Actress Dolores del Rio was the star of not one but two silent films with theme songs that influenced the baby name charts.
In 1926 she played Charmaine in What Price Glory?, and two years later she played the titular character in Ramona, which was based on the book Ramona (1884) by Helen Hunt Jackson.
The book is a tragic romance set in mid-19th century Southern California, and the protagonists are Ramona, a mixed-race Scottish–Native American orphan, and her lover Alessandro.
Like Trilby a decade later, Ramona was a bestseller that inspired many namesakes: schools, streets, freeways, even towns (such as Ramona, California). The number of human namesakes is harder to gauge, though the U.S. Census of 1900 indicates that there was a moderate increase in the number Ramonas in 1884.
Still, the book’s impact on baby names can’t compare to the impact of its most successful movie adaptation, Ramona (1928)…thanks in large part to the music.
The song “Ramona” was commissioned for the film in 1927 and released later the same year — long before the silent film came out in May of 1928, interestingly.
It was a big hit, with more than two million copies sold and two different versions reaching #1 on the Billboard charts in 1928: first the Paul Whiteman version for 3 weeks, then the Gene Austin version for 8 more weeks.
This song, the first to borrow a film’s title, became the most successful movie theme song of the decade, and greatly enhanced the success of the film. Its popularity gave Hollywood producers much food for thought about how to publicize movies.
Here’s what it sounds like:
Usage of the baby name Ramona, already on the rise in the late 1920s, increased so much in 1928 that the name nearly reached the top 100:
- 1931: 1,130 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 164th]
- 1930: 1,410 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 149th]
- 1929: 2,036 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 120th]
- 1928: 2,237 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 117th]
- 1927: 567 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 277th]
- 1926: 467 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 307th]
- 1925: 450 baby girls named Ramona [rank: 313th]
So where does the name Ramona come from?
Ramona and its masculine form, Ramón, are the Spanish versions of Raymond, which is ultimately based on the Germanic words ragin, meaning “advice, decision, counsel,” and mund, meaning “protection.”
Do you like the name Ramona? Would you use it?
Source: MacDonald, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History. Lanham, MD: Ardsley House, 1998.
P.S. I forgot to mention that Dolores herself helped popularize the name Dolores in the late 1920s. In fact, “Dolores” was one of the fastest-rising baby names of 1928. (It saw peak usage in 1930.) Del Rio was also possibly the influence behind the steep rise of Dorla in 1929, though I’m not 100% certain.
