How popular is the baby name Bisceglia 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 Bisceglia.

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Popularity of the baby name Bisceglia


Posts that mention the name Bisceglia

Mystery baby name: Bisceglia

Graph of the usage of the baby name Bisceglia in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Bisceglia

The unusual name Bisceglia debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1979 and stuck around for 3 more years before disappearing again:

  • 1983: unlisted
  • 1982: 6 baby girls named Bisceglia
  • 1981: 7 baby girls named Bisceglia
  • 1980: 5 baby girls named Bisceglia
  • 1979: 8 baby girls named Bisceglia [debut]
  • 1978: unlisted

The name must come from the Italian surname Bisceglia [be-SHAYL-yah], which refers to the town of Bisceglie in southern Italy, but I have no idea what drew people’s attention to the surname circa 1979.

The closest I’ve got to a proper theory is Steve Bisceglia, who played football at the University of Alabama in the early ’70s — but the years don’t match up, and male sports stars typically don’t inspire female names.

Any other ideas?

Update, Aug. 2021: The more I look into it, the more I like Becca’s theory about the influence being an ad campaign for wine.

Bisceglia Brothers Wine Co. (which was founded in California in the 1880s) became a subsidiary of Canandaigua Wine Company of New York in 1974. Around 1980, Canandaigua was apparently marketing Bisceglia wine on television. I haven’t been able to track down any commercials (or even print ads) from that time period yet, but here’s a quote from a 1980 issue of Beverage Industry (also originally found by Becca) about the campaign:

Canandaigua’s new Bisceglia line of semi-premium jug wines is advertised as the wine for the liberated woman executive. Television commercials, bearing the brunt of the Bisceglia campaign, feature a woman in a variety of responsible positions as sports editor, successful mayoral candidate and chairperson of the board. Canandaigua’s vice president for sales, Robert Huntington, says market research showed that whereas ten years ago women purchased only about 24% of all wine, now they make purchasing decisions on from 60 to 75% of all wine.

I don’t think we can declare this mystery solved, though, until we learn more about the nature of the advertisements — particularly the commercials. (I just want to be sure they were featuring the name “Bisceglia” prominently enough to affect baby names.)

Mystery baby names: Open cases

I’m a baby name blogger, but sometimes I feel more like a baby name detective. Because so much of my blogging time is spent doing detective work: trying to figure out where a particular baby name comes from, or why a name saw a sudden jump (or drop) in usage during a particular year.

If a name itself doesn’t make the answer obvious (e.g., Lindbergh) and a simple Google search hasn’t helped, my first bit of detective work involves scanning the baby name charts. I’ve learned that many search-resistant baby names (like Deatra) are merely alternative spellings of more common names (Deirdre).

If that doesn’t do it, I go back to Google for some advanced-level ninja searching, to help me zero in on specific types of historical or pop culture events. This is how I traced Irmalee back to a character in a short story in a very old issue of the once-popular McCall’s Magazine.

But if I haven’t gotten anywhere after a few rounds of ninja searching, I officially give up and turn the mystery baby name over to you guys. Together we’ve cracked a couple of cases (yay!) but, unfortunately, most of the mystery baby names I’ve blogged about are still big fat mysteries.

Here’s the current list of open cases:

  • Wanza, girl name, debuted in 1915.
  • Nerine, girl name, debuted in 1917.
  • Laquita, girl name, debuted in 1930.
  • Norita, girl name, spiked (for the 2nd time) in 1937.
  • Delphine, girl name, spiked in 1958.
  • Leshia, girl name, debuted in 1960.
  • Lavoris, girl name, debuted in 1961.
  • Djuna, girl name, debuted in 1964.
  • Latrenda, girl name, debuted in 1965.
  • Ondina, girl name, debuted in 1968.
  • Khari, boy name, debuted in 1971.
  • Jelani, boy name, debuted in 1973.
  • Toshiba, girl name, debuted in 1974.
  • Brieanna, girl name, debuted in 1979.
  • Sumiko, girl name, spiked in 1980.
  • Tou, boy name, debuted in 1980.
  • Marquita, girl name, spiked in 1983.
  • Caelan, boy name, debuted in 1992.
  • Deyonta, boy name, debuted in 1993.
  • Trayvond, boy name, debuted in 1994.
  • Zeandre, boy name, debuted in 1997.
  • Yatzari, girl name, debuted in 2000.
  • Itzae, boy name, debuted in 2011.

If you enjoy sleuthing, please give some of the above a shot! I’d love to knock one or two off the list before I start adding more mystery names in the coming weeks…

Update, 7/13/16: More still-open cases from the Mystery Monday series last summer: Theta, Memory, Treasure, Clione, Trenace, Bisceglia, Genghis and Temujin.