How popular is the baby name Blanche 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 Blanche.

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Popularity of the baby name Blanche


Posts that mention the name Blanche

North Carolina family with 16 children

kinderfest

Jonathan Jasper “Jack” Sullivan married Bertha Phillips in early 1909. The North Carolina farm couple went on to have sixteen children — nine sons and seven daughters. Their names, in order, were…

  1. Cretta (born in 1910)
  2. Leland (1912)
  3. Rosa (1913)
  4. Woodrow (1916)
  5. Wilmar (1918)
  6. Joseph (1919)
  7. Dorothy (1921)
  8. Virginia (1923)
  9. Irving (1924)
  10. Blanche (1925)
  11. C.D. (1927)
  12. Geraldine (1928)
  13. Marverine (1930)
  14. Billy (1932)
  15. Tom (1934)
  16. Gene (1938)

Here’s more about Gene’s name:

Gene Autry Sullivan, the youngest of the children and the one who organizes the [family] reunion each year, said he was told he was named after legendary cowboy movie star Gene Autry “because his parents had run out of names by then.”

(The Sierra post includes a photo of Gene Autry.)

Source: Barnes, Keith. “The Sullivan family’s 16 children.” Wilson Times [North Carolina] 29 Aug. 2018.

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus

Which 1940s teenager name do you like best?

Six 18-year-olds from Omaha, 1941
Six 18-year-olds from Omaha, 1941

Omaha’s WOW radio station went on the air on April 2, 1923. The day it turned 18, the station threw a party and invited six teenage girls who were born in Omaha on the very same day.

The young lassies shown toasting WOW with a glass of punch and a piece of birthday cake are, left to right: Blanche Zaloudek, Roslyn Levy, Jacqueline Giles, Helen Rummelhart, Elaine Kinzli, and De Lorse McCarty.

My guess is that “De Lorse” is a variant of Delores, which was trendy in the 1920s.

Which name do you like best? Why?

  • Blanche
  • De Lorse
  • Elaine
  • Helen
  • Jacqueline
  • Roslyn

The fun call letters “WOW” were a reference to Omaha’s Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society, which owned the radio station.

Source: “”Sextuplets” Guests at Radio WOW Birthday Part.” Radio News Tower [Omaha, Nebraska] 1 May 1941: 1.

Unusual real name: Bessica

American Pilot Bessica Raiche (1875-1932)
Bessica Raiche

Did you know that the first woman in the U.S. to fly a plane solo (intentionally*) was named Bessica?

Dr. Bessica “Bessie” Raiche (1875-1932) flew her homemade airplane on September 16, 1910, in Hempstead Plains, New York. It was her first time flying a plane, and during the short flight she “skimmed over the airfield a few feet off the ground.”

A month later, Aeronautical Society of America presented Bessica with a gold medal inscribed to “the first woman aviator of America.”

Bessica was a medical doctor, and she flew planes for only a short time before moving to California and resuming her medical practice.

Her mother’s name was Elizabeth, so I’m guessing “Bessica” was based on Bess, the diminutive of Elizabeth.

Do you like the name Bessica? Would you use it for a modern-day baby girl?

*Two weeks earlier, pilot Blanche Stuart Scott had unintentionally become airborne while taxiing a plane.

Sources:

The 24 children of Isaac Singer

Businessman Isaac M. Singer (1811-1875).
Isaac Singer

A reader got in touch recently to ask about several unusual names. One of them was “Vouletti,” which belonged to a daughter of Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875).

Isaac Singer is best remembered for his successful sewing machine manufacturing company, founded in 1851 and still going strong today. Also notable, though, is the fact that he had a total of 24 children with five different wives and mistresses.

With Maria Haley, he had two children:

  • William Adam (b. 1834)
  • Lillian C. (b. 1837)

With Mary Ann Sponsler, he had ten children:

  • Isaac Augustus (b. 1837)
  • Vouletti Theresa (b. 1840)
  • Fanny Elizabeth (b. 1841)
  • John Albert (b. circa 1843)
  • Jasper Hamet (b. 1846)
  • Julia Ann (b. circa 1847)
  • Mary Olivia (b. 1848)
  • Charles Alexander (1850-1852)
  • Caroline Virginia (b. 1857)
  • …plus one more

With Mary McGonigal, he had five children:

  • Ruth
  • Clara
  • Florence
  • Margaret
  • Charles Alexander (b. 1859)

With Mary E. Walters, he had one child:

  • Alice Eastwood (b. 1852)

With Isabella Eugenie Boyer (of France), he had six children:

  • Adam Mortimer (b. 1863)
  • Winnaretta Eugenie (b. 1865)
  • Washington Merritt Grant (b. 1866)
  • Paris Eugene (b. 1867) – Palm Beach developer, namesake of Singer Island
  • Isabelle Blanche (b. 1869)
  • Franklin Morse (b. 1870)

These are traditional names for the most part, which makes “Vouletti” all the more intriguing.

Vouletti Singer was born in 1840, married William Proctor in 1862, had three children, and died in 1913. Though her name was definitely spelled Vouletti — that’s the spelling passed down to various descendants, and the one used by her friend Mercedes de Acosta in the poem “To Vouletti” — I found it misspelled a lot: “Voulitti” on the 1855 New York State Census, “Voulettie” on the 1900 U.S. Census, “Voulettie” again in a Saturday Evening Post article from 1951.

So…where does it come from?

I have no clue. I can’t find a single person with the given name Vouletti who predates Vouletti Singer. I also can’t find anyone with the surname Vouletti. (There was a vaudevillian with the stage name “Eva Vouletti,” but she doesn’t pop up until the early 1900s.)

Theater could be a possibility, as Isaac Singer was an actor in his younger days. Perhaps Vouletti was a character name he was familiar with?

My only other idea is the Italian word violetti, which means “violet.” Her parents might have coined the name with this word in mind.

Do you have any thoughts/theories about the unusual name Vouletti?