenager in Italy, and her success in Italian films eventually led to a brief Hollywood career. She appeared in How to Murder Your Wife (1965) with Jack Lemmon, Not With My Wife You Don’t (1966) with Tony Curtis, and Assault on a Queen (1966) with Frank Sinatra.

But Lisi disliked her “sex symbol” image in America. So she decided to leave. She turned down the lead role in Barbarella, terminated her Hollywood contract, and returned to Europe to play a wider range of characters.

What are your thoughts on the names Virna and Lisi? Which one would you be more likely to use on a modern-day baby?

P.S. Italian actress Anna Maria Pierangeli — better known as Pier Angeli — also had a surname that began with “Pier” (the Italian form of Peter).

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of How to Murder Your Wife

Where did the baby name Barbarella come from in 1969?

The title character from the movie "Barbarella" (1968)
Barbarella from “Barbarella“

The name Barbarella has appeared in the U.S. baby name data just twice:

  • 1971: unlisted
  • 1970: 8 baby girls named Barbarella
  • 1969: 17 baby girls named Barbarella [debut]
  • 1968: unlisted
  • 1967: unlisted

You probably already know the source of this one: sci-fi cult classic Barbarella (1968), which starred Jane Fonda as a voluptuous 41st-century astronaut on a mission to track down Earth scientist Durand Durand* somewhere in outer space.

Though the film wasn’t popular with audiences initially, it has since become a cult classic.

The character Barbarella was created in the early ’60s by French comic strip illustrator Jean-Claude Forest. I’m not sure how he came up with the name, but I’d guess that he was inspired by the traditional name Barbara, which can be traced back to the Ancient Greek word barbaros, meaning “foreign.”

*In the late ’70s, synth-pop band Duran Duran named themselves after the missing scientist Durand Durand.

Sources: Barbarella (film) – Wikipedia, SSA