The baby name Cherylene saw peak usage in the U.S. in 1946:
- 1948: 11 baby girls named Cherylene
- 1947: 20 baby girls named Cherylene
- 1946: 56 baby girls named Cherylene
- 1945: unlisted
- 1944: 7 baby girls named Cherylene
The name Cheryl was very trendy in the mid-1940s, and 1946 happened to be the first year of the post-war baby boom. But I think there’s a more specific reason for Cherylene’s impressive usage.
The reason?
A two-month-old Australian baby named Cherylene Robison, whose picture was published in a number of U.S. newspapers that January.
Doctors in Australia had determined that Cherylene needed life-saving cranial surgery. (Her fontanelle had not closed.)
So Cherylene and her mother, Rona, took a multi-leg “mercy flight” from Perth to Oakland (via Brisbane and Honolulu) courtesy of the U.S. military.
While they traveled east by plane, Cherylene’s father, American ex-serviceman Robert J. Robison, traveled west by train (from Kansas) to meet them.
Soon after the baby arrived, she was examined by doctors at the University of California Hospital in San Francisco. They concluded that she did not need an operation after all.
At the time of the 1950 U.S. Census, the Robison family was living together in San Mateo, California, and 4-year-old Cherylene had two younger siblings, Teresa and Reginald.
What are your thoughts on the name Cherylene?
P.S. Some of the 1960s usage of the name may have been influenced by child actress Cherylene Lee (b. 1953). She had a role in the 1963 John Wayne movie Donovan’s Reef, for instance.
Sources:
- “Baby’s Flight for Life.” Sydney Morning Herald 18 Jan. 1946: 3.
- “Air Race to Save Baby’s Life.” Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate 21 Jan. 1946: 1.
- “Mercy Flight Ends in Oakland.” Oakland Tribune 21 Jan. 1946: 1, 2.
- “Afflicted baby ends trip from Australia.” San Bernardino Sun 22 Jan. 1946: 2
- “Australia-born baby given chance.” Oakland Tribune 26 Jan. 1946: 2.
- FamilySearch.org
- Cherylene Lee – IMDb
- SSA
Image: Clipping from the Press Democrat (24 Jan. 1946)
