How popular is the baby name Dora in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Dora.
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“Lola was supposed to be Sophia, but on the way to the hospital in the taxi cab, the driver was listening to the radio — the 70s station — and ‘Copacabana’ by Barry Manilow was playing,” the mom of three recalled.
“I heard that [lyric], when he said, ‘Her name was Lola,’ and I said to Mark, ‘Lola Consuelos would be a really cool name.’ And he said, ‘If she’s a girl, let’s name her Lola.’ And that was it,” she shared.
THE latest development in public feeling, in Britain, against Defence of the Realm Act is that the name Dora has gone definitely out of favour as a Christian name for girls.
[The U.K.’s restrictive Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in 1914, at the start of WWI. According to the historical data available at British Baby Names, usage of the baby name Dora does indeed seem to decrease in England and Wales after 1914.]
In an inside joke during the third season, it was revealed that [character Dan Fielding’s] real first name was Reinhold, but he changed it to Dan out of embarrassment.
Parrots, those irrepressible mimics of the animal world, are some of the few creatures known to have individual names: each bird has its own signature call that others use when addressing it and that the bird uses itself in avian “conversation.”
[…]
Dolphins and humans are, so far, the only other members of this select club of animals who use names for individuals. Scientists think this ability is related to the intensely social lives of all three of these creatures.
From Through It All, the autobiography of Christine King Farris (older sister of Martin Luther King, Jr.):
My full name is Willie Christine King. Hardly anyone knows my first name. I am rarely called by it. “Willie” was chosen as a way to pay homage to the Williams side of my family; it was given in tribute to my maternal grandfather, Reverend A. D. Williams.
Also in the sports realm, Nile was named after Nile Clarke Kinnick Jr., the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Iowa who died in World War II.
From a write-up of a name study conducted by Carnegie Mellon researchers:
As the popularity of one name, say Emily, peaks, parents may decide to forgo that name and pick a similar one, like Emma. By following this strategy, they are instilling in their new daughter a name that is socially acceptable by its similarity to the popular name but will allow her to stand out in the crowd by putting a unique twist on her identity. Many parents may be thinking the same thing and the number of little girls named Emily will decline while those named Emma will increase.
Back when sea voyages were the only way to reach distant lands, many babies ended up being born aboard ships. And many of these ship-born babies were given names that reflected the circumstances of their birth. A good portion of them, for instance, were named after the ships upon which they were born.
I’ve gathered hundreds of these ship-inspired baby names over the years, and I think it’s finally time to post what I’ve found…
A
Abergeldie:
Emma Abergeldie Walsh, born in 1884
Abernyte:
Eva Abernyte Congdon, born in 1875
Abington:
Herbert Bealie Abington Tait, born in 1884
Abyssinia:
Abyssinia Louise Juhansen, born in 1870
Abyssinia Elfkin, born in 1872
Louise Abyssinia Bellanger, born in 1874
Achilles:
John Achilles Denchey, born in 1871
Actoea:
U. Actoea Jones, born in 1868
Adriatic:
John Adriatic Gateley Collins, born in 1879
Adriatic O’Loghlin Gould, born in 1880
Agnes Adriatic Cook, born in 1880
Agamemnon:
Frederick Agamemnon Dingly, born in 1876
Alaska:
Mary Alaska Magee, born in 1884
Alcester:
Gertrude Alcester Dart, born in 1884
Alcinous:
Mary Duncan Alcinosa Greenwood, born in 1887
Aldergrove:
Aldergrove Andrew Fullarton Feathers, born in 1875
Ethel Aldergrove Winning, born in 1883
Aleppo:
Rosalia Aleppo Rosenthal, born in 1866
Aleppo Atalanta Boardsen, born in 1883
Alexandrina:
Caroline Alexandrina Phillips, born in 1873
Mary Alexandrina Hedges, born in 1874
Alexandrina Horsnell, born in 1874
Algeria:
Louis Algeria Noizet, born in 1872
Aliquin:
Edward Aliquin Poley, born in 1860
Allanshaw:
Joseph Allanshaw Moss, born in 1883
Frederick Allanshaw Shields, born in 1883
Almora:
Almora May Leech, born in 1856
Emily Almora Hamper, born in 1883
Joseph Henry Almora Alford, born in 1883
Mary Almora Clothier, born in 1887
Almora Merten, born in 1887
Alnwick Castle:
William Alnwick Bull, born in 1861
Alpheta:
Mary Alpheta Stone, born in 1877
Alsatia:
Alsatia Campbell Carnalian, born in 1877
Altmore:
Eliza Altmore Harris, born in 1883
Alumbagh:
Alumbagh Eleanor Bright, born in 1868
Sarah Louise Alumbagh Hancock, born in 1868
Alvington:
Alvington Oak Silvester, born in 1879
Amoor:
William Amoor Walker, born in 1864
Anchoria:
