Country music singer Loretta Lynn (originally Loretta Webb) was born in rural Kentucky in 1932.
Why was she given the name Loretta? Here’s how she told the story in her 1976 memoir:
We just had this one-room cabin they made from logs, with the cracks filled with moss and clay. The wind used to whistle in so bad, Mommy would paper the walls with pages from her Sears and Roebuck catalog and movie magazines. I remember I could see pictures of Hitler, Clark Gable, and that Russian man — Stalin, is that his name? (…) Mommy never went to the movies, but she always liked pictures of Loretta Young and Claudette Colbert. Right over my crib she pasted pictures of them two stars. That’s how I got my name. Lots of times I wonder if I would have made it in country music if I was named Claudette.
Loretta Lynn was the second of eight children; she had an older brother named Melvin and six younger siblings named Herman, Willie, Donald, Peggy Sue, Betty, and Brenda Gail (later known as Crystal Gayle).
P.S. Actress Loretta Young was born Gretchen Young in 1913. Her stage name was chosen by fellow actress Colleen Moore, who named her “after the most beautiful doll I had ever had. Loretta.”
Sources:
- Loretta Lynn – Wikipedia
- Lynn, Loretta, and George Vecsey. Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner’s Daughter. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1976.
- Moore, Colleen. Silent Star. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1968.
Image: Adapted from LorettaLynn1960s (public domain)
