How popular is the baby name Belva 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 Belva.
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The name Alson first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1888:
1890: unlisted
1889: unlisted
1888: 5 baby boys named Alson [debut]
1887: unlisted
1886: unlisted
The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) data for the same window of time shows a similar increase in usage in 1888:
1890: 7 people named Alson
1889: 14 people named Alson
1888: 14 people named Alson
1887: 3 people named Alson
1886: 4 people named Alson
What was the influence?
A third-party candidate in the 1888 U.S. presidential election named Alson J. Streeter.
In May of that year, Streeter — a former Illinois state senator — had won the nomination of the fledgling Union Labor Party (made up of both agricultural and industrial workers).
He ran against Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison, Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, and several other third-party candidates, including Belva Lockwood.
Harrison won the electoral vote (and hence the election), but Cleveland won the popular vote. Prohibition candidate Clinton Fisk came in third with 2.2% of the popular vote, while Alson Streeter took fourth with 1.3%.
Support for Streeter was particularly high in the states of Kansas (where he won 11.4% of the vote), Texas (8.2%), Arkansas (6.8%), and Missouri (3.6%). So it doesn’t surprise me that the people I found named “Alson Streeter” specifically were also from these states:
In Streeter’s case, the name Alson may have come from a family surname. If so, it’s likely that Alson is a variant of the surname Allison, which would have originally referred to the son of someone with an Al-name like Alan, or Alexander.
One of the most interesting usage patterns in the very early baby name data is that of Belva, which spiked twice: in 1884 and again in 1888. In fact, it was the fastest-rising girl name of 1884 by a wide margin.
1891: 23 baby girls named Belva (542nd)
1890: 42 baby girls named Belva (386th)
1889: 31 baby girls named Belva (431st)
1888: 66 baby girls named Belva (289th)
1887: 27 baby girls named Belva (424th)
1886: 23 baby girls named Belva (455th)
1885: 30 baby girls named Belva (373th)
1884: 66 baby girls named Belva (234th)
1883: 5 baby girls named Belva (937th)
1882: 5 baby girls named Belva (922nd)
1881: 6 baby girls named Belva (rank: 747th)
Data from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) reveals higher raw numbers, but the same double-spike pattern:
1891: 50 people with the first name Belva
1890: 67 people with the first name Belva
1889: 59 people with the first name Belva
1888: 95 people with the first name Belva
1887: 33 people with the first name Belva
1886: 35 people with the first name Belva
1885: 62 people with the first name Belvas
1884: 105 people with the first name Belva
1883: 9 people with the first name Belva
1882: 9 people with the first name Belva
1881: 3 people with the first name Belva
What was the influence?
An impressive lady named Belva Ann Lockwood, who ran for president of the United States in both 1884 and 1888.
Belva was born into the Bennett family of western New York in 1830. Her four siblings were named Rachel, Warren, Cyrene, and Inverno (which means “winter” in Italian).
At the age of 18 she married a local farmer, Uriah McNall, and soon after she had a child, Lura. But Uriah died of tuberculosis, leaving Belva a widow at age 22.
She then took the highly unusual step of pursuing higher education. She attended Genesee College (later Syracuse University), graduated in 1857, and began working in the school system. She said:
The male teachers in the free schools of the State of New York received more than double the salary paid to the women teachers at that time, simply because they were men, and for precisely the same work. […] I at once began to agitate this question, arguing that pay should be for work, and commensurate to it, and not be based on sex.
Belva had a strong interest in law and in politics, so in 1866 she took another unusual step: she moved with her daughter to Washington, D.C., and began attending one of the few law schools that would admit women. She also married a second time (to Rev. Ezekiel Lockwood) and had a second daughter (Jessie, who lived only 18 months).
She completed the course of study, but, because she was female, she had to fight to receive a diploma. After that, she began practicing law. “Her clients were primarily blue-collar laborers, maids, and tradesmen and her work consisted of all manner of civil and criminal cases.”
In 1879, Belva became the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court bar, and in 1880, she became the first woman to argue a case, Kaiser v. Stickney, before the Supreme Court.
In 1884, she was nominated for president by the National Equal Rights Party — even though women didn’t yet have the right to vote. When one reporter asked her whether or not she was eligible to become president, Belva replied: “There’s not a thing in the Constitution that prevents a woman from becoming President. I cannot vote, but I can be voted for.”
The same party nominated her again in 1888. (Also this year, the community of Lockwood in Monterey County, California, was named after her.)
Though she didn’t come close to winning the race either time — the winners were Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison, respectively — she did succeed in drawing attention to the cause of women’s suffrage.
She continued to practice law into her 80s, and died in 1917 at the age of 86.
I’m not sure how Belva’s parents selected her name, but a user at Behind the Name thinks that “Belva” evolved as a feminine variant of the name Belvedere, which originated as an Italian toponymic surname made up of the elements bello, meaning “beautiful,” and vedere, meaning “to see” or “to look at.”
What are your thoughts on the baby name Belva? Will it ever be stylish again, do you think?
So today let’s check out another fun set of “top” names: the top rises. The names below are those that increased the most in usage, percentage-wise, from one year to the next according to the SSA data.
Here’s the format: Girl names are on the left, boy names are on the right, and the percentages represent single-year jumps in usage. (For example, from 1880 to 1881, usage of the girl name Isa grew 240% and usage of the boy name Noble grew 333%.)
The SSA data isn’t perfect, but it does get a lot more accurate starting in the late 1930s, because “many people born before 1937 never applied for a Social Security card, so their names are not included in our data” (SSA). Now, back to the list…
(Did you catch all the doubles? Tula, Delano, Tammy, Jermaine, and Davey/Davy.)
I’ve already written about some of the names above (click the links to see the posts) and I plan to write about many of the others. In the meanwhile, though, feel free to beat me to it! Leave a comment and let us know what popularized Dorla in 1929, or Dustin in 1968, or Talan in 2005…
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