Anchoria Adelaide Williams, born in 1890
Angerona:
Mary Angerona Harwood, born in 1875
Anglesey:
Clara Anglesey Oakley, born in 1859
Emma Jane Anglesey Conbrough, born in 1874
Anglia:
James Craig Anglia Watt, born in 1871
Emma Anglia Hewitt, born in 1873
Margaret Anglia Smith Mulholland, born in 1874
Anglo Saxon:
Mary Saxon Copeland, born in 1860
Antiope:
Lilias Antiope Carrick, born in 1884
Aorangi:
Arthur Aorangi Burrow, born in 1884
Aorangi Millar, born in 1885
Ellen Corbet Aorangi Browne, born in 1891
Aorangi Townsend, born in 1934
Arabic:
Isabella Arabic East, born in 1887
Arcadia:
Arcadia Herbert, born in 1877
Archer:
Archer Grainger Bryans, born in 1883
Beatrice Archer Shambers, born in 1885
Argo:
Sigri Argo Larsen, born in 1877
Arica:
Aricania Pereg, born in 1883
Arizona:
Helen Arizona Erickson, born in 1881
Sarah Arizona Duggan, born in 1881
Ole Arizona Melting, born in 1881
Agnes Arizona Kane, born in 1884
Elenor Arizona Poulteny, born in 1884
Elizabeth Arizona Harvey, born in 1887
Marie Arizona Malm, born in 1887
Arundel Castle:
Arundal Sheal Davis, born in 1870
Leopold Arundel Hofmeyer, born in 1876
George Arundel Baylis, born in 1876
Charles Arundel Holden, born in 1876
Arvonia:
Herbert John Arvon Hughes, born in 1881
Ashmore:
James Alfred George Henry Ashmore Curtis, born in 1882
He in turn gave his name to Medford, Minnesota, in the 1850s. His father, Englishman William K. Colling, was an early Minnesota settler who “said that he had a son who was born on board the ship Medford, and was named Medford, in honor of the ship, and proposed that the town should be named Medford in honor of the boy.”
We looked at the top baby name rises last month, so this month let’s look at the opposite: the top drops. That is, the baby names that decreased the most in usage, percentage-wise, from one year to the next in the Social Security Administration’s data.
Here’s the format: girl names are on the left, boy names are on the right, and the percentages represent single-year slides in usage. (For example, from 1880 to 1881, usage of the girl name Clementine dropped 68% and usage of the boy name Neil dropped 76%.)
The SSA data isn’t perfect, but it does become more accurate in the late 1930s, because “many people born before 1937 never applied for a Social Security card, so their names are not included in our data” (SSA). Now, back to the list…
I’ve already written about some of the names above (click the links to see the posts) and I plan to write about a few of the others. In the meanwhile, though, feel free to beat me to it — leave a comment and let us know why you think any of these names saw dropped in usage when they did.
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader looking for lists of old-fashioned double names. She was aiming for names like Thelma Dean, Eula Mae, and Gaynell — names that would have sounded trendy in the early 1900s. She also mentioned that she’d started a list of her own.
So I began scouring the interwebs. I tracked down lists of old-fashioned names, and lists of double names…but I couldn’t find a decent list of double names that were also old-fashioned.
I loved the idea of such a list, though, so I suggested that we work together to create one. She generously sent me the pairings she’d collected so far, and I used several different records databases to find many more.
I restricted my search to names given to girls born in the U.S. from 1890 to 1930. I also stuck to double names that I found written as single names, because it’s very likely that these pairings were used together in real life (i.e., that they were true double names and not merely first-middle pairings).
Pairings that seemed too timeless, like Maria Mae and Julia Rose, were omitted. I also took out many of the pairings that feature now-trendy names — think Ella, Emma, and Lucy — because they just don’t sound old-fashioned anymore (though they would have a few decades ago).
The result isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a decent sampling of real-life, old-fashioned double names. I’ve organized them by second name, and I also added links to popularity graphs for names that were in the SSA data during the correct time period (early 1900s).
I spotted plenty of other combinations that just didn’t happen to be written as single names in the records, so here’s a handy dandy little table to cover some of the other existing combinations…
The Seven Sutherland Sisters of New York had 37 feet of hair between them. By the time they joined the Barnum and Bailey Circus in the mid-1880s, they were already celebrities. They were also growing rich thanks to the sale of their pricey “Seven Sutherland Sisters” hair grower tonic.
The names of the seven sisters?
Sarah
Victoria
Isabella
Grace
Naomi
Dora
Mary
Sarah had the shortest hair (3 feet) and Victoria had the longest (7 feet).
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